I do agree that modern society may perhaps err too strongly on the side of "protecting the child", but I think that's just part a larger pattern in our society's approach to these matters. This reaction doesn't seem any worse than some of the reactions I've seen when children accuse adults of molestation, especially when it's cute blond white girls. So this honestly doesn't seem to stand out particularly to me. Nor in this case does it strike me as racist. Religionist or culturalist, perhaps, and that will of course have a disproportionate impact on some racial groups, but I am deeply uncomfortable with collapsing that relationship, because that would in effect say that all people with a particular skin color share a common religion and a common culture, and that actually *IS* inherently racist.
(Plus, I will posit that, logically, if one's culture does not recognized the phenomenon of marital rape (that is, a spouse's right to say "no" to sex, and more broadly, a spouse's right to terminate the relationship at will), then a forced marriage is equivalent to being turned into a sex slave. Yes, that's *totally* a loaded term, and it is in no way "fighting fair" on my part. :) And also, by parallel to the phrase "better that N guilty men go free, than 1 innocent man be convicted", what N would you use for "better that N lying children be taken away from their parents, than 1 innocent child be turned into a sex slave"? (There's a fascinating article by Sasha Volokh where he makes a broad survey of the values of N that have been posited at different times for different situations...))
On the other hand, would we want the process to be more like how our society treats rape accusations by adult women, where they're more or less assumed to be making it up or exaggerating? How much evidence should a traumatized victim be required to gather on their own, before approaching authorities? It is, quite frankly, *abusive* to require someone to gather legally sufficient evidence before merely talking about the problem with someone. If the girl can't simply call up someone from a child welfare agency and say, "hey, I'm having this problem, what should I do?", without getting a response of "we can't believe you until you present evidence", then...
no subject
(Plus, I will posit that, logically, if one's culture does not recognized the phenomenon of marital rape (that is, a spouse's right to say "no" to sex, and more broadly, a spouse's right to terminate the relationship at will), then a forced marriage is equivalent to being turned into a sex slave. Yes, that's *totally* a loaded term, and it is in no way "fighting fair" on my part. :) And also, by parallel to the phrase "better that N guilty men go free, than 1 innocent man be convicted", what N would you use for "better that N lying children be taken away from their parents, than 1 innocent child be turned into a sex slave"? (There's a fascinating article by Sasha Volokh where he makes a broad survey of the values of N that have been posited at different times for different situations...))
On the other hand, would we want the process to be more like how our society treats rape accusations by adult women, where they're more or less assumed to be making it up or exaggerating? How much evidence should a traumatized victim be required to gather on their own, before approaching authorities? It is, quite frankly, *abusive* to require someone to gather legally sufficient evidence before merely talking about the problem with someone. If the girl can't simply call up someone from a child welfare agency and say, "hey, I'm having this problem, what should I do?", without getting a response of "we can't believe you until you present evidence", then...