Seven-Year-Old Gang Raped in New Jersey

by Alex DiBranco · 2010-04-09 15:24:00 UTC
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Last week, a seven-year-old girl was gang raped in Trenton, New Jersey.

The child followed her 15-year-old sister to a party, according to some reports because she was concerned for her big sib's safety, which is simultaneously adorable and heart-breaking. As Sarah Parker reports on the Human Trafficking blog, the older sister first had sex with a number of men for money, than handed her little sister some cash and told her to let the men "touch" her. In little time, this turned into gang rape, while the men threatened to kill her if she screamed or told anyone.

Law enforcement seem to be making this their top priority case, as well it should be, for something this stomach churning. Meanwhile, a Feministing poster is outraged that the lawyer for one of the accused says, "These boys are victims of their own hormones." While she may need to be a soulless lawyer to get her clients off (hopefully the guilty come to justice), really, "victims of their own hormones"? If that were an acceptable rationale for gang raping a seven-year-old, what do we bother locking child molesters up for?

I'm further concerned that the older sister is being treated primarily as a criminal. As a minor, she's not considered old enough to consent to sex, not even if she gets money for it. Had the younger sister not followed her, the men would have still been committing statutory rape, at the least, on the teenager. The prosecutor wants to try the older sister as an adult for her role in the gang rape, and while this is an atrocious crime, she also seems to be a victim; I'd like to know how she ended up in this situation in the first place. Girls rarely get into prostitution on their own: usually there's a coercive pimp and sexual assault involved. I hope that law enforcement aren't only looking for the perpetrators in this one instance, but also the ones that might have come before for the 15-year-old girl, to bring them to justice as well.

Photo credit: allspice1

Alex DiBranco is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.
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