QANTAS accused of treating male nurse like "kiddie fiddler"

[anat0l]

It's the same argument/thought process that having a 10km/h speed limit makes more sense than 60km/h

You can't reduce all risk, but you can reduce it, hence the policy

But risk reduction for the sake of risk reduction is pointless and can be harmful (practically and/or morally). Risk reduction is only well worth it if it reduces a previously unacceptable level of risk.

Also, as I said, the risk could also be addressed by having UM + female only flights, but that is not effective. But if we blindly follow that any risk reduction is good policy and good decision making, then UM + female only flights is better than having a no male next to UM policy, since it will guarantee that no male will ever have a chance to abuse a UM on a flight. That's nil risk (except for the risk that a female will abuse the UM), the best scenario. But....as I said, this is not an effective solution, not good policy and goes to show that there needs to be a good case for risk reduction because it cannot just be for the sake of risk reduction.

In this case, I'm not awfully convinced by either airline that the risk posed by a male sitting next to a UM is significantly unacceptable enough that it warrants the policy of no male sitting next to a UM.


For a rather silly aside, this discussion seems to remind me lightly about this episode of South Park: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Abduction_Is_Not_Funny

 

[casanovawa]

You can do all the statistical analysis using all the bogus estimates you like of how many or who may be more likely to be a peadophile... The one hard and fast fact that can be measured is how many cases of kids being abused on planes have been raised as well as prosecuted? I imagine they can't all be being swept under the carpet can they???

I would suggest it is a much smaller figure in 100 years or so or in Australia etc than abuse of minors by teachers or others which is almost a weekly occurance from people that are suppose to have clearance to work with kids aren't they??? The fact that teachers and others have this clearance does not in anyway guarantee that either gender won't abuse that right after gaining the clearance so it is hardly any holy grail...

The fact that there is practically zilch occurence of this happening should not allow me to be disadvantaged and screwed around with to protect a threat that is about as close to zero as it seems you can get... There is afterall usually another person sitting right next to the UM so the likelihood of a child being plonked next to a peadophile accidently and then them thinking they can get away with it in such an enclosed space is utterly ridiculous as the statistics for the offence occuring probably demonstrates... It reminds me of the old saying about lies, damn lies and statistics as how nothing can be twisted to frenzy status with a glib stat!

I think i would be much more justified to query if there are ethnic groups that can be shown to commit the most crimes or what types of people make up the highest percentage of prison populations etc and ask them to be banned from my suburb... After all there is plenty of other suburbs they can go to, and i personally think the risk of letting such undesirables into my suburb is just too risky to accept... Hmm, i don't think i would have snow balls chance in hell and you could pick several other examples???

 

[anat0l]

You can do all the statistical analysis using all the bogus estimates you like of how many or who may be more likely to be a peadophile... The one hard and fast fact that can be measured is how many cases of kids being abused on planes have been raised as well as prosecuted? I imagine they can't all be being swept under the carpet can they???

I think drron extracted 2 cases (US ones) shown in the Virgin equivalent of this thread. Both were males in those cases. That doesn't still prove anything very useful in and of itself.

The stats I presented was not to mislead anyone, which is why I posted them with a big assumptions disclaimer. I'm very, very, very sorry you feel that way and I sincerely apologise for acting the spin doctor if you so deem it [as an aside, I do believe stats have the potential to actually be useful, but they are often ill prepared and misused (but that's another argument)]. The point I was trying to emphasise was that people think this is simple risk reduction, when in fact your point being made hits a nail - what is (or was) the real unacceptable risk actually being reduced that necessitates the existence of this policy?

And all the talk above of risk reduction completely ignores the moral, practical and legal implications of any risk control. In this case, the policy risks infringing the act which prohibits discrimination (though that can only be tested in court). Blind risk reduction driven policy and decision making is pointless if it will be in contravention of the law.

Your further examples are not entirely spurious and again demonstrate that risk reduction for the pure blind sake of risk reduction is not effective.

 

[casanovawa]

Anatol, that's cool, i wasn't offended by your statistical musings, but its just attempting to feed into them figures you hear bandied about about how many of this group or that group in the population there are etc, often driven by some agenda of the group asserting them (and totally different to someone else's figures) can be total baloney and then these are fed into models or calculations and then the figures are used to drive a campaign to suit certain groups or change policy etc...

Fear and frenzy can then also blow insignificant risks out of all proportions or realism of the actual threat and these threats then justify new laws or the taking away of rights etc... Totalitarian governments have used this creating a bogeyman since the start of time..

Its probably impossible to know the unknowable, or using stats on a non representative population, prisoners for example, to then extrapolate that out into the general soeciety etc... The thing that is relatively knowable is tracking the actual occurances of the event rather than trying to guess at is probablility... And maybe not every occurance of this on planes has been reported and prosecuted but i reckon it would be pretty close to the actual number recently anyway, especially with the increased awareness of it... It would probably suggest a child on a plane is in one of the safest environments compared to schools, shopping centres etc...

But your right, risk mitigation for risk mitigation sake is a lousy rationale without some realistic assessment of the actual risk and opens a can of worms to all sorts or prejudices and abuses of rights...

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Let's try to guess this.

Say the probability that an adult is a "kiddie fiddler" is 1 in 100,000. (For an Australian population of 22,000,000 and assuming 80% are adults over 18 years, that means 176 adults in Australia are child abusers). To put that in some perspective, if we flat assume there are 170 pax per flight, in 588 flights, we expect one of those pax to be a "kiddie fiddler" (within all of those 588 flights).

Now that 1 person we pinpoint is 90% likely to be a male (if we take the statistical conclusion from the analysis you linked to). So, by extension, 0.9 pax in 588 flights, which (using whole numbers is easier ) translates to the likelihood of a male "kiddie fiddler" being on board is 1 in 654 fully loaded flights. (For reference, 1 in 654 is about 0.15%). For a female "kiddie fiddler" this translates to 1 in 5882 flights.

There are a number of assumptions which actually make this estimate quite conservative. And yes the stats is not quite perfect - this is just back of envelope, over-a-coffee/over-a-beer talk stuff, but I'm trying to illustrate a point here.


The question is then, if this is the risk of actually having a male "kiddie fiddler" on board who may have the potential to abuse a UM (if a UM is on board that particular flight), is this risk significant enough to deem it unacceptable, and thus this policy is absolutely necessary? Yes, the odds are higher for men than women, but the overall risk - is that unacceptable? A risk of 9 in 10 flights having a male "kiddie fiddler" on board is more than likely unacceptable......

Note that you can't have zero risk - the only way to do this is to remove all males on board a flight which has a UM (i.e. the risk is eliminated completely) - this also means if the crew are male, they go too!

Note that the statistical approach above also completely disregards the moral, practical and legal implications.

You need to re-cut these figures allowing for the fact that something like 85% of all abuse occurs by a person KNOWN to the child - father, uncle, cousin, 'trusted' family member (priest etc).

Then work out the chances of a stranger sitting next to a child who is likely to abuse them.

And factor in the reports from the USA that the reported abuse on aircraft has been by the male passenger moving to sit next to the child (not being allocated there in the first place)... then come up with a figure. I think the plane has more chance of crashing than the child being allocated a seat next to a stranger who is going to abuse them...

 

[drron]

anat0l - Interesting calculations!

However it seems that about 5% of the population can be classed as pedophiles so that makes the risk far far higher than your quick calculation unfortunately

Can't have zero risk, but anything that reduces the risk, like this, doesn't worry me.

But how many of that 5% offend whilst on an aircraft?
The only link I could find would be a figure of ~1 in 5 million of an UM being molested.But on a daylight flight the chance of a male who is seated next to an UM would be much less than this.

 

[simongr]

Again taking a risk management approach if the system can make this invisible then you might as well do it. The cost to the pax is low/negligible and it avoids a risk. However taking a risk management approach again - if the system fails I think the risk is small compared to the impact of doing this on board.

 

[Danger]

Airlines' male policy is Virgin on the ridiculous

I haven't followed this thread or the similar Virgin thread. However, as a young male, while I don't like the policy, I think it's merely a reflection of the litigious nature of society today.

Don't get me wrong, perpetrators of such crimes that these policies appear to be in part safeguarding against deserve to be burnt at the stake. The problem I see is we live more and more in a society that can't wait to sue. God forbid, should such a crime occur on a flight, the person to be held responsible is the perpetrator - not the airline, not the caterer who put a small box of smarties on the meal tray that looked attractive to the child, not the designer of the Mickey Mouse t-shirt the adult was wearing.

Again, while I don't like the policy, I see it as a sad side effect of the world today.

 

[fairhsa]

Clearly missing something here. The guy was moved away from the rugrat and is complaining? I would be celebrating!

 

[medhead]

But equally so, one can "eliminate" the risk by mandating that no flight with a UM on it shall have any males whatsoever on board.

That is not to say that is a good solution, however, despite it eliminating the risk.

That would also definitely be discrimination as it would then disadvantage males vs females.


Sent from the Throne

 

[lovestotravel]

Almost as discriminatory as women only gyms

 

[drron]

I have been trying to find out the real statistics re this problem but I think it is impossible.However there have been a few misleading statistics such as men are the perpetrators of abuse in 95% of cases.This is true if the victim is female.If a young male is the victim then a woman is the perpetrator in 14-40% of the cases.Most scientific investigators believe that female on male abuse is grossly underreported.And just in case you think males are rarely victims the incidence is said to be 1 in 4 for females and 1 in 6 males.
And for a totally different perspective I came across this NYT article-
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/business/global/07minors.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

There it is postulated that sitting UMs by themselves means a greater chance of injury than the risk of molestation when seated next to unrelated adults.Interesting because it also features a case in the US where an adult perpetrator was a woman.
Also of interest is that after the much quoted BA case BA did subtely change it's policy to UMs would not be seated next to male or female adults.

However I have to agree with simongr in post 67.A very reasonable compromise.

 

[lovestotravel]

I have been trying to find out the real statistics re this problem but I think it is impossible.However there have been a few misleading statistics such as men are the perpetrators of abuse in 95% of cases.This is true if the victim is female.

Feel free to provide more links then......

 

[serfty]

...
However I have to agree with simongr in post 67.A very reasonable compromise.

... here, I believe is the nub if the issue!

It seems that most carriers endeavor to ensure U/M's are are indeed seated as indicated, however sometimes mistakes are made by airline agents who fail to make the proper checks before changing original seat allocations made in line with such a 'risk management' approach.

 

[The Rok]

I have figured it out, I know why Quants separate men form the UM's……

Gays reproduce by molesting kids: pastor

 

[anat0l]

I have figured it out, I know why Quants separate men form the UM's……

Gays reproduce by molesting kids: pastor

You have got to be kidding me................

(further discussion of this article likely to be OT)

 

[Moody]

I have figured it out, I know why Quants separate men form the UM's……

Gays reproduce by molesting kids: pastor

Makes more sense than most of the tripe posted here. Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics, and Sexual Abuse Statistics.

Flame me if you like, but I will explicitly state that I don't trust any male (particularly fathers) who have a problem with this policy. The risks of abuse are not zero, and seating UMs away from single males significantly reduces that risk. And as pointed out, where a female is asked to swap in for a male passenger it is the former who probably has the most to complain about.

And finally (because I am bored with this) the pax in the Qantas case was discretely asked to move and then later on asked the cabin crew what it was about and was informed of the policy. His reaction in going to the media screaming "Qantas labelled me a kiddie fiddler" is very, very suspect and I can't imagine any reason for it. Actually - I can think of a couple .....

 

[drron]

Feel free to provide more links then......

Child sexual abuse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And you can look up the references.

 

[casanovawa]

Really makes you wonder how public transport departments, ferry services, movie cinemas, etc, etc have survived as long as they have with the all pervading threat of rampant closet peadophiles out there... They must be on the brink any day now of being closed by law suits... Or maybe not...

Maybe the UMs are the problem and parents or guardians aught to just accompany their children or pay for a spare seat to be provided next to them...

And yes i imagine there are one or two young lads out there that have been touched perhaps unwholesomely by a female and didn't report it for the stats, just as one of two hubbies have probably received the odd whack (me included) and didn't add it to the domestic violence stats against men either...

 

[harvyk]

Flame me if you like, but I will explicitly state that I don't trust any male (particularly fathers) who have a problem with this policy.

What about mothers, do you trust mothers who have a problem with this policy? Because when I asked Mrs Harvyk about this policy, she first burst out laughing, then recovered and ask if I was serious, to which I replied yes. It was then discussed that if any of the 4 little harvyk's ever traveled as UM's, neither of us would have a problem with a person of either gender sitting next to them.

As a parent I would be just as likely to write a letter of complaint to the airline if one of the little harvyk's advised us that the airline had deemed a male to be too much of a danger to sit next to them (simply because they where male) as it would then mean we'd have to undo the damage the airline had done. Quite frankly we try are hardest to remove gender politics from raising our kids as much as possible, and the last thing we'd want is for them to get a misrepresentation of the male of the species. You'd be amazed at what kids cotton onto, it wouldn't take them too long to put 2 and 2 together and realise the reason the nice man was moved and a nice lady was put in his place.

As for all this talk about stats, well I think a statistically insignificant chance of an event happening means no mitigation beyond keeping an eye on the UM by the cabin crew (as you'd expect) is about all that would be required.