There is an interesting story below about airlines that force men to switch seats when they are seated next to an unaccompanied child out of fear that they could be child molesters. A firefighter recounts how he was forced to move on a Virgin Australia flight because there was a child next to him. Qantas has actually defended the discriminatory policy.
Ironically, some male travelers may silently relish the idea of never having to sit next to a minor on flights, but most would be insulted by the stereotype underlying the policy.
Women are actually statistically more likely to abuse a child overall. Three-fifths (61.8%) of perpetrators in one study were female. However, in fairness, it should be noted that women are more likely to be caregivers and around children. Moreover, this is for any form of abuse as opposed to sexual abuse. Males are higher in that category. However, the study below found that roughly 30 percent of perpetrators of sexual assault of minors were female. In the category ages up to 18, the percentage went to 40 percent. Another study found the rate to be 20 percent. Overall, studies show that child sexual abuse fell more than 60 percent from 1992 to 2010. The New York Times reported last month that from 1990 to 2010, for example, substantiated cases of sexual abuse dropped from 23 per 10,000 children under 18 to 8.6 per 10,000, a 62 percent decrease, with a 3 percent drop from 2009 to 2010.
Studies can vary, of course, but the question is whether this is based on stereotypical or statistical foundations.
In the case of the Daniel McCluskie, 31, the move not only left people staring at him but the attention got worse after the flight attendant thanked a woman who they asked to move to take his seat next to a ten-year-old girl. McCluskie is a senior nurse at the local health district in Wagga Wagga.
A spokesman stated that “Qantas’s policy is consistent with other airlines around the world and is designed to minimise risk. The policy reflects parents’ concerns and the need to maximise the child’s safety and well-being.” That is news to me since I just flew back to Washington from Salt Lake City with an unaccompanied 12 year old girl. We talked about her sports and the sports of my four kids for the entire flight. If anything, I would insist that she was a bad influence on me. We ended up making fun of the fact that the pilot seemed unable to say double digits numbers and would instead say “one four” for “fourteen.” It was a wonderfully juvenile flight.
Qantas says that there is usually no problems because it intentionally reallocates seats to avoid males sitting next to unaccompanied children before take off.
British Airways was sued in 2010 for this ridiculous policy and agreed to change it pursuant to the Sex Discrimination Act. However, the airline now seats unaccompanied children in their own area.
Frankly, these policies appear more about hysteria than fact. There is always a danger of crime and I must admit to be an overly protective parent with my kids particularly at malls and similar locations. However, to assume males are a such a clear and present danger to children is insulting and unsupported in my view.
What is really interesting is that I told my wife about this policy this morning expecting that she would share my view that the policy is an outrageous act of discrimination and insulting to men. Despite her consistent liberal views, Leslie was actually ambivalent and felt it was better to err on the side of caution by moving the child or the male. Leslie is uncomfortable with a 100 percent rule but still is ambivalent about the general policy.
My mother-in-law Suzanne was a flight attendant for 20 years and never saw a case of molestation against a minor. On United, they never enforced such a rule. Suzanne does not agree with the Qantas policy.
What do you think?
Source: SMH
Here is the study referenced above: Forge Study
“if they say we cannot have you, specific sir, sit in this seat next to an unaccompanied child because we have safety concerns for the child” . . . as a matter of airline policy that applies to all males and unaccompanied minors. This would be different if they had said this and it was not a matter of policy supposedly applied to all males equally in regards to unaccompanied minors. The “specific” is endemic to your reading of the event, and as stipulated that could rise to actionable as a form of defamation in and of itself, but we simply don’t know that was the case here.
And don’t get me wrong, leejcaroll.
I think the policy is misguided and stupid, but I don’t think it’s necessarily actionable either.
To Gene H. –
Maybe YOU don’t mind being publicly tagged as a potential (maybe even probable! ) child molester, but it sure wouldn’t go over so well with me.
I venture to say that puts you in a minority.
I think your analogy misses the mark, usually the disability is visible (I have an ‘invisible” disability and have asked to be moved from the emergency row .)
As you say we do not know what was said, exactly how and in what tone of voice and how loud, or why they stared.
If I am obese and they say you are too fat to sit in the emergency row we need to move you I would think that was actionable, it is humiliating to be singled out that way and for that reason. (I am not an attorney so speaking from what I feel makes sense as a rational regular person), if they say we cannot have you, specific sir, sit in this seat next to an unaccompanied child because we have safety concerns for the child, many will reach a conclusion, this is a bad guy or why would it matter?
leejcaroll,
No. I’m generally not concerned with sort of thing. I’m more interested in proof when the pudding is eaten. I am extremely hard to embarrass or humiliate. The act of being ask to change seats simply doesn’t rise to that level with me unless the airline employee has said something along the lines of “We think you’re a child molester so move.” Consider this: flight attendants have the ability to reseat passengers in emergency exit rows who might not physically be able to handle being in that position should their be an emergency. Is that a cause of action if people stare while this person is being relocated?
Gene I take your first few points but as to “Was there an objective reason for feeling humiliated or not?” If, in fact people were staring, as stated in the post, and that was a result of being asked to move, it is embarrassing and humiliating. Have you never been accused of something, by deed or subtext, that even though you were innocent you still felt humiliated? Or humiliated because others nearby assumed, even wrongly, you were guilty of ‘something’?
Move the damned rug rats. Death by zits to anyone who has to sit next to them.
My comment about the rug rats comes into play when I flew British Airways to Spain in 2002. A thirteen year old (13 or so) girl sat next to me and proceeded to gorge herself on candy. When our meals were served, she vomited candy all over my food. It was horrifying at the time because of the smell, but now I can LOL over it. What a mess that was. Keep the rug rats in the back seats to themselves.
leejcaroll,
Then the context of the discourse becomes critical. Was the airline employee clear that it was company policy? Or did they make accusatory statement? Were people staring because it was a noisy commotion? Or because it was a tense or acrimonious situation? None of this is known at this point. Add to that that perceptions are subjective. Was there an objective reason for feeling humiliated or not? See, even if you take humiliation as a harm, whether it is objectively a harm or not is still questionable. I just don’t see this as actionable discrimination absent some extraordinary insult or accusation on the part of the employee (which would in itself be actionable).
The harm was in the sense of public humiliation, people were ‘staring” so this was not done in a quiet could we talk with you for a moment sir kind of way but one that was public to at least a n umber of the passengers.
For everyone saying this is discrimination, ask yourself where is the actual harm in a legal sense? Was the man thrown off the flight? Forced to ride with the cargo? Forced to ride on the plane instead of in the plane? Sat in a special “child molester” section? No. He was moved to another seat. Even if the action is a technical use of the noun “discrimination” that is insufficient to rise to the level of harm sufficient to be a cause of action.
So….the, by definition, dangerous male passenger is going to molest the unaccompanied child passenger right there on the plane in full view of all the other nearby passengers and the flight attendants….so the male must be inconvenienced and moved but if it were a female everything is AOK? Move the kids.
Well, let’s just say what the airline is saying as did the army officer:
“Sir, we suspect on good grounds that you might belong to the most despised category of criminals, the child sex abuser. We will therefore ask you to move in front of all these people and raise their suspicion and your level of embarrassment. Would you do so quietly please??
When one airline does the rest will follow. That is bad enough.
Further the airline is reneging on its promise to the sending parent that they provide safe supervised transport to their children. How??? By assigning the seat to a woman, it trnnsfers implicitly and de facto the responsibility to the woman of supervising the child, relieving staff of the time/trouble and company of liability since the woman has accepted that although she does not realize it. Smart airline move.
That should be worth a tort trial at least, if not one of criminal one in re “dereliction of in loco parentis obligation contracted for by the airline in return for fee”. Fraudulent practice, I feel.
This is far more dangerous than the actual matters it concerns on its surface. One end game (you never know) could be excision of male penises at birth to prevent rape. Procreation through methods which a doctor can explain to you.
By this logic – they should segregate blacks since statistically they commit more violent crimes than any othe race.
I have no idea what the data are regarding children being molested on flights; it strikes me that there probably aren’t good statistics on that, in fact. One has to wonder what would make Qantas put something like that into place. I’m just saying it’s one of those kinds of discrimination I would put on the end of the list of “top ten test cases for the best pro bono lawyers in town.”
Recently I was on a flight from West Coast to East, and I was so tired when I got on board that I was dazed, and I’m 65 and I have grey hair. They put me in my seat and asked if I minded being in an exit row and I said, “no,” put my carry-on into the compartment on top, and settled in to sleep. Then somebody came to move me to a different seat because she was not convinced I could open the heavy door if there was an emergency. I was pretty tired, and I wouldn’t have minded either way, and so forth, but I found myself feeling a bit defensive, and thinking, “I’m strong; just because I look aged and decrepit doesn’t mean I’m weak,” but I moved without any protest. I can just imagine that I would have felt a lot worse if she had said, “Ma’am, we can’t seat you next to a child,” or something. HA HA!
Well, anyway, I don’t feel strongly about any of this and as long as George Zimmerman has been charged with murder, I’ll let Qantas go on this one. After all that little koala (means “I do not drink”) is so cute, actually, cuter than the GEICO gecko.
Malisha, it’s still discriminatory though. You can work at it from either end, you can discriminate against men in general or make the kids safe in other ways. Things like being stripped of a presumption of innocence and blatant discrimination should be the absolute last resorts.
Is this a solution looking for a problem like voter registration restrictions. Is there a history of problems with children being molested in flight?
This is the easy way out for a corporation. I’d hate to leave those rights in the dust at the convenience of a corporation if it was my ox being gored. I wouldn’t do it.
A friend of mine worked for the Division of Army Psychiatry, as a civilian. She did studies, and interpreted studies. She later published a lot of studies on the Army Family. At one point she told me that in one of her studies, she ran across a Colonel who was in charge of day-care at a domestic army base, and he (HE) told her that he would not assign or hire any males to work in his day-care centers because, “They’re just higher risk for abusing kids than the females are.” She challenged him on that because she wanted to see what he would say (the Army is allowed to “discriminate” in much of its job-assignment placements) and he said: “I don’t particularly think any one male is more likely to abuse a child than any one female, but I’m responsible for a lot of employees and a lot of kids, and I play the numbers. I FEEL SAFER with a bunch of women watching these kids so I hire a bunch of women to watch these kids. Until my superior officer tells me I have to change that, that’s how it is.”
On its face it’s a discriminatory policy.
I only have hypothetical kids, I admit that up front but I’ve watched them on occasion so I’d think airlines would want unescorted kids all collected in a group so they could be watched. I’ve read that really young children are allowed to fly alone, younger than 10 years old. Kids get sick, they hurt themselves with sharpened pencils, they stick things up their nose and choke on food. Of course, having a bunch of them in a group could get pretty crazy I guess but darn, how many unattended kids are on any given plane? I’m amazed that this is even an issue.
I know from experience (as did every girl friend I had) what kind of skeevy perverts rode city buses, they were always around and always just waiting for an opportunity. That’s why the rule was always sit or stand as close to the driver as possible. Can’t children be seated by the flight attendants cubby?
As long as I don’t get a worse seat, I am also in Leslie’s camp.
By the way nick, I just had a Wisconsin Brat for lunch.
ARE,
LOL.
When did you last learn the “international” alphabet? Charlie was later changed to COCOA. What it is today I have no clue.
SPEED was best. He/she was sleeping at the controls.
Mark me with JT. Discrimination, in whatever form, remains discrimination.
Mark me for Leslie.