No Child Left Alone
Yesterday I came across this investigation by the Associated Press and, despite not being about Latin America, I had to comment on it.
As part of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001), public schools must give the names and phone numbers of their students to military recruiters if they want to receive funding. Recently, the Associated Press revealed that 1 out 200 of these recruiters were disciplined for sexual misconduct last year. These military employees have unusually easy access to the contact information of students, including home address and phone number, cell number and email, as well as legitimate occasions to be alone with them in offices and cars.
Most of those who reported sexual misconduct, from molestation to rape, were girls between 16 and 18 years of age. This situation is so dangerous because the recruiters are perceived to be trustworthy by the public and they have authority over the young people who want to enlist. Because detailed information about students is highly accessible, individuals such as Sergeant Eric Vetesy, who sexually assaulted six female high school recruits in 2002-2003, can select teenagers with backgrounds that make them vulnerable to coercion.
For a number of reasons, military recruiters in the U.S. today are having difficulty meeting their quotas. As a result, a significant number of recruiters are becoming more and more persistent and persuasive when dealing with young people, calling them on their cell phones and making visits at home and in the classroom, despite objections from parents and teachers. There has recently been a rise in crimes pertaining to coercion, harassment, and document falsification.
The right to have personal information kept private by institutions such as schools and hospitals should not be taken away, because as this case shows, those who lack this privacy are left terribly vulnerable.
Source:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/23/1413222
tag: last301
As part of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001), public schools must give the names and phone numbers of their students to military recruiters if they want to receive funding. Recently, the Associated Press revealed that 1 out 200 of these recruiters were disciplined for sexual misconduct last year. These military employees have unusually easy access to the contact information of students, including home address and phone number, cell number and email, as well as legitimate occasions to be alone with them in offices and cars.
Most of those who reported sexual misconduct, from molestation to rape, were girls between 16 and 18 years of age. This situation is so dangerous because the recruiters are perceived to be trustworthy by the public and they have authority over the young people who want to enlist. Because detailed information about students is highly accessible, individuals such as Sergeant Eric Vetesy, who sexually assaulted six female high school recruits in 2002-2003, can select teenagers with backgrounds that make them vulnerable to coercion.
For a number of reasons, military recruiters in the U.S. today are having difficulty meeting their quotas. As a result, a significant number of recruiters are becoming more and more persistent and persuasive when dealing with young people, calling them on their cell phones and making visits at home and in the classroom, despite objections from parents and teachers. There has recently been a rise in crimes pertaining to coercion, harassment, and document falsification.
The right to have personal information kept private by institutions such as schools and hospitals should not be taken away, because as this case shows, those who lack this privacy are left terribly vulnerable.
Source:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/23/1413222
tag: last301
posted by Serena at 12:02 AM
1 Comments:
Thanks for commenting on this issue. Military recruiters were constantly after kids in my high school to join the military, but I always saw them as just obnoxious and pushy. I never considered the potential for abuse that they have because they are stereotyped as good citizens representing their nation. It is really frightening that sexual harassment in public schools is so clearly linked to privacy standards and yet government representatives continue to have the right to access so much personal information.
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