Victorian Department of Education should protect children in its care
The ECAJ has called on the Victorian Department of Education to protect children in its care following a 16-yr-old being charged with stalking offences after allegedly verbally abusing a Jewish mother whose 12-yr-old son was forced to kiss the foot of a fellow student.
The 16-yr-old is reported to have made threatening calls to the Melbourne mother saying stating that her home would be a target for a home invasion and that her son would be “silenced for good”.
The mother reported the incidents to the police who charged the 16-yr-old. The AJN reports the mother stated “he even threatened my family to the sergeant”.
The Anti Defamation Commission (ADC) in the past few weeks has called for the establishment of an independent agency that deals directly with cases of racial and religious hatred at schools.
Chairman Dvir Abramovichtold the AJN: “This new agency, with a free hotline, will remove the bureaucratic pyramid of the Department of Education that frequently acts as a deterrent wall, enhance data collection, and empower the victims so as ensure that the psychological scars left on the children at Hawthorn West Primary School and Cheltenham Secondary College is never allowed to damage others.”
But the co-CEO of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry Peter Wertheim does not agree.
He told J-Wire: “If, as reported, the 16-year-old who has now been charged made threats against the Jewish boy and his mother in the presence of a police sergeant, it shows a complete lack of respect for authority and the law. The kid gloves have to come off. We don’t need more avenues of complaint or additional government agencies. Victoria’s Department of Education should act to protect the children in its care. It is the perpetrators of these sorts of incidents who should be forced to change schools, not the victims. The perpetrators should be sent to different schools to make it more difficult for them to gang up on someone else and re-offend in the future. The 16-year-old should also be charged under the Commonwealth Criminal Code with using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence.”
The AJN reports their understanding is that the 16-yr-old who was charged was not involved in the foot-kissing incident.
Another option for the shoe kissing boy was not to do it and punch the other boy and give him a blood nose. That usually gets respect even if you don’t win the punch up.