
This story has been unfolding for a couple of weeks. It raises some interesting questions about the conflicts between local custom and international law, and how outside legal bodies can force morality on people who don't believe they are immoral in the first place.
Until now, Pitcairn was most famous for being the island where Spencer Christian, leader of the infamous "Mutiny on the Bounty," settled. Recently, British prosecutors have gone after the men of Pitcairn Island (which remains a British dependency) on charges of child sexual abuse. Residents, however, claim that girls have always been sexually active from a young age on Pitcairn. Now the wives, mothers and other female relatives of the accused are decrying what they see as a witch-hunt of their men.
Here are two reports on the situation from Australia and New Zealand, respectively.
Island women stand by their men
...As one of the world's most remote territories prepares for the trial of seven island men on child sex charges, their wives, daughters, sisters and mothers yesterday gathered in the tiny settlement of Adamstown to declare their innocence.
In this tiny community of 47, everyone has a relative who will go on trial for his freedom tomorrow.
One woman will see her father, son and husband in the dock, accused of participating in what prosecutors say is an ingrained culture of Pitcairn men using young girls for sex. Yes, underage sex has always been part of Pitcairn culture, said three generations of Pitcairn women at yesterday's meeting, but it was consensual.
Sex starts young on Pitcairn, say women
PITCAIRN ISLAND - The women of Pitcairn Island are angry. They say the outside world has a skewed perception of how their tiny community functions. They are furious that their men, seven of whom go on trial tomorrow on child sex abuse charges, have been depicted as hardened criminals.
So determined are they to get their views across that they invited the detested media to a public meeting yesterday. In raised voices that cracked with emotion, they claimed that no girl on the island had ever had sex against her will.
The seven men face 55 counts of rape, indecent assault and gross indecency against children aged as young as five.
But the island's women said yesterday that Pitcairn, Britain's last dependency in the South Pacific, had had a tradition of under-age sex since it was settled by the mutineers from HMS Bounty in 1790.
The meeting, attended by 13 women from three generations, was held at Big Fence, the home of Olive Christian, the wife of Pitcairn's mayor, Steve Christian. The message was that local girls mature sexually early on, and all the alleged victims had been willing participants....
Meralda Warren said she believed the prosecution was a British plot to jail the community's able-bodied men and "close down" the island.
For more information on Pitcairn Island's history, visit:
Utopia Britannica: Mutiny in Utopia
Andy.Christian.pn, is run by an eighth generation descendent of Fletcher Christian, who has gorgeous photos of his native land.
You can also find a more in-depth history of the HMS Bounty mutiny at The Bounty and Pitcairn Island
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