Ban on men sitting next to children

therecklessone

I did consider Humanties and After Hours for this thread, but essentially its a political issue. Mods feel free to disagree and move

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10357510

Air New Zealand and Qantas have banned men from sitting next to unaccompanied children on flights, sparking accusations of discrimination.

The airlines have come under fire for the policy that critics say is political correctness gone mad after a man revealed he was ordered to change seats during a Qantas flight because he was sitting next to a young boy travelling alone.

Auckland man Mark Worsley says an air steward approached him after take-off on the Christchurch to Auckland flight and told him to change seats with a women sitting two rows in front. The steward said it was the airline's policy that only women were allowed to sit next to unaccompanied children.

"At the time I was so gobsmacked that I moved. I was so embarrassed and just stewed on it for the entire flight."

The 37-year-old shipping manager, who has 2-year-old twins, followed the incident up with the airline and was told Qantas wanted to err on the side of caution.

"I felt that it was totally discriminatory. Besides the point of what the hell was I going to do on a crowded flight."

The incident, which happened a year ago, irked Mr Worsley so much that he recently contacted National Party political correctness eradicator Wayne Mapp.

Dr Mapp told the Herald the airlines' policy was an example of political correctness that had got out of hand.

"I think this is a gross over-reaction by the airlines. What do they think men are going to do that women won't? It is the same as saying men shouldn't sit beside children on a bus."

A Qantas spokesman confirmed the Australian airline, which operates domestic flights in New Zealand, does not allow unaccompanied children to sit next to men. The spokesman said the airline believed it was what customers wanted.

Air New Zealand spokeswoman Rosie Paul said the airline had a similar policy to that of Qantas'.

"Airlines are temporary guardians of unaccompanied minors so we have preferred seating for them."

Ms Paul said Air New Zealand tried to seat children near a crew area so crew could keep an eye on them and, when possible, children were seated next to an empty seat.

"Sometimes this isn't possible, so the preference is to seat a female passenger next door to an unaccompanied minor."

When the Herald asked her if the airline considered male passengers to be dangerous to children, Ms Paul replied: "That's not what I said."

When it was put to her that that was the implication of the policy, she repeated: "No, that's not what I said."

Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro said she commended the airlines for putting thought into the policy and for endeavouring to keep children safe.

Dr Kiro said she did not think it was intended to be a slur against men.

Surely there's no other way to view this than as the implication that men cannot be trusted with unrelated or unknown children? The sad irony is that the majority of child abuse cases occur are perpetrated by family members or adults known to the family.

There's a good article on this in the Guardian whcih pretty much sums up the current state of affairs.

p.s. thanks to thumped.com where I saw this first

Zombrex

What nonsense, playing up to the rather silly stereotype that only men abuse children

RuggieBear

discrimination based on gender? What a suprise....

Lemming

Apparently a lot of airlines do this, not just Air NZ & Qantas. But it is obscene. Why not say men can't sit next to unaccompanied women?

Since we're going into the realms of the ridiculous, why not say women can't sit next to unaccompanied women?

Hell, lets do away with airtravel and shoot people out of giant cannons to their destinations. That'll be much safer!!

growler

I imagine this is done more out of fear of a potential law suit than anything else.

The Guardian article is vey interesting, I've never been concious of the dangers of helping a lost child before , scary stuff.

RuggieBear

growler wrote:

The Guardian article is vey interesting, I've never been concious of the dangers of helping a lost child before , scary stuff.

A friend of mine works as a sailing instructer. He has to be very careful about helping/holding onto children when sailing. He has all sorts of guidelines about contact.

therecklessone

growler wrote:

The Guardian article is vey interesting, I've never been concious of the dangers of helping a lost child before , scary stuff.

Its something I've been conscious of for a while TBH, and it makes for some awkward situations.

therecklessone

A post in the original thread on thumped from a student primary school teacher.

ive been warned about letting kids sit on my knee ( and all this is LETTING, mind you, not inviting) , touching a kid on the arm, ruffling hair, giving a crying child a hug, putting a band aid on a kids knee, tucking a tie back inside a jumper ...it goes on and yet female teachers do all these things with no problems or even issues surrounding them. if a kid falls down and breaks a finger or a wrist or grazes a shin and wants human contact until their mam comes, i have to stand there and say 'no, no, no sorry, i cant' and offer no explanation

Nuttzz

PC gone mad, can women not intefer with young boys too?

vorbis

blatant discrimination. Surely its illegal. Imagine being asked to move on a flight because you're a man. It's effectively calling you a child molester.

kleefarr

The world is no longer a weird and wonderful place, it is just becoming a weird world. unfortunately I feel, that a lot of tension is being created by these PC enforcers. Who knows were it will all end and what the outcome will be? I don't think it's going to be pleasant, people will only be prepared to put up with so much. It's rife thought most of the western world. UK will be one of the first to show signs of political unrest in the not to distant future, I feel. People are discovering the cover ups that are happening in order to maintain a politically correct atmosphere.

murphaph

The poor man-how embarrased would you feel if that happened to you! Damn-I think I'd have politely told the steward to go fcuk himself and if it was the airline's policy not to seat unaccompanied kids next to men then he should move the kid! I totally understand that this guy was probably gobsmacked and moved in shock more than anythin else.

I'd like to hear some statistics about any abuse that has occured on aircraft before, sadly I bet you'll find that men are the main perpetrators of any such abuse.

Solair

This kinda stuff will just endanger kids more by making guys (and increasingly women) afraid to intervine when a kid is clearly in danger.

e.g. my 50-something year old aunt was shouted at by an over-protective mother when she took a kid out of a very dangerous situation in a shopping centre.

The kid was playing with the handrail of an escalator, just where the moving rail enters the escalator machiney. She was aged about 3 years old or so and could have easiy had a finger removed by the rolling belt!

My aunt simply took her by the hand and a crazy woman started yelling "GET A WAY FROM MY DAUGHTER!"

Kids are going to have an irrational fear of adults and particulary of adult males.

Next thing you know guys will be back to their pre 1950s role of uncaring unapproachable types.

I think the gentleman on the aircraft could potentially sue Quantas for slander / defmation type reasons. They basically publically implied that he was a child molestor.

Reasonable precautions are prudent... e.g. don't leave kids totally unsupervised with people you dont know.
Most sexual abuse seems to be quite well planned out and by people who have regular direct contact with kids/a particular kid. It's generally not a random stranger passing in the street or some middle aged woman who tries to prevent your kid from loosing a finger in an escalator belt.

And of course women can't be child molesters.... typical of the type of blind discrimination we're seeing nowadays....

RE*AC*TOR

Deleted User wrote:

And of course women can't be child molesters.... typical of the type of blind discrimination we're seeing nowadays....

Statistically speaking they are far less likely.

Anyway its all madness, just a sign of the hysteria surrounding this topic in the public conscious.

Calina

Solair wrote:

Kids are going to have an irrational fear of adults and particulary of adult males.

slightly off topic: but isn't this one of the reasons why they are so enthusiastic to recruit male primary school teachers?

magpie

Nonce-Sense TBH

Duckjob

nuts, absolutely nuts, he should sue. This should not become the norm.

If the airline had knowledge of someone (male or female) being on a sex offenders list then of course they should take steps to distance them from children, but to blatently discriminate against someone they know nothing about on account of them being male is so wrong.

Lemming

magpie wrote:

Nonce-Sense TBH

Ah, sweet, sweet Brass Eye

mike65

That programme should be screened to every do-gooding PC fascist on a loop.

The "lone male" is rapidly becoming persona non-grata, he'll either be about to rob you or rape you if one was to belive the media these days...

Mike.

lazydaisy

They probably had an incident. They also travel around the southeast Asia region which is a popular destination for pediaphiles.

magpie

pediaphiles

lol

Nasty_Girl

That's the most retarded thing I've ever read.

Either because they assume the man will rape the child or because women are more tolerant of children on long flights because they're all little mammies at the end of the day or whatever it's still retarded.

If people are that f*cking worried they shouldn't be letting their kids fly alone in the first place.

RuggieBear

Nasty_Girl wrote:

If people are that f*cking worried they shouldn't be letting their kids fly alone in the first place.

Bingo

boardy

What happens if the man sitting next to the child on the plane is a doctor?

And the steward asks the guy to move seats, but the guy says that he's a doctor. And the steward responds, "well then, that's ok so".

Or a policeman?

Are some men ok to sit beside? Will stewards ask for the profession of male passengers?

Here's another scenario. What if the only available seat was next to a woman that was drinking alcohol or appeared unstable? Would the child be seated next to her?

This is an insane policy.

RuggieBear

boardy wrote:

What happens if the man sitting next to the child on the plane is a doctor?

And the steward asks the guy to move seats, but the guy says that he's a doctor. And the steward responds, "well then, that's ok so".

Or a policeman?

Are some men ok to sit beside? Will stewards ask for the profession of male passengers?

Here's another scenario. What if the only available seat was next to a woman that was drinking alcohol or appeared unstable? Would the child be seated next to her?

This is an insane policy.

http://members.boards.ie/ruggiebear/airplane.jpg

Captain Oveur: You ever been in a cockpit before?
Joey: No sir, I've never been up in a plane before.
Captain Oveur: You ever seen a grown man naked?

Sleepy

I would love to have an airline try do that to me. I could use the five figure settlement I'd receive in a defamation of character suit.

simu

Weird. If parents are that paranoid, why do they leave their kids unaccompanied in the first place?

Gurgle

Duckjob wrote:

If the airline had knowledge of someone (male or female) being on a sex offenders list then of course they should take steps to distance them from children

It should be stamped on their passport tbh.
And on their heads, but I'm sure Amnesty would object to that.

JohnK

This sort of PC male bashing makse me sick tbh :mad: Anyone remember a story from a few months back where some american kid got lost on a camping trip? He was missing for a few days while rescue workers searched for him. When he was finally found he told the rescue workers that he had seen them looking for him on day 1 but hid since his parents told him not to talk to strangers. ****ing madness!

Zombrex

JohnK wrote:

This sort of PC male bashing makse me sick tbh :mad:

"This is nothing but dead, white male-bashing from a PC thug. It's women like you that keep the rest of us from landing a husband."
Miss. Hoover in "Lisa the Iconoclast" episode of The Simpsons

JohnK wrote:

When he was finally found he told the rescue workers that he had seen them looking for him on day 1 but hid since his parents told him not to talk to strangers. ****ing madness!

Thats crazy! God some people are just dumb. We scare the sh*t out of our kids but they don't really understand the context of it. Unfortunately for every example like that there is one like the poor American girl who got raped in Tralee and was then raped again by a man who said he would take her to a hospital.

I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. We should be teaching our kids to be aware of their surroundings and what is happening, not simply to blindly follow rules like "Don't talk to stranger"

I think the rules like don't put a man beside a child lead people to a false sense of security (probably like the American girl had when in Tralee, I swear some of the Americans I met in college believed Ireland was some kinda of big amusment park, they would go walking, slowly, through really bad areas of Limerick at night talking in loud, american, voices).

I always remember the discussion on TV about child abuctors and how parents wanted to know if a child molestor was in their area. The police man being interviews simply said "If you know about one who has been caught, you still don't know about the other 5 that haven't". His point was to scare the audience but simply to say you shouldn't think, or teach your children, that just cause we know Mr. Potter down the road is in his house that everything will be fine of you wander off on your own.

Likewise, just because it is a woman sitting beside a child on the airline that doesn't mean anything. I would be more horrified that the staff now assume my child is fine and can be left alone for the 9 hour flight with a stanger even if she is a woman.

Airlines should mind every child as if there is a child molestor sitting beside them, not stick them beside a woman and assume he/she is now perfectly safe.