Man on wanted list for smiling...

Was browsing through some news today. I thought it would be interesting to share the 'hideosity' that Japan has escalated into...

Original Text (for those who wants to take a look):

12月09日08時15分頃、高槻市南平台３丁目１５番付近路上で、登校途中の女子児童が、見知らぬ男とすれ違う際に「ニヤッ」と微笑まれるという事案がありました。
年齢３０歳位、黒色フリース様の上衣、灰色ズボン、白紐のスニーカー、黒っぽい手袋着装の男
防犯ブザーを携帯しましょう。

Link: http://anzen.m47.jp/mail-68284.html

Brief Translation:

A man was put on the wanted list (added: to be more exact, suspected pedophile list) by the police after smiling at a school-age girl.

The case happened at around 8.15am on 9 December 2010. A little girl was on her way to school when she encountered a stranger, who gave her a brief smile as they walked past each other.

The man is belived to be in his thirties. He was wearing a black fleece, a pair of grey trousers, white laced sneakers and a black bag when the case happened.

Please always carry an anti-crime buzzer with you.

.....

Actually it is not the first time that such high (and almost paranoic) alert was being placed upon adult males, who showed the slightest signs of being probable sex predators. I recall a few years back, there were several other cases whereby a man (also from Japan) was being hunted down for asking directions from a group of children... and one was being pursued for saying "good morning" to a girl.

This is... half insane and half worrying. I can understand that we need to take cautious of pedophiles, but is this really the right way to do it? What if those men didn't mean anything? Well, maybe smiling to a school-aged girl is suspicious. But asking directions?

I wonder.

Yea, it just shows the downward spiral they're heading into. Apparently, many adults have been keeping their distance away from any circumstances that may, in any way, stir up any form of controversy. I feel that such can be damaging... it practically causes people to drift away from each other for the sake of self protection. A toxic form of apathy plaguing the very core of social cohesion, brought about by the society itself >_<

There was even a case whereby a dad was arrested for bringing his young daughter out for shopping. The police detained him for hours accusing him of possible kidnapping and phedophilia till his wife went to the police station to clarify the matter... that actually sounded like some harsh joke... poor guy

Hey, that's scary. I really wish they find another way to protect children. If this keep on going, even the relationship between fathers and their daughters can be damaged!

Same sentiment we have here. Imagine fathers cannot show their outward affection for their own kids (not to mention other children) and being treated as some walking-monster-under-the-broad-daylight due to whatever atrocious reasons. For the time being, adult females should still be safe from the discrimination, stemming from their harmful overcorrection.

Frisk is right, that's probably another issue to ponder on. The skewed perspective people have on female and male pedophile is quite obvious. Normally when the word, 'pedophile' is mentioned, the thoughts that immediately strike one's mind are that these predators should be 'male' and their targets are generally fixated on young girl,or occasionally, young boys.

It may be due to those legal regulations which lead to the rigid definitions of such offences. One obvious 'phenomenon' is the case where "female can never be charged with rape" (hence, the large majority of sexual offenders are 'believed' to be male). It makes me wonder if those extreme measures taken by Japan police really effective in addressing the whole issue of pedophilia or sexual offences in general. While I do agree that a large proportion of pedophiles may be male, pushing laws to the extremity (all males are suspects of pedophilia) with the total exlcusion of female can be counterproductive.

That's just too much...

Now this is really scary.

Wow... that is insane. Smiling at someone shouldn't make them a pedophile. Ah, that is just so crazy.