Women’s rights a selective cause for loudest of the left

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

“It’s a moral panic,” Sarah Hanson-Young told David Speers on ABC’s Insiders program last weekend referring to the release of 148 dangerous non-citizens into the community. Not only that, but criticism of the release was “revolting” and “dangerous”, she said.

A mere 48 hours after Hanson-Young’s condemnation, it was reported that Afghan national Aliyawar Yawari had been arrested in Adelaide for indecent assault. After leaving Pakistan, where his family currently reside, Yawari proceeded to violently assault women while trying to make Australia his home.

This newspaper reported that while he was living in Bordertown, South Australia, and working at an abattoir, he repeatedly punched a woman in the face before having sex with her. He was acquitted of rape, and received a suspended sentence. Two months later he assaulted another elderly woman in her home. This time he went to prison. He has since been released.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

On Tuesday, it was reported that another detainee, Emran Dad, had been arrested, three weeks after his release. Why? Because he was in contact with minors, and his criminal record included the procurement of under-age girls for prostitution. In his defence, Dad said he did not realise it was illegal to have sex with a 13-year-old girl, because in his home country of Afghanistan there are no such laws.

Another detainee was arrested on drugs charges. And a fourth detainee has been arrested on suspicion of theft. When non-citizens who are known violent offenders and sex offenders are released into the community, the externalities, ie, the downsides, are entirely borne by the community. In the case of sex offenders, those who are most likely to bear these externalities are girls and women.

Traditionally, politicians such as Sarah Hanson-Young are highly vocal about the safety of girls and women. In December last year Hanson-Young tweeted in reference to Brittany Higgins: “Our justice system is broken. It continues to fail women over and over again. It must be fixed.” Last month she described violence against women as a “national emergency”.

If we are indeed in a national emergency regarding women’s safety, the release of 148 detainees, some with troubling criminal records, only exacerbates the problem. Releasing potential criminals into the community is not just reckless; it’s cruel.

One would expect consistency in advocacy, especially when it comes to matters as crucial as women’s safety. But a closer look reveals a troubling truth: when the perpetrators’ skin colour changes, so does the response. This is a clear instance of a double standard.

Responses from the left to October 7 serve as a stark illustration of this double standard. The New York Times reported this week that the body of one woman murdered on October 7 had “nails and different objects in her female organs”. Women had been mutilated in their genitals to the extent that mortuary workers had difficulty distinguishing their sex.

Women had been shot in the genitals and in the breast, with others having sustained multiple gunshot wounds to the face. One mortuary worker described the distress felt in response to the casualties of the Nova music festival: “Some bodies we took out had pretty pink or bright purple nails, and we would all pause and at that point many of us broke down,” she said.

There have been no marches in the streets for these women. Vigils that have been held have had attendees in the hundreds, not thousands. And women’s groups have largely remained quiet.

While many prominent feminists have chosen to ignore Hamas’s crimes, some have gone even further by attempting to justify them.

Clementine Ford.

On Instagram, Australian feminist writer Clementine Ford directed a post specifically toward “Zionist” women, stating: “I don’t care that you felt betrayed or let down, and I especially don’t care that you want to have a big crybaby rant …” She continued with a blood libel: “You’re the enthusiastic supporters of a murderous regime that has been killing children for over 70 years”, and concluded with: “You’re pathetic, you disgust me, and I pity you for being so basic and gross … Honestly, you actually can’t get any whiter than that.”

What we have seen since October 7, and the release of dangerous detainees into the community, is a striking inversion of the left’s usual concern about rape. This inversion is driven by no other reason than the simple fact that the skin colour (and citizen status) of the rapists has changed. Any criminologist worth his or her salt knows the best predictor of future offending is past offending. This does not mean violent and sexual offenders are beyond redemption. But it does mean their probability of future offending is much higher than that of the general population.

(Recall that when Jill Meagher was murdered, her rapist was out on parole for previous rapes.)

In our current situation, in light of the High Court’s decision that indefinite detention is unconstitutional, the rights of various groups in the community have come into conflict.

The right of non-citizens with criminal records to enjoy freedom of movement and residency in Australia has come into conflict with the right of female citizens to be kept safe from known criminals who are not citizens of Australia. In this situation, a responsible government must elevate the rights of female citizens over the rights of dangerous non-citizens. It should be a no-brainer.

But those advocates of women’s rights who have suddenly developed a blind spot when it comes to women’s safety have betrayed something crucial. They have betrayed the fact that their advocacy is not grounded in foundational principles or universal concerns.

It is instead grounded in sectarian attitudes that hold different racial groups to different standards, and which use advocacy for women’s rights as a mere pretext to gain power.

Claire Lehmann is founding editor of online magazine Quillette.