Tradition on British Pitkern Island: Girls will be raped when they reach the age of 12

Pitcairn Island is a volcanic island located between New Zealand and South America, south-southeast of Tahiti. The British warship HMS Bent mutiny in 1790. Nine sailors and 18 Tahiti residents fled to settle on the island. Their sons and daughters have now grown to 47.

On Pitkern Island, a small South Pacific island affiliated with the British Commonwealth, girls are raped as long as they reach the age of twelve. Even Mayor Steve Christian has raped five young girls. For two centuries, Pitkern Island has been hidden in the vast Pacific Ocean and forgotten by the world. Its closest city to New Zealand also has an eight-day water voyage. There are neither ports nor airports within five kilometers of the island.

Decree? The island makes Britain embarrassed. Pitcairn Island is a volcanic island located between New Zealand and South America, south-southeast of Tahiti. The British warship HMS Bent mutiny in 1790. Nine sailors and 18 Tahiti residents fled to settle on the island. Their sons and daughters have now grown to 47. Steve Christian is the direct son and daughter of the leader of the mutiny soldier. There are no ports or airstrips on the island and there is little contact with the outside world.

The founder of the island was British naval rebel Christian (the prototype of the legendary character portrayed by Marlon Brando in the 1962 film "Mutiny on the Tradition "), and the current mayor Christian is said to be his descendant. The island is like Christian's private fief.

In October 2004, a British judge ruled in the rape case of Steve Christian. He only needed three years in prison and could apply for parole after serving 12 months. In addition, he will spend the next six months at ease without going to prison because they will discuss British control of the island.

In response to such a light sentence, the presiding judge explained that it was due to the "extraordinary environment of the island": isolation from the world, with a permanent resident population of less than 50 people, and an urgent need for talent. He said the reason why Christian's sentence was "tailor-made" was extremely light was because of his outstanding service to the island over the past decades. He pointed out that neither England nor New Zealand laws were applicable to the small island.

It was also in 2004 that British officials broke with more than 200 years of practice by removing Mayor Stephen Christine and then electing Brenda Christine, the first female mayor in the history of the island.

The story of Pitcairn Island begins with the legendary landing of the British warship Her Majesty's Grace. In April 1789, British naval officer Fletcher Christian led the mutiny and guided his men around the Tonga Islands on a difficult sea escape journey. They headed towards Tahiti Island and added "supplies" in French Polynesia, including 19 beautiful girls and six adult strong laborers. Then they hurriedly began to find a blessed land that could be far away from the "evil of the world."

On January 15, 1790, after two difficult months at sea, they landed at Pitkern. Christian's subordinate Jung wrote in his diary: "We recklessly built houses, built fences, opened wasteland, and caught birds and animals. The number of wild boars on the island has become a disaster, which is a great threat to the vegetables in the vegetable fields. This is how we spent our first year on the deserted island." For two centuries, this stable way of life has been passed down from generation to generation.

Until one day three years ago, a young British policewoman, Gail Cox, came to the island. She came to help the islanders create a police station. Cox quickly gained the trust of some women, and heard from them a secret that only belonged to Pitkern: Here, whenever a girl reaches the age of twelve, she will be raped by a man.

This mystery that shocked the civilized world quickly spread to London, and British police began to observe the matter mysteriously. Dozens of women who had lived on small islands across the world were observed, and the police also collected a large amount of evidence from some people's accounts.

Some of the observed remained silent, while others argued that this behavior was the way of life left to the island by their ancestor Christian.

It's bad luck to have no men. Those residents who dared to expose the situation to the outside world have been expelled from Pitkern Island. The laws of a civilized society do not apply to small islands, but British police observations show that the sexual behavior of Christian's sons and daughters has clearly violated the laws. British police took action when the victims of the invention included children aged 10, 7 and even 5. Public opinion is divided into two diametrically opposed opinions: supporters believe that the islanders have a unique understanding of sexual relations in an isolated environment; opponents believe that these islanders rely on their high skies and distant emperors to be lawless and condone their own beasts. The question for anthropologists is: What will humans do in an environment where no behavior will be punished?

Herbert Ford, an authoritative scholar on island society, emphasized that if the litigation continues, Pitkern will become a deserted island in less than three years. "Not only the defendants, but also the innocent islanders will be greatly affected, because the entire island is an inseparable family. A serious crisis on the island may cause widespread flight of remaining residents."

In order to survive on the island, people demanded that complaints against the islanders be cancelled. The girls who had complained about being raped began to withdraw their charges when they realized that the punishment of the troublemaker would lead to the destruction of the island. The men on the island stored wood and food for the girls and children at home, praying that Pitkern could escape the bad luck of becoming a deserted island while there was no man.