In my Dutch news app this morning: https://nos.nl/artikel/2448414-13-jaar-cel-voor-nederlander-die-canadese-tiener-amanda-todd-afperste

Aydin Coban had already been sentenced by a Dutch court to 10 years and 8 months in prison for crimes he committed against dozens of different girls and a few men. The Amanda Todd case was not included in the Dutch proceedings because Canada wanted to prosecute him on its own.

When he’s completed his sentence in the Netherlands, he will be sent back to Canada to be jailed there.

Amanda Todd was a young teenager who was hounded by Coban and who eventually killed herself to get away from him because he (and others around her) had made living impossible for her.

Do NOT dare to call this a mental health issue (in the sense of blaming it on the victim). Mental health issues can be the result, but they are no excuse for abuse.

This kind of abuse usually simply makes it impossible to live for PRACTICAL reasons alone. Any kind of harassment involving a victim’s suicide still tends to be partly blamed on the victim. And that’s part of the problem.

Want an example? If bullies throw a poor child’s books or notes into a pond, how is he supposed to complete his homework? A child cannot simply relocate to the other side of a country to get away from bullies and start over fresh under a new name.

It may also be helpful to keep in mind that young people’s brains are still developing to some degree, and that neural pathways become reinforced in response to what is happening around you if those experiences are repetitive (prolonged).

See my previous two posts too, about the line that you cross when “humor” becomes abuse and you don’t realize it. This is exactly what I mean. I hope that to most all of you, it is clear that there was nothing funny or hilarious about why this Canadian teen ended her life.

There are copies of two newspaper articles on the inside of my clothes closet door. Both concern two young men who were set on fire at work in England. One in Bristol and the other one in Reading. One of them was abused so badly that he decided to take his life and even after his death was still being blamed for the atrocities at his place of work. Because he took his life.

His colleagues and superiors thought that what they were engaging in was “humor”. They saw nothing wrong with it. His line manager stated openly that no line was crossed when the young man was set on fire; he had been present when it happened.

The other young man ended up in hospital with burns and developed PTSD. Because he did not kill himself, he was not blamed for what happened.

With regard to cases like Amanda Todd’s… most police officers are totally clueless. They’re so out of touch with the online world and with IT aspects, it’s beyond belief. They may proudly tell you that they record interviews on tape so that what’s on it can’t be tampered with, that all anyone can do to it is wipe everything that’s on it. That’s usually the full extent of their IT knowledge. They can actually be informed “I have access to this woman’s computer equipment” and manage to miss it completely. They expect folks like Aydin Coban to communicate under their own names, from their own e-mail addresses and have fixed, identifiable IP addresses, too. When you’re an Amanda Todd, of any age, you’re on your own.