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Man Arrested for Kissing Daughter
Are you an affectionate father? Good for you. Might want to reign that in, however, if you ever visit Brazil. Thanks to a new law intended to crack down on pedophiles traveling to the area to prey on young girls, an Italian man was arrested recently for kissing his own daughter in public.
Father, mother and daughter all insist that it was simple, playful, parental affection. Yet the man remains jailed a week later.
What happened was this: The family vacations regularly in Fortaleza, an area that struggles with an influx of foreign pedophiles to the point where hotels actually put up signs warning hotel guests. The unnamed Italian man is white, while his wife is from Brazil. The man and his daughter were playing in the pool when an older Brazilian couple — who didn’t know the pair were father and daughter — took offense and alerted authorities.
Though both daughter and wife — who witnessed the entire event and feels that the situation was misinterpreted by the Brazilian couple — explained what had happened, but the man was hauled away anyway. If charges are not dropped, he faces 8 to 15 years in jail.
On the surface, this seems to be a terrible misunderstanding. Even hotel staff say that they saw the pair in the pool and did not see any behavior that was out of the ordinary. If it’s as simple as that, then authorities should have let this dad go days ago, since he clearly isn’t a foreigner traveling to the region to support the sex tourism trade.
So here’s a question for you dads out there: Does public perception play a role in how much affection your give your daughters when you’re out in public? And how does the way that you show affection change as your girls get older?
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STRONG Fathers commented on Sep 09 09 at 12:36 pmThis story is sad on so many levels. It reminds me of a psa poster from a few years back that pictured a child’s hand in a mna’s with the tag line that was something like – if it makes you uncomfortable report it. It was basically a men showing affection = EVIL. This seems like a case of that kind of thinking. It appears that everyone in this area is primed to assume the worst when they see men interacting with kids. The fact that it is draging out speaks to the dangers men face when caught up in protective systems. I guess the take away is that Fortaleza, Brazil is not a family friendly vacation destination, dads stay away.
But you asked about affection in public. I am very physically affectionalte with my six year old girls. If they are within arms reach I hug em, play with their hair, sit with them on my lap, and generally maintian a physical connection with them. If it bugs them I stop. But usually, “keep doing that” is he response i get when I stop. If we are walking down the street they take my hand, they climb into my lap when we are sitting somewhere, and I will love every second of it because I know that eventually they won’t let me connect to them that way. So Yes, it’ll change as they get older, but it will be on their terms and mine, not societies (unless we are in Brazil, cause I don’t do jail).
Phillip Ed commented on Sep 17 09 at 3:56 amYou must change your ways of showing affection towards your daughter as she grow older.
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