Unprecedented sex harassment in Helsinki at New Year: police

[Xithras]

67. In most middle eastern cultures, it's unacceptable for women to party in public.

Those that do are generally seen as the "loose morals" variety.

The problem here is a common Middle Eastern view of women (and this isn't just a Muslim thing...I've known plenty of Assyrians and Chaldeans who do the same thing). Basically, an assault against a woman isn't an assault against the woman, but an assault against her family, her father and brothers, and their honor. It's the same cultural worldview that condones women being executed for having sex out of wedlock, or even for being raped. According to their cultural mores, you don't assault women because it dishonors their families, and because the families of the victim will push for your prosecution (or worse). Women are property. Women have no rights on their own.

When you are raised to believe that women have no rights beyond what they are granted by the men in their family, you don't automatically start respecting them when you cross a national border. When you are told your entire life that European fathers don't care about their daughters "morals" and that they aren't dishonored by their daughters sleeping around, you don't suddenly begin seeing women as capable of choosing their own moral pathways simply because a nation accepts you into their fold.

If you are raised to believe that women shouldn't be assaulted because it dishonors their families, and you move to a nation where womens behavior doesn't reflect on their families honor (or where the very concept of family honor is absent), you've created a situation where the moral bias against assault has been removed.

Cultural re-education is the only solution here. They need to be taught that their previous cultural beliefs vis-a-vis womens rights were simply WRONG and need to be updated. There is no room for tolerance or cultural understanding on some topics like this one.