'Dancing mom' gets 3 years for daughter's death
A Toronto father pronounced himself "sick" after the salsa-dancing mother of his toddler daughter was
given a three-year sentence in connection with the child's death by abandonment.
"I'm sick to my stomach," Mark Yetman told reporters outside a Toronto courthouse on Monday. "You go out
and beat up a guy on the street corner, you get five or 10 years. You kill my kid, it's totally fine."
Clara DaSilva, his former girlfriend, went salsa dancing in September 2002. She left her two-year-old
daughter Adrianna alone in a sweltering apartment for 33 hours.
The temperature in the apartment rose to at least 35 degrees Celsius, and she had no food or water.
DaSilva had lied to people, saying someone was at her apartment taking care of Adrianna. More ..
5-year-old survives bridge fall
Youngster seen clutching man's leg
Police watched tragedy helplessly
The Toronto Star, by GABE GONDA AND HENRY STANCU, STAFF REPORTERS, March 7, 2005
It's a miracle: A 5-year-old girl taken by her father, who was bent on killing her and himself, was
thrown 15 metres from an overpass into oncoming traffic and survived without a broken bone.
The man, who died after jumping, led police on a frantic chase yesterday afternoon to a bridge on Don
Mills Rd., over Highway 401. They were called there by the girl's mother at 4:30 p.m. after she found a
suicide note at her nearby apartment.
More ..
Statistics Canada
Statistique Canada
In 2004, 36 children were killed by their parent, 17 parents killed by their child, 11 victims killed by a sibling and 22 other family-related homicides.
In a typical year, the number of children killed by fathers is more or less equal to the number of children killed by mothers.
Infanticide -Criminal Code of Canada
Mothers Getting Away With Murder
From the UNICEF U.N. Digest 2 Children and Violence
Infanticide and homicide of children
"An analysis of 285 homicides committed in the United Kingdom from 1989 to 1991 involving victims under the age of 18 years found just 13 per cent had been killed by strangers; 60 per cent were killed by parents. 56 Similar results have been reported in the United States and in Australia. In countries where homicide statistics are analysed according to age of victim, infants and very young children are often found to be the age group most at risk. In the United Kingdom, under-one-year-olds are four times as likely to be victims of homicide as any other age group almost all killed by their parents.
Infanticide remains defined in many legal systems as a lesser crime than murder, although it involves the intentional killing of a baby. The rationale is to provide a special defence for mothers suffering psychological trauma as a result of birth. However, in many of the same legal systems, there are general recognized defences of diminished responsibility to charges of murder which could be applied in special cases. It therefore seems clear that the roots of the special status of this crime lie in regarding an infants life as of less worth than that of an older person.
Contrary to the usual assumption that infanticide is an Eastern rather than a Western problem, Lloyd deMause in his classic History of Childhood documents that infanticide of legitimate as well as illegitimate children
was a regular practice of antiquity, that the killing of legitimate children was only slowly reduced during the Middle Ages (hence the grossly unequal ratios of men to women in many societies) and that illegitimate children continued to be regularly killed right up into the nineteenth century. . . . Even though Thomas Coram opened his foundling hospital in 1741 because he couldnt bear to see the dying babies lying in the gutters and rotting in the dung-heaps of London, by the 1890s dead babies were still a common sight in London streets . . .
Infanticide has been practised as a brutal method of family planning..."
Infanticide is a lesser crime from homicide in Canada
Criminal Code of Canada - Homicide
222. (1) A person commits homicide when, directly or indirectly, by any means, he causes the death of a human being.
Kinds of homicide
(2) Homicide is culpable or not culpable.
Non culpable homicide
(3) Homicide that is not culpable is not an offence.
Culpable homicide
(4) Culpable homicide is murder or manslaughter or infanticide.
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223. (1) A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, whether or not (a) it has breathed; (b) it has an independent circulation; or (c) the navel string is severed. |
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Killing child |
(2) A person commits homicide when he causes injury to a child before or during its birth as a result of which the child dies after becoming a human being. R.S., c. C-34, s. 206. |
Infanticide
233. A female person commits infanticide when by a wilful act or omission she causes the death of her newly-born child, if at the time of the act or omission she is not fully recovered from the effects of giving birth to the child and by reason thereof or of the effect of lactation consequent on the birth of the child her mind is then disturbed. R.S., c. C-34, s. 216.
Punishment for infanticide
237. Every female person who commits infanticide is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years. R.S., c. C-34, s. 220.
Punishment for murder
235. (1) Every one who commits first degree murder or second degree murder is guilty of an indictable offence and shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life.
Minimum punishment
(2) For the purposes of Part XXIII, the sentence of imprisonment for life prescribed by this section is a
minimum punishment.
R.S., c. C-34, s. 218; 1973-74, c. 38, s. 3; 1974-75-76, c. 105, s. 5.
Manslaughter
234. Culpable homicide that is not murder or infanticide is manslaughter. R.S., c. C-34, s. 217.
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242. A female person who, being pregnant and about to be delivered, with intent that the child shall not live or with intent to conceal the birth of the child, fails to make provision for reasonable assistance in respect of her delivery is, if the child is permanently injured as a result thereof or dies immediately before, during or in a short time after birth, as a result thereof, guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years. R.S., c. C-34, s. 226. |
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243. Every one who in any manner disposes of the dead body of a child, with intent to conceal the fact that its mother has been delivered of it, whether the child died before, during or after birth, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years. R.S., c. C-34, s. 227. |
The digest from the U.N. also states:
"In the case of many categories of violence to children, greater sensitivity is leading to greater visibility a prelude, it is hoped, to effective prevention. Available research from different countries suggests that, at least outside active war zones, children are most at risk of violence, including sexual violence, within their own homes and from the adults closest to them. But generally attempts to document the overall extent of violence to children are in their infancy, a reflection of the low status of children, and the low political priority accorded to them and perhaps more immediately a reflection of the individual and collective guilt of adult perpetrators of violence to children........"
".......It is a sad reflection on human civilizations that the smallest and most vulnerable of people
should have had to wait until last for consistent social and legal recognition of their equal right to
physical and personal integrity, to protection from all forms of interpersonal violence. Only a handful of countries have as yet adopted laws to give children the same
protection that adults enjoy
from physical assault. In most states violent punishments, including beatings with tools, remain common and
sanctioned by the law.
Nevertheless, there is now growing recognition that asserting childrens right to protection from routine physical violence in the home and in institutions is as vital to improving their status as it has been to womens status to assert their equal right to protection from routine violence in the home and the community.
Leading this trend is the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the international monitoring body for the Convention, which has consistently challenged laws that permit any physical punishment of children, recommending clear legal reform and educational programmes."
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CCRC Editor's commentary:
A woman who kills her 5 month old child and claims mental illness, may be charged with "infanticide" according to the definition which has a limited penalty of a maximum time in prison much less than if she had been charged with murder of an adult.
If a father, who is deeply depressed, kills his 5 month old child he has committed "murder" and is often treated by the media and judges as another violent male. These judges are subject to feminist indoctrination in their training at the National Judicial Institute.
Established in 1988, the National Judicial Institute coordinates and provides training programs and continuing education services to all of Canada's judges. It is located in Ottawa.
Although the curriculum of the institute is not available to the general public, analysis of the biographies of law professors and judges do state the feminist teachings to members of the institute. Often law professors receive judgeships.
Nowhere have we found any references to any masculist training of Canadian judges or training from independent children's rights organizations that don't receive some form of federal government funding.