Schoolies week is on again. For those not in the know, this is an Australian tradition (in the vein of the US Spring Break) which school leavers play the starring role. In theory the time is a combination ‘holiday’ and ‘rite of passage’, supposedly a chance for school leavers to demonstrate their new found maturity to each other… and to their parents.
In practice Schoolies Week has become a month long long orgy of drunkenness, sexual release and drug use. Over the years oit’s also become notorious for sexual violence as ‘toolies’… basically men too old to go to schoolies themselves… take whatever advantage they can of inexperienced drunken or drugged young girls unable to protect themselves.
Fefarful of the repurcussions to the general tourist trade the police try to contain as much of the mayhem as they can… but it is *not* easy. Much of the partying this side of the country is carried out in Surfers Paradise and police are trying (without much success I might add) to corral the youngsters on specific streets to try to keep them out of harms way.
So far… i.e. over the first three nights… over a hundred kids have been pulled in with 26 so-called toolies also being pulled in for public order offences.
Given the choice neither of my girls will be going *anywhere* near a town running schoolies week. Not sure what we’d be able to do to stop them… but we can try at least.
The Eclectic Interweb 