Teaching Gender in Social Work - MailChimp

Case study
Use both sections as case studies and try to apply them to your own situation.
Trading, trafficking and witch-hunt were (some of them still are) widespread
practices and can be found in almost every country, although in various forms.
It is important to be aware of the fact that these practices are associated with
countries in the East and in the South. A list of guiding questions can be
used:
• Do you have any information on trading with people from your
own country in times of the slave trade or do you think that slaves
were always foreigners?
• Do any links exist between trading slaves and trafficking with
women – what are they?
• Can the right to the “first night” be connected with Rothamn’s
theses on a woman’s womb as a “flower pot”? What would be the
arguments?
• What were the characteristics of a witch, and more specifically of
her “nature”? Are those characteristics still perceived in public as
deviant, dangerous or pathological? Are they treated as illnesses and
how they are treated?
• What are the impacts of trading, trafficking and mass murders on
women today, if any?
Mothers with Illegitimate Children and Those that Committed Infanticides
The destiny of child-murderers and mothers with illegitimate children was as
dreadful as that of the persecuted witches. As a rule, capital punishment was
intended for them. By way of example, a girl from Ljubljana called Uršika was
decapitated at Friškovec near Ljubljana as a result of this “vice”. In compliance
with the old regulations applicable in Ljubljana, a mother who had murdered
her child was buried alive and then a wooden pole was run through her body
by an executioner. Lenard 25 claims that mothers with illegitimate children must
be seen as being the victims of the unhealthy social circumstances prevailing at
that time. Thus, marriage was prohibited for property-less persons, but poor
25
1922: 429.
96