"You can only be abused if you allow yourself to be abused. I have travelled all over the Caribbean and have never been abused. Women, actually everyone, should be responsible for their own safety and use their heads. We don't get to travel with SS or FBI agents taking care of us. If you can't accept that level of responsibility, then stay home."
I feel that when I was their age, I was just as naive and trusting. Sure, it was a very long time ago, but I think coming from loving families and nice suuroundings, you just aren't street smart. You trust.
So very sad that they all, including Natalee, have learned such a cruel lesson.
This was posted, on SM, by a female classmate of Natalee's:
"The chaperones that were there did all the head counts, did all of the checking rooms, and monitored everything that they possibly could. The ratio of us to them though was us winning by a mile. We were out to all hours of the night. We had this false sense that the island was totally safe. That is the impression that everyone who lives there gives you. They try to make you feel like its all about you and your time there. Night life there is so up beat and exciting.
We all were a few sheets to the wind at C&C’s, all of us who were there, and that is our faults and we live with that guilt now every day. No one in our group here saw her leave the bar, but had we not been intoxicated I know we all would have used much better judgement and said something.
We were dispersed all over the place in Aruba. The beach, the bar, the pool, the hotel……if a person was not with one group it was thought that “Oh they must be with another”. Another bad call on our part…"
They should never have gone to C&C's, especially without adult chaperones. Bad decisions carry consequences. And before I'm attacked, I'm not saying she deserved what happened, only that it made what happened possible.
I feel that when I was their age, I was just as naive and trusting. Sure, it was a very long time ago, but I think coming from loving families and nice suuroundings, you just aren't street smart. You trust.
That theory doesn't quite wash if you look at the crime statistics for Jefferson Cty...94 murders & 318 rapes reported in 2000.