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The Pitcairn Islands, officially the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, is a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean that form the sole British Overseas Territory in the Pacific Ocean. The four islands — Pitcairn proper, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno — are scattered across several hundred kilometres of ocean and have a combined land area of about 18 square miles (47 km2). Henderson Island accounts for 86% of the land area, but only Pitcairn Island is inhabited. The islands nearest to the Pitcairn Islands are Mangareva to the west and Easter Island to the east.
Colleen Margaretta McCullough was an Australian author known for her novels, her most well-known being The Thorn Birds and The Ladies of Missalonghi.
Adamstown is the capital of, and the only settlement on, the Pitcairn Islands.
The history of the Pitcairn Islands begins with the colonization of the islands by Polynesians in the 11th century. The Polynesians established a culture that flourished for four centuries and then vanished. They lived on Pitcairn and Henderson Islands, and on Mangareva Island 540 kilometres (340 mi) to the northwest, for about 400 years.
Steven Raymond Christian is a politician and convicted sex offender from the Pitcairn Islands. He was mayor of the islands from 1999 until 2004, when he was removed from office after being found guilty in the Pitcairn child sexual abuse trial.
The Pitcairn sexual assault trial of 2004 concerned seven men living on Pitcairn Island who faced 55 charges relating to sexual offences against children and young people. The accused represented a third of the island's male population and included Steve Christian, the mayor. On 24 October, all but one of the defendants were found guilty on at least some of the charges. Another six men living abroad, including Shawn Christian, who later served as mayor of Pitcairn, were tried on 41 charges in a separate trial in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2005.
The Governor of Pitcairn is the representative of the British monarch in the Pitcairn Islands, the last remaining British Overseas Territory in the Pacific Ocean. Pitcairn has considerable local autonomy, but is under the authority of the colonial governor.
Jay Calvin Warren is a political figure from the Pacific territory of the Pitcairn Islands.
Meralda Elva Junior Warren is an artist and poet of the Pitcairn Islands, a remote British Overseas Territory in the South Pacific. She works in both English and Pitkern, the island's distinctive creole language. Her book, Mi Bas Side Orn Pitcairn, written with the island's six children, is the first to be written and published in both English and Pitkern. As an artist, she works with tapa cloth, a Polynesian tradition. She has also published a cookbook featuring Pitcairn Island cuisine.
Brenda Vera Amelia Lupton-Christian is a political figure from the Pacific territory of the Pitcairn Islands. When her brother Steve Christian was removed from the office of mayor following the 2004 Pitcairn child sexual abuse trial, she served as interim mayor of the islands.
Saffron Domini Burrows is a British actress and model. Burrows has appeared in films such as Circle of Friends,Wing Commander,Deep Blue Sea,Gangster No. 1,Enigma,Troy,Reign Over Me and The Bank Job. On the small screen, she has starred as Lorraine Weller on Boston Legal, Dr. Norah Skinner on My Own Worst Enemy, Detective Serena Stevens on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Victoria Hand on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Recently, she appeared as Cynthia Taylor on the Amazon Video series Mozart in the Jungle and as Dottie Quinn in the Netflix series You.
Kathleen Troccoli is a contemporary Christian music singer, songwriter, author, and speaker.
Law enforcement in the Pitcairn Islands is the responsibility of the Pitcairn Islands Police, the smallest British police force, which has just two constables. In the aftermath of child sex revelations, the force did briefly number five constables including Ministry of Defence Police officers on temporary secondment. Historically, and until 2000, a Pitcairn Island resident was appointed as the island group's sole police officer, and also acted as immigration and customs officer. From 2000 to 2015, the combined police, immigration, and customs role was held by a series of foreign professionals on short-term secondment. In 2015 the Pitcairn Government website announced that both previous systems would be employed alongside each other, with one local island police officer and one foreign police officer on secondment, working together.
Robyn Donald is a prolific New Zealand writer of romance novels since 1977. Her books have print runs of up to 500,000 copies at a time.
Oceania is, like other regions, quite diverse in its laws regarding homosexuality. This ranges from significant rights granted to the LGBT community in New Zealand, Australia, Guam, Hawaii, the Northern Mariana Islands, Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia, French Polynesia and the Pitcairn Islands to remaining criminal penalties for homosexual activity in 6 countries and one territory. Although acceptance is growing across the Pacific, violence and social stigma remain issues for LGBTI communities. This also leads to problems with healthcare, including access to HIV treatment in countries such as Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands where homosexuality is criminalised.
Lost Paradise may refer to:
Tom Christian MBE was a citizen of Pitcairn Island, and was its long-serving radio operator. During his lifetime, Christian was profiled in a number of publications, including National Geographic and People magazines.
Shawn Brent Christian is a Pitcairnese politician, who served as Mayor of the Pitcairn Islands between 2014 and 2019. He was convicted of child rape in 2007.
Lost Paradise: From Mutiny on the Bounty to a Modern-Day Legacy of Sexual Mayhem, the Dark Secrets of Pitcairn Island Revealed is a 2009 non-fiction book by Kathy Marks about the Pitcairn sexual assault trial of 2004. In 2004 Marks was one of only 6 journalists allowed to report on the trials from Pitcairn Islands, reporting for both The Independent and The New Zealand Herald. She lived in the small community for the six-week duration of the trials where she was often in contact with the men standing trial.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the British Overseas Territory of the Pitcairn Islands enjoy most of the same rights as non-LGBT people. Same-sex sexual activity is legal, discrimination based on sexual orientation is constitutionally outlawed and same-sex marriage has been legal since 14 May 2015.
References
- ↑ Simon & Schuster biography
- ↑ Kathy Marks, Lost Paradise, New York, London: Free Press, 2009, 328 pages
