BY SHAY CULLEN
WE MUST know that the pain of abuse, rejection and denial of love in childhood causes anger, pain and hatred and a powerful desire for revenge.
Some victims that get no help may become people of violent tendencies. They can direct their anger and hatred against innocent people and become adult killers and perpetrators of human rights violations, torture and massacres.
They can become psychopaths perhaps but are adults that have suffered themselves and can vent on others their pent-up anger and hatred through acts of violence. Even child abuse does not remove or excuse responsibility for evil deeds.
So, why the denial and cover up and reluctance to be transparent about the truth?
Perhaps, society is utterly ashamed that human beings sexually abuse their own children. Perhaps, they know it is the most reprehensible, despicable, shameful crime that a human can commit and it is a life-long experience that hurts and harms the child into adulthood.
Some like Adolf Hitler caused the Holocaust and brutally killed millions of Jews and others. He endured child abuse. His father was a cruel, punishing, authoritarian, aggressive father. At one time, he beat his son 32 times and the boy did not cry, believing bravery was to endure pain.
Genghis Khan, the most brutal killer of civilians in all history, was abused as a child slave.
Joseph Stalin, a mass murderer, was an abused child, too. These psychopaths and many more were the perpetrators of violence, massacres and wars. It takes only one to rise to a position of political or military power to destroy the peace and wreck violence on a whole nation and lead them to a world war.
Throughout the centuries, child abuse was common and there were few laws, if any, to protect the victims. It was Jesus of Nazareth that was the first to declare the dignity and rights of the child to be loved and cared for and to have justice and the abuser to be held to account (Matthew 18:1-7). This was ignored by the Christian churches and other religions have tolerated and covered up sexual abuse of children.
In the past thirty years since the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, child protection laws have been passed in various countries protecting children from abuse and human trafficking. This was historical and this writer was privileged to be part of the delegation from NGOs that participated in the drafting conference in Helsinki.
New and improved anti-trafficking law amendments have been recently passed in the Philippine Senate. The latest is Senate Bill 2449 and is very welcome.
Section 9 of the Senate Bill holds the persons in authority in the Telecommunication Corporations and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) responsible for allowing, enabling and making it possible for children to be groomed, seduced, trafficked and abused on-line. It removes the contradiction in law used by the ISPs as the reason they do not obey RA 9775 to install blocking software to stop child abuse images and human trafficking promotions to pass through their facilities and servers.
This amendment in Senate Bill 2449 means they will have to install the blocking software to prevent their facilities being used for promoting child abuse or trafficking. The fine for not doing so will be from 2 million to 5 million pesos for every offense by the ISPs. The CEO of the ISPs can be charged, also. The ISPs must provide all information on any customer’s account when ordered to do so by a judge.
What we need now is for the House of Representatives to pass their version of the expanded law without further delay. (preda.org)/PN
