BY SHAY CULLEN
THE HORRIFIC number of sexual assaults, homicides, child sexual abuse and human trafficking of female children and intimate partner violence has reached epic proportions in recent years. Society is becoming more brutal, not civilized.
We must ask, so we can know how to act: why is there a growing level of violence, physical and sexual, against women and children among males in today’s world?
The violent murder recently of a young woman, Ashling Murphy, 21, in Tullamore, Ireland, has focused attention on these horrific crimes against women and children in so-called civilized societies.
What is the cause of Ashling’s murder? It is not just one more, it is one more of hundreds of thousands of femicides. Mexico recorded the murders of 3,723 women in 2020.
Amnesty International said at least 10 women and children are murdered every day in Mexico. Murders of young women by Islamic family members around the world, in so called “honor killings,” is growing. El Salvador has the highest rate of murders of women and children in Latin America.
In the Philippines, huge numbers of children are trafficked and sexually abused online. The rape of children by biological fathers and live-in partners is increasing. One in three girls and one in six boys are victims of rape before the age of 16. This is a possible cause of the predatory behavior by some males. It is likely that sexual violence begets more sexual violence.
The proliferation of child sexual abuse materials and video games showing violence against women and children made possible by the telecommunications corporations and their Internet Service Providers can be driving the abuse. They are a devastating, enabling influence. They refuse to obey the law and install blocking software to prevent human trafficking and sexual violence against children and young women.
The story of Petra is typical but only one in thousands are not rescued and saved.
Petra was a lonely abandoned child with no one to care or love her but a sick aging grandmother. Petra (not her real name) had a difficult childhood that left her sad and depressed. Her mother died when Petra was three years old and her father married again and had three children. She felt unwanted and unloved so Petra went to live with her maternal grandmother.
She was encouraged by her grandmother to study and was clever at school but her emotional deprivation made her lose hope. Then, Petra was devastated when her only loving relative, her grandmother, died. Petra was feeling hopeless. She lived with an uncle but was not welcome. She was another mouth to feed for him.
She was now 14 and went to live with her teenage friends and they had a negative influence on her. She joined them in indulging in alcohol, smoking and teenage sexual encounters and at 15 thereabout she lived in with a boyfriend.
It was a loveless relationship and he was using her for his satisfaction. He controlled her and would not allow her to leave him. She experienced a form of sexual and psychological violence and control in that intimate relationship.
Women and children between the ages of 15 years and 49 years reported that they have been in a physically violent relationship with an intimate partner. That is 27 percent of all women worldwide. (To be continued)/PN
