Outrage? Yes. But, Outrage in Every Case of Rape

Victims of sexual violence in any part of the world deserve our compassion, special assistance for their healing and justice to be done.

However, why is all this outrage about a gang-rape case in India now? Is it because the woman who was raped was an educated Swiss woman? Why can’t we see all this outrage every day on our TVs and in newspapers? Because rape and human trafficking for prostitution and pornography happens every day in India –one person is raped every 20 minutes– and in most impoverished countries of the world, and many times the victims are children, some as young as 4 years old! Don’t these women and children have as much dignity as this disgraced Swiss woman? And again the hackneyed question: is it that they don’t care because they are poor?

It is true that we need outrage in the face of such barbaric crimes, but we need outrage for every case that is or is not reported in the world. Millions of women, children and families’ lives are irreversibly destroyed by Human Trafficking; there are millions of suffering people who normalize an existence of exploitation and humiliation. Still worse, we now know this is just one of the many forms of slavery, which are far more than near. Exploitation exists in our streets, in our homes, in porno videos; there is blood in the petrol of our cars, in the clothes we have on, on our skin in the perfume we wear and even inside our bodies in the coffee we drink and in the chocolate our children eat. What kind of beast can know and benefit from this and live without taking responsibility for these crimes?

It is necessary to become Human Persons, to join hands to form a movement to transform our society and the world. The whole world is calling for a non-violent revolution in the name of Love, but not a feeble one, because the evils we have to confront are strong economic powers and corrupt politicians who support them, and only with the strength fruit of association will we be able to beat them.