Child Abuse.

This morning when I collected the newspapers at the door this headline screamed at me – Schoolgirl ‘gagged, raped’ on her way home. Almost on a daily basis we see news of some kind of child abuse all across our country but, from the image above, it is obvious that this is a universal phenomenon. There are stories of exploitation of the innocent by gangs that end up in trafficking too. Very often it is someone close to the child, say a relative or family friend or even school teacher who abuses the child.  What is more galling is the often experienced cover up by families out of shame or fear and even government authorities for political reasons as in the case of the British scandal.

I am not a psychologist to be able to comment on the why this is happening but am a philosopher of sorts who wonders as to why as human beings we are unable to universally behave like other living beings do.

Only human beings can conceive of a reality beyond their body/mind/intellect complex. They find deeper meanings to life, become very creative in many fields, invent new useful things, explore the unknown etc, but behave in such a vile manner that I find it difficult to understand why they do these things.

All life forms instinctively go after food, shelter and progeny, but only human beings seem to be able to produce these aberrations that are so devoid of compassion that a trusting child is used to satisfy some primitive urge and or to criminally exploit,  and often to protect from discovery even in the killing of an innocent life.

Things have come to such a stage that young parents of children now prevent older people from being friendly with young children, constantly afraid as to what the older person’s motives are. Mothers who think you are a paedophile for daring to glance or smile at her precious child are more the rule than the exception in public places. This is sad particularly for people like me who simply want to share the joy of childhood with the child and we have to curb our natural tendencies to be safer than sorry.

I wonder what this observer of human nature will now say if he ever reads my post.

Children are the future, because mankind is moving more and more towards infancy.
~ Milan Kundera

I think that quite a sizeable section of its male component is moving more towards psychopathy.
This topic was suggested by Ashok for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently eight of us write on the same topic every Friday.  I hope that you enjoyed my contribution to that effort.  The seven other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order,  Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Shackman and The Old Fossil. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, or not at all this week, do give some allowance for that too!