Sunday, July 15, 2007

Using religion to cover sexual abuse!!

This is today’s headline on Yahoo news and most American media
The nation's largest Catholic archdiocese has settled its abuse cases for $660 million, by far the largest payout in the church's sexual abuse scandal, The Associated Press has learned. The amount, which would average a little more than $1.3 million per plaintiff, exceeded earlier reports that the settlement would be between $600 million and $650 million.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070715/ap_on_re_us/church_abuse
My question is how many Mulla’s did it in Bahrain or even in the Islamic world?? Did any of the victims get some sort of compensation?? Ofcourse NOT !! they couldn’t even talk about it, the victims will live the rest of their lifes with the shames.
I guess we have a lot to learn and a lot of changes must happen. First change is the ability to see people beyond the mask of religion; we should not assume people are good or bad based on how religious they appear, we have to be able to judge people on actions.
The issue also puts doubt in my mind about segregation (males and females), we thought we can use segregation to limit sexual abuse, it seems it had not worked. Maybe segregating people makes them gay?? Any truth to that argument?? I really don’t know but its defiantly something to think about!

7 comments:

Ammaro said...

you can abuse me for $1.3 million anytime..

but seriously, the issue here is completely taboo and thats why so many people get away with it. its sick.

Free Spirited said...

Segregation is recommended. Obviously comparing with the west we have less abuse cases, but most importantly, if people follow Islam Properly. This won’t happen.

I believe segregation alone will not solve the problem sometimes it will increase it, especially with Media that has very strong influence on our behaviors. No segregation on TV or the internet. So if the person doesn’t fear god and has no social responsibility we can’t help it these days.

Gardens of Sand said...

I disagree with free spirited when she/he says that we have less abuse cases than the west. No, we talk less about. For us, it is sweeped under the rug and we are never to acknowledge this huge monkey on our backs.

A pediatrician working in the er told me horror stories of child abuse in Bahrain. I personally know of so many who were abused.

And segregation will only have limited use. You see, if you study abuse cases you will find that most children were abused by close family members: fathers, uncles, close family friends, brother, etc. So segregation will not work.

What will work is talking publicaly and honestly about it. Training our children about acceptable forms of contact and what isnt. Who can touch you and where. We need to take off the rosy glasses and look around and make sure that someone close isnt abusing our child. And of course enforce tougher punishments of child predators. Execution is preferable in my own opinion.

SILVER said...

This is a good discussion, hope we get more people involved.

Anonymous said...

This is such a heartbreaking topic for me. I absolutely LOVE children and I don't understand in the life of me how any SANE human being could proceed with such a demeaning act. I’m sure we will all agree that no matter where this is happening, it’s just WRONG.
Its worse in our society coz like “gardens of sand” said, they just don’t talk about it and they are not even allowed to talk about. Regardless, what are these children expected to do?
Even if they talk about it, do u think people here will accept them? If we take the time to think about the hurts and pains of these children and be sympathetic with them, others certainly don’t or won’t!! Before we educate these children on how to talk about there abuses, we should educate our society on having morals, ethics, feelings, reason, saneness, and much much more…

Free Spirited said...

Ok then if most of abuse cases come from close friends and families, then the parents are responsible to monitor their kids and never leave them alone.

Gardens of Sand, I agree with you that abuse cases are not publicly discussed here, but still we have less cases than the west and the reason goes back to us being Muslims (a reason for this to happen less) plus our society is more conservative, so there is less influence for it to happen than the west.

Unknown said...

Most abuse cases, wethur to children or adults are uaually from first degree relatives, as mentioned by gardens of sand. This is well known and documented worlwide and in all literature. Many of the times its by a father, mother or by step parents.

Islam, Christianity or any other religion forbids these acts of animalism against children.

the sad thing about our society is the ambiuity we live and preech in every aspect of our daily lives. so its very natural that we hear less about such barbaric acts in the media or even among ourselves.

Once we have freedom of speech and proper meens to free press, we can use these meens for better purposes and causes than the continous nonsense about sectarism.