There was a story on the news tonight about a girl in Pitt Meadows, who was drugged and then gang raped at a party in 2010. It was video taped by several people on their cell phones and posted to facebook and twitter.
She was 16.
And still, the rapist bastards got away. No one is charged in the actual rape because of lack of evidence, no one will come forward, no one will talk.
What the fuck is wrong with people today?
Do the right thing. Come forward and help this girl get the justice she deserves and make the boys who committed the crime pay for it. Don’t let them get away with doing something so horrific, with no punishment at all. What kind of message are we sending our children? That is okay to drug someone and do whatever you want to them because there is no way that you will ever get punished for it, even if it is all over the internet?
Don’t our children have any morals or understanding of right and wrong? And why the hell don’t they? You know why? Because we are scared of punishing our children for misbehaving. We are worried how it looks to other people to actually hold them accountable for their own freaking actions. We are too busy with our own lives to watch our children and see what is really going on with them.
Granted, the internet makes that harder. Children have access to tools we never did, and a lot of times we aren’t sure how to control that. It is not always easy. I know that myself.
But how is it, that in a situation like this, it isn’t used to help the victim? I just don’t understand how it can’t help them convict the bastards who raped her, and yet it was used to humiliate her for two years…it is still online, and to this day his friends are still harassing her on a regular basis.
What. The. Hell?
I can’t get my head around how warped that is.
How devastating it must be for her, how heart wrenching
To her credit, she is talking about it, she is asking for help. Not that she had any choice really, the internet all but made sure of that…but maybe, just maybe this girl can make a difference in some small way. Maybe her speaking out and being brave, will give other girls the voice that is so hard to find after something that horrific happens to you.
Maybe she can change how the world perceives a rape victim, maybe she can change how hard it is for a girl to come forward and feel confident enough to point the finger at her abuser and take back the control that is ripped from her when put in a situation that takes all of your power away.
How about instead of making the victim feel like it is her fault and that she could have changed the outcome of it all if only she had done something differently, we teach girls that we are going to back them up, that we will absolutely believe them when they ask for help. No one asks to be raped. No one ever deserves it, but it is what society has drilled into us forever.
She must have asked for it…
Guess what. She didn’t. It absolutely doesn’t matter what the situation was.
Maybe we should all talk to our children more.
Let’s be sure that they understand that hurting other people in any way, is not ok. Bullying is wrong. Not standing up when you see someone being picked on is wrong. Watching a 16 year old girl get gang raped at a party, video taping it and putting it online is WRONG. These are things we all KNOW instinctively.
It scares me that peer pressure can make these children not come forward and help this girl. How can we make them understand that it is what they need to do to be a decent human, it is the right thing to do. It is the ONLY thing to do.
Tell an adult what you know.
Any adult that you trust.
I am not saying that there won’t be any backlash for it, there might be. But how can you not do the right thing and know that the backlash is never going to be as bad as holding it in forever and ever.
I just hope that this girl gets the justice that she deserves and that she somehow gains strength from the knowledge that she has done everything in her power to make her rapists accountable. Even if they are never convicted, she will know that she has her power back, because she stepped up and faced it. She held her head high and carried on.
It is the hardest thing you can ever do.
It is the bravest.
I don’t know this girl in any way, but I am proud of her. I have respect for her. I am amazed by her strength.
It makes up for the disappointment I feel in society, in our justice system and in how wacked out our perception of right and wrong has become.
In many ways, she gives me hope…because it proves that sometimes our bravery overcomes the evil.
And some days, that seems to be all we have.
