The stressor that I am going to
discuss this week is violence. In particular, I am going to discuss sexual
abuse, as I have seen the destruction, damage and suffering sexual abuse can
have on a child. I once taught a little girl who came from a First Nations Reserve
close to my home town. When she was found and taken from her home she was badly
beaten, starved, unable to speak any language and was sexually mutilated. Her
family members passed her around and used her little innocent body for their
pleasure. When I first met her she was violent, unruly, untrusting and terrified.
She knew nothing of “our world” because she hadn’t been exposed to anything in
her 5 years of living. I couldn’t and still can’t imagine the hell that this
little girl had been exposed to and endured in her short years. When she first
came to our school we worked closely with the special education team and a
local psychiatrist to give her the support and help that she needed. We also
had discussions with the other students to prepare them for our new student and
gently explained some of her difficulties. It wasn’t long before she was also
diagnosed with FAS and began taking medication to help her control her
emotions. Her new foster family also worked very closely with the school
community to assist us and because they were also in need of support. These two
parents are truly saints. It takes very special and loving people to take in a
child in need of as much support as this little girl. Towards the end of the
year she began to settle in and was beginning to use language in simple
sentences. She still needs support and will likely need support for the rest of
her life because of the trauma and neglect she had faced.
It truly disgusts me that people
would treat and abuse such young and innocent children in such a way. This
little girl is at least fortunate that she lives in a country where child
sexual abuse is considered an outrage. Many others are not so lucky. Four years
ago I attended a conference in which the key note speaker was Dr. Samantha
Nutt, the founder of War Child Canada. She talked about rape with extreme violence
in areas of the Congo at war because of the mining extraction of coltan. Coltan
is a conflict mineral used in many of our technological devices and is mined
unethically for luxuries we use everyday. Dr. Nutt pleaded her audience to make
responsible decisions when purchasing electronics and ensuring that we are
recycling because people are dying and our choices make a difference. Some
people change their cell phone each time the new Iphone model comes out. Coltan
is essentially the new “blood diamond” and very few people are even aware of it
or what it is. The most troubling thing for me is that I was ignorant to coltan
and what my electronics were doing to the Congolese people. Boys as young as
ten are taken from their families and forced to work in the mines or as
soldiers to fight in the civil war. As part of the initiative these young boys
need to rape young girls. Dr. Nutt discussed a young girl she met while visiting
the Congo, she was brutally abused several times by many different boys and the
soles of her feet were cut off to keep her from trying to run away. The rape
and abuse of young girls and women in general happens everyday in the Congo. “Congo
has been called "the rape capital of the world. One study estimates that
nearly 2 million Congolese women have been raped” (Sauer, 2013). There has been
an ongoing civil war in the Congo which has caused millions of deaths and
instability in the country. In a country where women are already considered
second class and children are used for soldiers and tokens of war rape and
sexual abuse is reported but rarely dealt with. I believe the best hope the
Congolese people have is from organizations like War Child spreading awareness and
helping the children who have survived the war.
Sauer,
Maddy, 2013. 'When
we rape we feel free': Congo soldiers' shocking stories Retrieved from: http://news.msn.com/world/when-we-rape-we-feel-free-congo-soldiers-shocking-stories
War
Child. Retrieved from: http://www.warchild.ca/
0 comments:
Post a Comment