The Darkness

It all started con el "Show de Cristina"... actually that's not where it started at all but I guess that's just how our mind works. We were just sitting around in the living room, studying, checking email and absentmindedly watching el "Show de Cristina". That day it happened to be on sexual abuse. She interviewed many girls who had been forced into prostitution as well as people that worked in organizations trying to rescue these people (women and children).

The stories, of course, were horrendous. I don't know of any appropriate adjectives that would do justice to the situation. One example in particular I can't get out of my mind: Babies, as little as 6 months old, starved so they would suck the dicks of filthy, disgusting men. I don't even want to read what I just wrote, the thought is unbearable.

The afore mentioned image has made me randomly break into tears over the past 3 days and hasn't let me sleep well at night... which consecuently, has made me start this blog.

The thing is that I got to thinking about my own past and fears, and I got really pissed off. I realized (at least I have a theory) why I'm scared of the dark. I think I asociate it with everything that happens in the world that remains hidden. All the things that people don't know about, or don't believe, or simply prefer to ignore; everything that happens in the dark of night that in the day somehow disappears, eventhough it's an elephant in a very small room.

"Las estadísticas mundiales indican que el A.S.I. representa un importante problema social y de salud en numerosas regiones, pese a que se ha demostrado la existencia de un subregistro del fenómeno. Por ejemplo España y EEUU reportan que alrededor del 20 al 25% de las niñas y del 10 al 15% de los niños sufren algún tipo de abuso sexual antes de los 17 años. En América Latina más de 20 000 niños de los países más pobres son vendidos a pedófilos de EEUU, Canadá y Europa y más de 10 000 menores entre los 9 y 16 años de edad son destinados a prostíbulos con un precio inferior al de un equipo de vídeo (3)."

http://www.monografias.com/trabajos15/incidencia-abuso-sexual/incidencia-abuso-sexual.shtml

So if 25% of girls have been sexually abused; that means that if I'm in a group of 4 girls, probably, at least, one of them has had, at least, one truamatic sexual experience in her life time.

So how come we don't talk about it? We don't want to make other people feel uncomfortable. But, shouldn't they feel uncomfortable? Shouldn't we dare to ask our children and our friends and our mothers and sisters, and fathers and brothers for that matter, if there's anything they want to share? Shouldn't we give them that chance? And not just once, because you don't get over a traumatic experience after telling someone about it over one cup of coffee; specially because most people don't know when to just shut up and let the other person talk. We need to let people know that they can talk about things as much as they want, that they can continue to feel pain no matter how many years have passed by; because they wouldn't still be feeling pain if their loved ones hadn't turned a blind eye...

...and let everything painful stay in the darkness.