The Voice of Child Abuse

Little baby Yueyue captured the worlds attention as 18 passersby’s left her to die in the street after being run over twice. The world condemned all of China for a lack of reaction a lack of empathy for a two year old run over twice because of a fear of retribution from helping. Yet five children die everyday from child abuse and Neglect in the US. Five children die because neighbors and teachers and family members and doctors do not report the bruises and the screams. Five children die everyday because someone is too occupied to notice children are locked in rooms with open windows naked without any protections against the 30 below weather seeping in. Five children die everyday because someone can’t seem to afford food or formula. Five children die everyday because the ones charged with their care expect that the more they hit them the more likely they are to stop crying. Five children die everyday because their caretaker’s part-take in their vices perhaps even after the children are sleeping and it doesn’t matter, although they wake up three days later and two of their three children trapped in cribs and bassinets are lying dead outstretched to bottles lying on the floor. Five children die everyday because they are given to people vetted to care for them who treat them as ATM’s and vessels for practical and vicious therapeutic devices. It doesn’t even begin to touch what is done to children whose lives are forever altered because of the rapes and the tortures they ensue and actually live.

Before we start judging other countries we need to take a hard look at ourselves and what we ignore and allow to happen to our own children. Children are treated as second class; the way we use to treat slaves. When a child is beaten, tortured, raped, starved, deprived and taught to feel less-than we call it abuse. Yet what do we call it when these things happen to an adult, how would we feel if someone 3ft taller and outweighed us by 100 plus pounds hit us with their hands and other objects, coerced us into sexual acts without our understanding and consent, forced us into confinement and refused food and water or a bathroom, not allowed to be cleaned or treated for ailments? We would call it an assault, attempted murder, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, rape, and cruel and unusual punishment, the list goes on and so does the number of forgotten children.

We live in an age of information yet we are so uneducated. The irony is beyond ironic. Our Nation is flooded with inane updates of frivolous and unworthy cerebral space and yet most do not know who actually needs attention but it is not their fault. How is Mary in Kansas City suppose to know that her neighbor is about to become front page news because they allow their new boyfriend to watch their two year old while they go to work. Of course they do hear the thumps and the pounds and the screams but they think that it isn’t any of their business and that if they call or intervene in any way that someone will be upset with them so they do nothing and a child dies from blunt force trauma to their abdomen which is the equivalent of a front impact collision at 70 mph.

We need to put some “village” back into our society. We take no responsibility with the lives around us and either expect someone else to take action or fear involvement and the result is catastrophic. Children are the biggest causality of our apathy because they come into this world without any defense or expectations and are the most vulnerable among us.

Report, become involved anyway possible and maybe we can start making a dent in the number of children who are hurt everyday, who live lives in fear, who cannot speak for themselves. Be their Voice!