Rape & Child Abuse Tragedy

By Mano Ratwatte –June 9, 2015

Mano Ratwatte

It was with great trepidation that a lot of us émigré Sri Lankans read the story on the horrible abduction, rape and murder of an 18 year old in Jaffna. Rape is a heinous crime by itself. Rape and murder is carried out by vile men and it is not about romance, or love or even having sex for pleasure. It is a violent sadistic crime and it is about savage men exercising violent control over women.

In the US it is estimated that 300,000 women face sexual assault or rape attacks per year. Attacks against women and children (including against boys) has a chronic ugly pathology and it has nothing to do with how a person dresses. Date rape is another serious issue in nations where there are no restrictions on intimacy. That too has nothing to do with how a woman dresses but has to do with impaired judgment where a man is unable to accept that no means no.

If the claim that sexual assault, rape and molestation are all about appearances were true, then how is that the Catholic Church has for decades hidden the ugly truth about child abuse/pedophilia across the world? Was it the fault of the defenceless boys that they were molested by persons of the cloth in whom we all trust? From Germany, to Ireland to Australia to the US the Church and Vatican have systemically covered child abuse from the public by quietly transferring pedophile priests from one parish to another. They have no spent Billions of dollars to settle cases with the victims in the USA. They have ruined hundreds if not thousands of lives; were those victims wearing shorts that were too short or victims of predatory men? It is only since Pope Francis took over the Papacy that decades of abuse and predatory behavior is being discussed openly in the west. The crimes against kids by clergy in Ireland were covered with connivance of local police for ages.

How is it that the demented religious Islamic extremists of Boko Haram in Nigeria are kidnapping young girls and raping them and selling them as wives in the name of religion? How is it that ISIL soldiers are raping Arab women who are not Sunnis but are conservatively dressed Arabs ? Almost all of those victims were dressed conservatively right? How about gang rapes in India? Indian women wear Salwar kameez; in rural India and Pakistan women wear the veil. It is not their dress or their clubbing at night that made them the targets for vicious assaults right?         Read More