Why do bad things happen to good people, or to innocent people? I know that is the oldest question in the book, but we still have not made sense of it; we still do not have an answer. I don’t have the answer; we have all heard that God does not give anyone anything they cannot handle, but wow there are some pretty young people handling some pretty big issues.
Why do people force themselves on others, why is there sexual abuse, rape, and exploitation, what happened in this world to allow it. Here’s what happened, we didn’t listen, we didn’t recognize the signs, and we didn’t believe those people that suffered through these nightmares. We made it almost impossible for those that endured those inflictions to speak up, speak out. We treated them not as a victim but as an offender, the one that allowed this awful thing to happen. We are not the offenders, we are the injured, the wounded, we did nothing to bring this on, we did not ask for it, we did not look for it. I understand that all the facts need to be known, all the information gathered but if we make it difficult and extremely uncomfortable for the victim, how can we expect them to come forward, so they deal with alone, behind closed doors, never telling, never getting the help they so desperately deserve.
We need to build a safe environment for victims to go to tell their story, give them the opportunity to talk to someone that knows, that will understand, that will believe, no judgement, no fault finding. We must get these perpetrators off the street, out of our homes, away from not only our children but all of society. We must stop this violence, we must stop this from being passed down from generation to generation, we need to recognize and to act, and put these people away. We need society to understand this is not right and the only way to stop it is to speak up. We need to empower the victims, give them the strength and courage to fight to stand up and say what they did to me is wrong and I won’t accept it, and then they become survivors
So once again we ask “why”, we can’t answer it, all we can do it work towards illuminating the need to ask the question.
Written by Thelma Davies
* Thelma Davies is a survivor of sexual assault and offers her insight from a victims perspective.