Loss of Innocence
July 24, 2009
by Monica Jean Alaniz
|The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and not necessarily The New Agenda.
When I was 8-years-old my life still centered on dolls and toys. As far as I know, boys in my age group were concerned about whatever was the latest action figure tied commercially to some cartoon, sports, or trading cards.
Since this is my recollection of childhood I found it particularly disturbing to read about an 8-year-old girl in Arizona who was sexually assaulted by four boys ranging in age from 9 to 14. By all accounts the boys played into the girl’s innocence by luring her to a shed with the promise of chewing gum.
As if this information wasn’t shocking enough, the reaction of the girl’s family has drawn further outrage. Her parents have blamed her for bringing shame on the family and have even gone so far as to tell a case worker “Take her, I don’t want her.”. While many of us cannot fathom such a response to the rape of one’s child, law enforcement points out that the families of the girl and the young boys are refugees from the West African nation of Liberia. Cultural differences are obviously coming into play here, but this is no excuse for what happened to this girl and the treatment at the hands of her parents; and, it is not the only instance of a young girl being sexually exploited and not being able to turn to her family for support.
This story comes at a time when other stories of sexual abuse are in the news such as the trial of Tony Alamo who is accused of sexually assaulting girls as young as 9 years of age. Of course, Alamo is denying all the allegations. What is also interesting in this case is that in many cases the young girls were actually turned over to Alamo by their parents.
Doesn’t it make you ask yourself: What in the world is going on!?
Childhood should be a time of innocence, not one of fear, and yet the young girl in the Arizona case has not only lost her innocence, but most likely her family as well. All the women who have testified against Alamo have also talked about having their innocence taken away.
Who do we blame? Do we blame the media for bombarding us with sexualized images of younger and younger looking girls (see Amy Siskind’s blog on the subject here)? Do we blame those who refuse to teach young adults about sex and sexuality because of fear of corruption and giving them the wrong impression when it might actually prevent unsafe or violent sexual behavior? Do we blame ourselves for not speaking up about these things?
One thing I know is that we CANNOT blame the victim!
We need to speak out and say it’s not okay to turn young girls into sex objects. It is not okay for anyone, anywhere to treat women like second-class citizens. While we do concentrate on women’s issues in the U.S., it is also important to realize that the world is becoming a smaller and smaller place due to immigration patterns and advanced modes of transportation and communication. How many of us thought the that plight of women in Liberia would end up being something we had to address right here in the U.S.?
Thank you for this piece.
we need to shed some real light on this horrible problem.
I don’t like that they bring their culture to our soil and take advantage of our state systems by giving up their raped daughter.
I say we take their daughter and give up them. Send them back.
A couple months TNA was reporting on a situation in FLorida where a young girl was gang raped and the parents of the boys were branding her as the one who had asked for it. the comments to this article led me to a blog talking about many similar horrifying events and apparently gang rape is not rare and usually uses a very young victim.
Just to remind you that this is not necessarily an immigration problem. Although it is hard for me to comprehend how a family can give up their victimized daughter.
I thought about this when I listened to president Obama talking to the NAACP. It was a very impressive speech but lacked any gender differentiation. Fine to tell parents that they have to read with their kids, put the TV off and do homework with them. He even said something like models for our kids need to grow beyond being a raper. I just wondered why is he not giving advice to gang members to respect their female members of the neighborhood. Could the word of the first black president make a difference? But gender issues are his sore or blind spot. Injustice to and slavery of women is something he will not be able to recognize. Despite the MS magazine cover I doubt that he will be a Lincoln for supporting womens’ rights and give respect to women.
sorry, I think this word is spelled rapper.
Yes I absolutely blame the media. I blame them because women do not have a voice in the monopoly they have constructed. I blame “womens groups” like NOW because they have not protested on behalf of women or given women who are interested in protesting their treatment by media a place to organize. I blame our corporate owned government because they have not forced the OPTION of cable TV a la carte so women could at least have the consumer right to refuse to subsidize sexist and degrading content which is forced into our homes. I also blame “women’s groups” like NOW because they are unable to work with anyone who does not look and think like them so they never took notice of conservative efforts to force cable TV a la carte and joined in the protest. Images of women in American media and the lack of women’s consumer rights to refuse to subsidize these images are pretty much the result of a cluster f*ck of failure.
This was a very beautiful peace and it’s about time someone has finally gotten ready to talk about the dirty truth. Speaking from a victims prospective it would have been horrible if my family had just thrown me out after it had happened. We should do something for these girls. The only question is what?
I had heard of this incident but had not heard details…it’s shocking but not surprising that these parents would defend the boys and cast out the girt-their culture seems to be based on men’s inability to take responsibility for anything they do. Blaming the victim in a case like this is standard-at home she’d be stoned to death for humiliating her family-in addition to being blamed for the incident-it’s really the heartbreaking tip of the iceberg.
Until/unless they can be assimilated into our culture, what can we do to help? It’s hard to reason w/people whose mindset is in the 6th century.
They’re current enough to pick their victim properly, though, no danger to them there…on the up side, that child may be better off away from her parents who do not value her-perhaps now she’ll have a chance in life.
GRRRRRRRR!
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