The Guilty, All Of Them, Need To Be Held Accountable.

It's 2006, and little children, babies, are still being murdered by members of their "families" or people responsible for their care and protection. Thousands of kids are being brutalized in their own homes, with no hope of escape. Foster care is a joke, and a bad one, living on the streets is life-limiting, and though lots of lip service is paid to the plight of abused and neglected children, nobody is making any real moves towards societal change.

And somebody knows. Somebody is always aware, we do not exist in vacuums, and battered children are not invisible. People who are alert to the fact that abuse is taking place and choose to do nothing, say nothing, for whatever pathetic excuse they conjure up, are complicit. Not quite as guilty as the abusers themselves, perhaps, but still as guilty as hell.

Child abuse, in all its insidious forms, has to be made abhorrent to every member of society, regardless of race, ethnicity, religious or cultural beliefs, or history. Until child abusers, and those who shield them by not reporting abuse, are reviled for being the cowards and bullies they are, children will be bruised and broken every single day. Some will die, some will live and grow up to be bruised and broken adults.

I know that there were several people in my small childhood community who knew what was happening behind the walls of my house. They knew, and chose to ignore the torture of small children. That's sub-human, repulsive behaviour, and I wish those people suffered with the pain of guilt. They don't though. Guilt requires an understanding of right and wrong, and people who allow the abuse of children are not burdened with conscience.

I'll see you all in hell.