It would be an understatement to say that sexual violence is a problem in our society -- in fact, we have gone past the point when we could have deemed it merely a problem that needed to be solved.
The reports keep on coming: On July 3, a 20-year-old woman was gang-raped; on July 6, a teenager was similarly gang-raped by an auto-rickshaw driver and his passengers; and last Friday, a 7-year-old was raped in Wari.
It is a tragedy of the highest order when incidents of rape and sexual abuse become a daily occurrence, with each story revealing horrific details of how each heinous act was carried out.
While it is undoubtedly the case that the scourge of sexual violence has become a sickness that is spreading throughout our society, recent incidents force us to ask why such a problem continues to exist and why we continue to fail, as a society, to prevent these crimes from taking place in the future.
It is evident that a big part of the problem lies in the fact that social perceptions of sex and sexual violence remain regressive, with many in society blaming or shunning the victims, while another aspect lies in the culture of impunity that remains pervasive amongst our law enforcement agencies when it comes to such incidents.
No matter the cause, it is evident that we are not doing enough to ensure that the most vulnerable members of our society are safe from the destructive clutches of the sexually deviant.
Not only must we take the hardest stance against perpetrators, we must also think long-term and work on educating the population and generating awareness regarding issues of sexual violence.
