Rape is a four letter word which makes my blood boil at the same time it causes my stomach to curl up into my chest.
In my opinion, few acts in the world are worse than rape. Murder and child abuse or molestation would be high up there with rape, and more recently I would move posting obscene images on Facebook to the top of the list.
A couple weekends ago, a 16-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by several boys or young men at a rave party at a private rural home outside Vancouver. Police suspect she was drugged with GHB (the date rape drug).
The rape alone is a heinous crime. A gang-rape after drugging the poor young girl is absolutely unthinkable. And the fact a 16-year-old boy stood back and watched the whole act go down as he videotaped and photographed this crime is unforgivable. Add the fact he posted these images on Facebook and one has to wonder what sort of insanity is going on in his head.
In my opinion, this boy was raised with a lack of morals; otherwise he would have done something to stop this terrible act from taking place.
It makes me sick to my stomach. Each time I read an update on this story, I lost my appetite for hours. This incident is utterly disturbing on every level.
Police have done their best to try and remove the photos from the internet, but unfortunately, people are reposting them quicker than they can be deleted.
The people posting these photos need help from a counsellor, as they obviously have issues they need to work out if they don't feel it's wrong to post videos and photos of a child (and at 16 she is still a child), being raped.
What makes this situation even worse is the fact some people have been posting on social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, stating the rape was actually consensual sex, and are therefore blaming the young girl. I saw one interview with a teenage girl who appeared as though she was trying to hold back a smile as she was quoted as saying, "...and it wasn't even really her fault or anything."
And it wasn't really her fault or anything? Really? This is the best this girl can come up with - "wasn't really her fault." Of course it wasn't her fault. She was being RAPED! The definition of rape is: forced, unwanted sexual intercourse.
Forced and unwanted. Now what part of forced and unwanted means it was the young girl's fault?
What really gets me is how someone could even think in the first place that it may have been her fault. Oh wait, I know, people have been thinking this way for years. It's why less than half of accused rapists are found guilty. As history shows, women are often accused of lying about the rape or of "bringing it on themselves."
This is why many cases of rape also go unreported. Why would a woman subject herself to all the pain and misery of re-living the awful experience only to be told, "sorry we don't have enough evidence," or "sorry, you were intoxicated and therefore we can't believe you."
This happens less often today than it did a decade ago, but we still have a long way to go.
The only positive side to this story is the video and photos could help police identify those responsible for this unthinkable crime. And once police do discover the identities of these boys or young men, it will be hard to deny the fact the act took place, regardless of the fact the young girl was intoxicated or not.
I can only hope the police decide to make an example of these boys and men for what they did to this poor girl, in order to send a message that rape - or any form of sexual crime - is serious and will not be tolerated.
As for the 16-year-old boy who videotaped and photographed the whole thing, it's a tough call.
A big part of me wants to see him punished for spreading child pornography and for standing back as this heinous crime took place. But at the same time, I can't deny the fact his actions could help police carry through with more serious punishments for those responsible for the actual rape.
But regardless of how the images could indeed help police, this 16-year-old boy's actions will forever haunt this girl. Dealing with the fact she was gang-raped will be hard enough to live with for the rest of her life, never mind the fact images of that fateful night will continue to pop up on the internet for years to come.
My heart truly goes out to her.
