The Final Call

Charges of gang rape and abuse of children

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     - FCN EDITORIAL -    

According to the authorities, a 15-year-old girl went to a party in a vacant apartment and her seven-year-old sister tagged along. The older girl, who is still under the age of consent, reportedly had sex with some of the males in the apartment and then let the men pay to touch the little child.

The touching turned to outright rape, according to the police. At Final Call press time, four minors and three adults had been charged in the alleged crime. One of the minors charged and detained was the 15-year-old girl who allegedly offered up her stepsister.

Perhaps more hurtful than the incident reported in Trenton is knowing that the alleged crime could have happened anywhere in the United States and perhaps in the world. Black children in America, Black girls in particular, are at risk. Whether it is sexual exploitation in America, Africa, and the Caribbean, or children kept in virtual slavery in mines or on plantations, or conscripted as child soldiers or innocents preyed upon by wicked deceivers on urban streets.

Our most precious gifts and possessions and those who should be receiving love, nurturing and protection at the hands of adults are taken advantage of and misused in a criminal way. Not just in a way that violates the penal code of modern states and localities, but abused in ways that violate the law of Almighty God Himself.

What is the cost of the sexual and physical abuse of a little girl or young child? In her natural state a young girl adores and loves her father and her mother completely and without reservation. Being in the presence of her parents and adults entrusted with her care brings a deep joy and happiness and is like sunlight that beams down and promotes the life of a beautiful flower.

But when the opposite happens the child becomes almost dead inside, fear replaces love and dread and horror replaces the wonderful expectation of spending time with a loving caretaker. The caretaker has become a vicious tormenter. The child's existence becomes torturous as she or he wonders, when is the next painful blow coming? When is the next violation coming? When is the next soul killing assault on who I am coming? The assaults are so bad that very often these abused children try to take their own lives to relieve themselves of what they feel is unbearable suffering.

The Bible condemns the misuse of sex and misuse of the creation of God and the people of God. The Holy Qur'an, the Muslim book of scripture, warns that persecution is worse than slaughter, and Black children around the globe are living through persecution every day of their lives. Many are trapped in cycles of exploitation and dominated by adults who abuse and misuse them. Under Islamic or shariah law, the penalty for one that raped, those who gang raped a child, would be death. Why? Because the act perpetrated on the girl or child is so heinous that it takes divine intervention to resurrect the spirit and life of the child. It takes God Himself to breathe life back into the little child destroyed at the hands of horrible acting human beings.

Capital punishment is reserved for the most egregious crimes because life is sacred in the eyes of God but the sexual abuse of children destroys a life therefore divine law demands a life. If the creator of all life says that life should be taken for such an act, it is a sign of how despicable the act is in the sight of the Supreme Being.

How did human beings become so disrespectful of life itself and how low have we fallen that we perpetrate assaults on one another after centuries of assaults by our open enemy?

Our neighborhoods are often killing fields where we slaughter one another to the delight of our enemies and in an expression of our extreme ignorance and self-hatred. Children going to school, enjoying a birthday party, a walk down the street, a summer vacation, a visit to church have been gunned down in cold blood.

Now the enemy takes our youth, who need jobs, puts them in the armed forces where many serve two, three or four tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. In these theaters of war, young people are desensitized to violence and return to already violent neighborhoods as potential killing machines. Many return as ticking time bombs just waiting for the right incident to ignite murderous rage.

Where is the outrage? Where is the love of self and respect for self and kind that demands not just tough talk but strong action? Where is the organizing that must take place to protect children and prevent their misuse? Where is the unity that creates opportunity and alternatives to the deadly options and few options our children are given?

How many more mothers must weep and wail and how many children must shed bitter tears before we decide as a community enough is enough?