Paedophilia and the myth of eternal, female victim

I do admit, I get nervous at times. I get nervous when I have to hear stories of what people have to do to get by in life on an everyday basis. I get nervous when I hear about what people have to do to stay alive on an everyday basis. And remain safe. But then the evils of society are never too far behind. For example, take paedophilia.

This affront to human society exists in several myriad forms. It is true. Paedophilia is a rampant cancer all over the world. As a child, my best friend was a boy who used to work at our house, him being a child himself. Often he would go back to his village for visits and trips with his family. And many a times, he would come back with black, bruising marks on his body. At times, I would refer to it. At other times, I would not.

One time, he told me about it. And told me in no uncertain terms that one of his uncles, who happen to be a very influential person in his village, would "use" him at times. At that time, I knew not what that meant. Having grown up now, I do.

In Bangladesh, paedophilia takes on several myriad forms, although very few of them are ever reported on. Majority of the victims are children of both sexes, although media tends to focus primarily on girls, creating a biased gender focus. Why is there hardly media focus on boys and men who are the victims of sexual abuse and violence?

Such an issue would make anyone wonder, is there a gender bias when it comes to covering abuse and violence in Bangladesh? Or are we, as Bangladeshis, too caught up in the illusion of women as pure, pristine and harmless?

In the case of paedophilia, why is it that the media consistently focuses on women as being the sole victims, while saying nothing of men who are equally victimised?

It makes me wonder whether feminism was actually vengeance by women on men for what they went through — in other words, a cycle of historical abuse only existing to create further abuse.

How sad is that! And how tragic is that!

Perhaps, this is the reason why I will never be a feminist, not because the original objective of it was- and is- wrong, but because like men who have taken advantage of other men in the name of falsified "brotherhood", some women have also taken advantage of other women in the name of a falsified "sisterhood".

In the case of paedophilia, when media addresses this topic, it is always a reference to children who are abused and who are always presumed to be a part of the greater pool of victims of this social evil.

However, if paedophilia is a crime since it is a sexual act with a child from whom consent is usually not obtained, then how would society describe an individual who, from childhood to adulthood is kept as a "sex slave" by a more powerful and influential family member/employer/teacher or master?

Because in today's "civilised/democratic" world, we all know that slavery is well and alive.

What forms it takes, how it executes itself and so forth is probably all the difference it is.

The only danger in today's times is the jargon of democracy prevents the classification of slavery as slavery, because again, as we all know, slavery became extinct after the continent of Africa liberated themselves together with the rest of the colonised world.

Sure.

Oh well. Back to the topic of paedophilia.

A complete analysis of paedophilia would require an analysis of power, ageism, ethnicity and other factors-most importantly, money-when discussing its persistence and prevalence. When discussing the less-discussed topic of sexual slavery, in which both men and women can be abused and kept as prisoners for as long as their entire lives-only to be killed when they get old or if their "master" finds a younger, newer toy-intervention and action are nice on print; only difficult to implement.

It is a shame when these acts of systemic violence are never reported on television, the greater media and comes to light for a few only through social media.

Indeed, as a writer myself, I came to know about sexual slavery through websites such as Wikipedia, Facebook and TVTropes.org. Although some people would think teaching young people in schools about paedophilia and issues of systemic violence may be "hard" for some, why is it that children, teenagers and adults are not able to access topics related to violence-sexual or otherwise-through outlets which should have the resources ready and on-hand?

It begs a serious question then: in the effort of serving a specific target audience, do media end up playing second fiddle to a corporate system of visualisation which chooses to explore some topics and woefully ignore others?

It is a risk for so many people to not be informed and end up falling in trouble later.

For the sake of people who are victims of abuse everywhere, let us hope that in our efforts to save them from leeches and scoundrels everywhere who are able to take advantage of them just because they can, media plays a collaborative role, instead of a destructive one.

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Nadia Chowdhury, an aspiring writer, is a graduate from York University, Canada.