New links
Don’t know if anyone’s noticed that I added a couple of survivor blogs to the blogroll, End of Abuse and The last one. As always, if you know of any blogs by abuse depression or disability survivors, please pass them on!
Similar Posts
When it Comes to Abuse, Trafficking, and Violence, Do We Have a Race and Gender Problem?
What I want to address, however, is how our society defines victims and how it leaves far too many people behind. The article above is a great example. How many people, if asked about sex trafficking, picture little white girls or women abducted from Target? Probably a lot. For many, the only information they’ve ever gotten about trafficking are warnings about Target or shopping mall parking lots from their Facebook friends. They don’t know how many teenage boys from broken homes, living in poverty, are pulled into being trafficked. How many gay youths, rejected by their families, fall victim to it? How many immigrant children here, with no parental supervision, are sold off by the people who should be protecting them from sexual slavery?Â
Those stories, even if they’re told, are not going to grab national headlines. They are not going to evoke world-wide outrage and sympathy. Those are things that happen to “other people”. We might even be tempted to start looking for reason why it’s their own fault, or at least the parents fault, right?Â
From a media perspective, we also have to keep this in mind. An abduction of a young white girl from her home, is a rare event. It’s actually newsworthy because it happens so rarely. When it happens, it’s shocking. A trans, minority, teen being coerced into selling themselves, with no one to turn to for protection, isn’t any of those things. A gay male teen being kicked out of their parents house and trying to make it through homelessness, is also not something that happens so rarely that there would be major news coverage of it. These things happen all of the time. So often, that they aren’t really news.Â
So, which group should we have support and services for? I’d like to vote for ALL OF THEM. But that will take educating people about the reality of who gets abused, who gets trafficked, and for us all to accept that it happens everywhere. Until we get there, and are willing to see all different types of people as victims, we will continue to fail one group or another. That’s not acceptable.Â
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. I hope, as I’ve always hoped for this site, that it is a place where survivors of all races, male and female would feel a little less alone. I know it’s rare for men to speak of being sbuse survivors anywhere, but there are some of us out here. Keep writing!
please forgive me for answering only now. you put my blog on your blog and i’m touched. In Israel the whole subject on abuse is still kind of new-ish. But NEVER is there a situation where male survivors speak up. And i mean NEVER. I am at awe each time i see that. You see, we aren’t educated like that. Besides the fact that we, the older survivors, have no room to ‘let’ it out. The expectation from us is high, too high. And that is such a shame. We have a lot to learn.
Thanks Katrina, I’ve added your site as well!
I just wanted to let you know about my blog. Thank you. Katrina