OUTRAGED! Rape of a Child is NOT Entertainment!
On 25th October, 2011, the local television program “Crime Watch” which airs on TV6 at 6pm in Trinidad and Tobago, aired video footage of a 13 year old girl being beaten and raped. The host of Crime Watch, also had the child’s mother on set and asked her questions about how she felt on hearing the cries of her daughter as she is being raped by several men on the video.I cannot sit idly by and merely shake my head at this abomination. That the rape of a child is aired on a television show that is notorious for sensationalizing, and packaging criminal activity and trauma of victims as entertainment, signals that we have reached an all new level of barbarianism.
In a country where the cries of a child being raped can be aired at prime time, and then again at night, and again the next day, and again the next night - is it any wonder that we are a country whose rates of murder of women by domestic partners and rape are amongst the highest in the world?
For if we can reduce someone to a sound-bite, a headline, a statistic, then it becomes easier for us to forget they are human beings. They become ‘the other’, ‘a number’, ‘not one of us’. And when we are fed violence as entertainment, we become desensitized to the chopping, the burning, the raping. Suddenly a woman who is ‘just’ battered is no big deal.
WomenSpeak was created to give these ‘statistics’ a human face. To give women the opportunity to tell their stories of abuse, harassment, discrimination, in their own words. To encourage every man and woman in the region to take responsibility for sharing the message that discrimination against women is a disease that is rotting us from the inside out. That we stand as Caribbean men and women, boys and girls who believe in the dignity of all human beings. And we DEMAND higher standards of decency, empathy and justice for women and girls.
We each have a voice. Let us use it. If we are fed up of the exploitation, denigration and dehumanization of our women, men and children, please exercise your conscience and let the Telecommunication Authority of Trinidad and Tobago, Crime Watch and TV6 and its affiliates know what you think of it’s degrading ratings ploys; of this violence perpetrated by the local media upon it’s citizens.
CALL.WRITE.SPEAK OUT.REPOST.RETWEET.
For my part, I want Crime Watch OFF THE AIR. PERIOD.
Below are contact numbers and links
Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (click link for complaint form)Simone Leid - The WomenSpeak Project
#5 Eighth Avenue Extension, Off Twelfth Street, Barataria, Trinidad and Tobago.
Phone : 1-868-675-8288
TV6
35 Independence Square , Port of Spain, Trinidad, WI
Telephone 1-868-627-8806
Trinidad Express Newspapers
35-37 Independence Square, Port of Spain, Trinidad, WI
1-868-623-1711/8
Hott 93 Office
#5 Rosalino Street, Woodbrook
Port Of Spain, Trinidad, W.I.
Phone: (868).625.8426, (868).623.7605
Fax: (868).624.3234
Learn more about the WomenSpeak Project’s Mission and Objectives here http://womenspeak.tumblr.com/tagged/Mission
and here
http://womenspeak.tumblr.com/tagged/objectives
Amen Sister - I like your hutzpah. I'm from Montana in the U.S. and am also appalled by the violence that masquerades as entertainment. The peak of depravity - what have we become? When women speak we are so very powerful. Keep up the good work and I will return often to hear your voice.
ReplyDeletePlease visit me at www.miraclesisters.blogspot.com
Thank you Deborah for visiting and posting.
ReplyDeleteI feel very strongly about this. To date this so called 'tv host' has apologized publicly but at no time did he admit having broken the broadcasting laws. So anyone watching him and being on 'his side' would never think that he was in the wrong. What he did was horrible. he obviously knew who the perpetrator was before he put the video up. Had he just turned it over to the police as he should have done, he would not have been in the limelight. He has an agenda and many women in Trinidad want him off the air. He has done some good in some areas of crime but this? He went over the top and I believe that self styled vigilantes who believe no one can touch them, are extremely dangerous.
I will visit,
And to add, the news is that this is sitting on the DPP's desk as I write - not that I expect anything other than a wrap on the knuckles.
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