IN the developing world, violence is an everyday threat for the poor. Millions of children and women are exploited in the commercial sex trade; statistics have established the stark reality that one of five women will be a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime, and in excess of 30 million people are held as modern-day slaves.It is estimated that by 2020, an approximate 1.5 billion persons will live without secure rights to their homes and property.
Throughout the developing world, fear of violence is a part of everyday life for the poor. It is as much a part of poverty as hunger, disease or malnutrition.
The poorest are so vulnerable because their justice systems – police, courts and laws – don’t protect them from violent people. According to the United Nations, justice systems in the developing world are so broken that the majority of poor people live life “far from the law’s protection.”
Solutions for these abominations in the family of mankind can only come with community-level involvement, with a holistic approach from all stakeholders.
Community and church leaders should partner with law enforcement officials to go into brothels, bars, slave facilities and other dark places to rescue victims; justice should be relentlessly pursued in the court to ensure all traffickers, slave owners, rapists and child molesters, and other criminals are brought to swift justice – with the accent on swift; survivors of violence should be helped to rebuild their lives and restore them to their families, with the provision of trauma counseling, job skills training, education or other help to meet each survivor’s specific needs; human rights groups should lobby for functional justice systems and constitutional changes where necessary to strengthen the advocacy and justice systems so that victims do not fall through cracks left open either intentionally or unintentionally.
The International Justice Mission has a worldwide membership of volunteers who provide advocacy, organise fundraisers, and help in a multiplicity of ways to victims.
Village Service Trust is a progressive UK charity that works with Indian NGOs to support women, HIV+ people and Dalits confronting poverty and injustice. The organisation empowers marginalised people to build community organisations and pursue lives free from poverty, violence and discrimination.
Violence and abuse affect women from all kinds of backgrounds every day. Sometimes, women are attacked by strangers, but most often they are hurt by people who are close to them. Violence and abuse can cause terrible physical and emotional pain. Victims need to be encouraged to think they are not alone, and that they can get help from the relevant bodies. Education and support are key factors to strengthen the resolve of victims to escape from their situations.
But what of the chance encounter? That moment in time where a victim falls prey to a predator on the prowl? Like little Sade Stoby of Mocha?
The accused, Jevon Wharton, admitted to having sex with her, stating during his trial: “Me and her walked until there was no shops… We went in de bush and Sade tek off she clothes and we continue doing, what we bin doing…sex.”

Wharton and Charles Cush are accused of raping and murdering the nine-year-old resident of Barnwell North, Mocha sometime between November 2 and November 5, 2007.
It was revealed that the child had been brutally raped and drowned through a post mortem exercise conducted on her body by Government Pathologist Dr. Nehaul Singh. The cause of her death was asphyxiation due to submersion, compounded by blunt trauma to head. When the child’s body was recovered, she was bloated and she had haemorrhaged from her head and chest.

According to Singh’s report, “There was a thick black mud in her trachea , her stomach was filled with dark black mud, blood in her vagina, her hymen was ruptured and her intestines were protruding through her anus; there was blunt trauma to head. There was bruising of the vagina which indicated sexual activity just before her death.”
How is it possible for a child to consent to sex? How could any human being inflict such torture on an innocent child and leave those who loved her to suffer the enduring pain, not only of her death; but the agony she endured before she died: And what punishment could suffice to bring justice to victims of such horrendous acts?
Throughout history man’s inhumanity to man has superseded the dictates of civilised society and reached a level of surpassingly cruel bestiality that drives normal people almost to despair, and it is only the hope of resurrection, regeneration, and reincarnation of the soul that provides hope that enables endurance and fortitude.