I have been listening to the various news reports about the horrific situation in Nigeria in which at least 270 school girls were abducted, presumably to be sold into sex slavery.
As absolutely horrific as this situation is, as I listen to the description of what terrible people the Boko Haram are who claim to have taken the girls, I keep thinking about the men who will pay to have sex with these young girls, as well as the young girls and boys all over the world who are trafficked, including those in the United States. The “Johns” who have sex with these girls are complicit with the Boko Haram and are as degenerate as the men who abducted the girls. Why do we rarely point a finger and talk about how terrible the men are who rape or pay to have sex with teenage girls? Why are they not also criminals? What is wrong with men who joyfully inflict the kind of physical and psychic pain onto a young child just to please themselves? What is it about them that they choose girls who have to be forced to have sex with them instead of finding a consenting adult woman? I wonder whether this is an indication of developmental impotence or a profoundly inadequate understanding of what being a real man is.
These men should be hunted down and punished to the same extent as the abductors. Let’s focus on catching and punishing the Boko Haram, but let’s also not forget to go after the morally bankrupt men who are their partners in crime—the many men around the world who deem their own pleasure more important than the profound suffering of innocent children.
