Think about it. It is amazing that one tiny, invisible smart virus, a product of evolutionary processes, still mutating and changing its profile, can avoid detection and spread itself far and wide with impunity. It is able to bring the human species to its knees, overpower nations, halt economies, crash the stock market, stop the flow of products and goods, paralyze communities, empty malls, groundairlines, close schools and cancel all sport gatherings.

It has the power to confine millions of people to their homes, rooms and apartments, and in cruise ships. Thousands are in hospitals, and many have died. Its power can motivate governments around the globe to take action and stop overnight the once free movements of people. Its almost more powerful than a nuclear war, and we cant even see it. We have to believe that this unseen enemy of the human race is out there, lurking and waiting to infect. It has killed a reported 5,000 people already worldwide (as of Saturday). Is its danger overestimated? I will get to that later.

No new complicated laws are needed to control the right and freedom of citizens to travel and enjoy complete freedom of movement. But this sacred freedom is now curtailed by instant decree. The coronavirus disease 2019, or Covid-19, is king. The innocent suspects of being carriers, without medical proof, are locked up and quarantined, and, in some countries, are fined large sums of money if they do not obey. So, now banning convicted pedophiles from traveling to poor countries should be easy to do. This is aproposed law I suggested and that was filed by Maureen OSullivan TD before the Irish Parliament.

Twoyears has passed, and yet it is still to be acted upon. But now,even without alaw, anyone with the new coronaviruscan be stopped from traveling.

It is something people everywhere are very sensitive to and acutely aware of this darkand dangerous threat to health that can cause death to the most vulnerable. It is Covid-19.

There is nothing much we can do other than be quarantined, avoid groups of people, wash our hands frequently and stand back 6 feet from people that might be infected to curtail its spread. It can change human behavior, drastically alter social contact, and bring about new attitudes and understanding among people. We face a common threat. Many are worried. It has struck and is striking fear and anxiety around the world; many are afraid of the single, tiny unseen enemy, more powerful than all the armies in the world.

Yet, there is a greater threat and actual evil that has infected the whole world and especially male sexual abusers. Until very recently, people did not care much about child and women abuse until the #MeToo and anti-child abuse movement began. Yet, it merely touches the tip of a great iceberg of abuse. It is the abuse of, violence against and oppression of women and children that were highlighted in this recent International Womens Day (March 8). This violence causes more lifelong pain, suffering, sickness and death than the Covid-19 will ever do. The new coronavirus will soon die out, but the lifelong suffering and pain endured by the silent, downtrodden victims of sexual violence will not.

In Mexico, a reported 10 women a day are killed, but hundreds more unreported murdersgo unnoticed. It has been reported by the Center for Womens Resources recently that at least one woman or child is abused every 10 minutes in the Philippines. The figures of reported cases are 6,315 women and 6,054 children. Only 6 percent of victims, however, report the abuse to the authorities. Rape and abuse are like the pandemic worldwide.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur and expert Maud de Boer-Buquicchio briefed the Special UN Human Rights Council last March 2, declaring that child sexual abuse and prostitution of children is in every part of the world. The sexual abuse of children over the internet are perhaps the very worst form of child sexual abuse, she said. Children continue to be sold and trafficked within their own countries and across borders for the purposes of sexual exploitation. She also said, [C]hildren are coerced into participation in pornographic performances online. Young girls and boys are lured with false promises and coerced into sex trade, domestic servitude, forced labor, begging and forced marriage. She reported that 28 percent of the child victims were younger than 10 years old.

Such violence and the government and public apathy, and lack of concern of society in general, are more destructive and hurtful to human lives than a dose of the coronavirus from which most people would recover with treatment and go on to lead normal lives. Victims of abuse do not.

There is no known medication yet that will cure a person of Covid-19, but everything is being tried and a vaccine is in the works. There is talk about the seasonal influenza killing more than the estimated 5,000 deaths from Covid-19 worldwide. In the United States alone, as many as 18,000 people have died from seasonal influenza since September last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the International Federations of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, as many as 290,000 to 650,000 die from seasonal influenza yearly worldwide. This is about .14 percent in contrast to Covid-19, which has a potentially higher fatality rate of approximately 0.2 percent.

We have to take everything in perspective and do all that can be done to contain the spread of Covid-19 and save lives. But so much more has to be done as the world slowly awakens to the horrific prevalence and frequency of the sexual abuse of women and children. The same energy and government action to control Covid-19 should also be spent to stop and contain child and woman abuse.

http://www.preda.org

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The invisible enemy: An unseen virus and sexual abuse The Manila Times - The Manila Times