Friday, March 1, 2013

Sunita Krishnan and child slavery

I watched Sunita Krishnan's TED talk on child sexual slavery and was moved by it to write to her. I copy my letter below. I know that this blog has a decent readership and I hope, as a mother, that people will take her message seriously


Dear Sunita ji I listened to your TED talk yesterday evening and was very moved by it. I could understand your experience of the social stigma associated with female victims of sexual abuse and the silence that we impose on this crime as a result. It hurts me to know that of my acquaintances, I can count with two hands the number of people who have confided in me of themselves or someone close to them being sexually abused as a child. Given that people only confide such experiences to others when a certain level of confidence is built, it disturbs me to extrapolate the number of people who have been abused sexually in one form or another in their childhood. Now, I am a mother with two little children, living in Singapore. After listening to your talk yesterday, I was even more protective than normal of my four year old. When she wanted to make a short walk across the block, I let her go, for her independence, but followed her at a discrete distance, for my peace of mind. Later, she asked me why I followed her, and I told her that I had watched a movie that told about children being kidnapped and wrongly treated. My four year old, who is rather outspoken said "Mom, you cant just accept everything you see on tv. You have to use your mind. You have a mind, dont you?" Well, I hope I have a mind and I can use it in this case. So how can I reach out and help as an individual? I write a blog and I am sharing most of this letter on the blog. I look forward to hearing from you Regards

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