Bush Making Big Return To White House
Annette Insdorf: The Central Park Five Premieres in Cannes
Just when you think you've heard all there is to hear about the horrors of child abuse and neglect in this country, there's this horrifying report: An eight-year-old girl is allegedly gang-raped by four boys -- one of them her cousin -- and then rejected by her parents for shaming them. You heard me.
The victim hails from a Liberian enclave in Arizona, and all of the children involved are refugees. Her 23-year-old sister, who was supposedly babysitting when four boys attacked the youngster in a storage shed (pictured), told KTVK in Arizona, "She always bring trouble...I came to her and said it's not good for you to be following guys because you are still little." If the girl, who is now in foster care, were to come home, her sister says she would be scolded. "She's just bringing confusions among us," she said.
Meanwhile, the child's mother is denying that anything happened to her daughter, telling KTVK that no one touched her. The father told KTVK that he wants his daughter back, although the authorities dispute that claim. They say she had to be removed from the home because the family blames her.
Police say the boys, ranging in age from 9 to 14, lured the victim into the shed with chewing gum, held her down and sexually assaulted her. In a troubling development the eldest child is to be charged as an adult.
The family's reaction has been subject to a lot of speculation about cultural attitudes about rape in Liberia, a country that emerged from a bloody civil war in 2003 but is still suffering from an alarmingly high rate of sexual violence toward women and girls. However, Edwin Sele, the deputy ambassador of Liberia to the United States, responded to the incident by saying, "Having heard the story myself, I'm outraged. In Liberia, the family and law enforcement officers would be embracing the victim. To hear that the family is not doing that, that should be an isolated case."
Video of the family's reaction to the alleged crime is above. Take a look, if you can stomach it, and then join the discussion among BV members.
Comments: (55)
Add a comment
By: 1strombone on 7/28/2009 11:51AM
WHERE HAVE YOU PEOPLE BEEN FOR THE LAST 300 YEARS???
Don’t come in here with holier than thou malicious defamation of Africans and African-Americans to this single crime after your long brutal history of raping young African-American girls.
Domestic Terror groups ravished “the quarters” of sharecropping communities terrorizing and raping young girls with impunity.
If slavery and Jim Crow Laws prohibited marriage between African-Americans and Whites where did so many white to light complexioned African-Americans came from???
Then there were cases throughout the south where integrated sex occurred for a time and when caught the white girl cried rape and the Black man was lynched.
In 1965 a known white terrorist abducted a 13 year old black child, raped her and impregnated her with the atrocity known throughout the city and law enforcement, nothing happened. He raped her a second time. The terror of the incidents left the community in fear. The Black child was without support from the community out of fear.
This current incident is a crime and should be treated as such without denigrating a continent of people.
Reply to this Comment | Report This
By: arjayuniverse on 7/29/2009 9:58PM
The real shame in this story, worse than the rape of this child, is this fact -- when the child care system of the state eventually returns the young girl to her family the male members, in particular, will probably kill her. Honor killings are a must in many African cultures. They will kill this child, even if it means prison time for someone! As long as honor is restored, then any means possible will be accepted.
Too bad for the victim!
Reply to this Comment | Report This
By: "DimePiece" on 7/30/2009 3:07PM
erica,
You don't understand my comments because, somebody had made a comment and I was replying to and got deleted OFF! So sista erica, PULEEEZ. You don't know what you are talkin about. The person was trying to say that blacks create the most crimes and so forth making them out to be a bad race. So my comment was on point and that's what I said to that person. Rape happens to all race. I feel sadden and it hurts me no matter what color you are. You didn't read my carefully and seen that I said that? My comment wasn't ignorant.
Reply to this Comment | Report This
By: Jaclyn Jones on 8/11/2009 2:39PM
Everybody, stop and think. This is not about "Rape" as we know it, this is about "Culture". How do you train people from other "Cultures" to think rationally and outside of their "cultural box".
An amazing number of people from third world countries come here and bring their values with them. This situation is not any worst than those coming to America from the Middle East where the men still hold the women hostage. Father's demanding that their daughters marry whom they say or kill them. It is so much devastation going on around America with the different cultures practicing the values they left behind.
How does America step up its game to encourage cultures to leave behind these arcaic practices and thoughts and move into the 21st century.
They set up communities and move forward in a new land still doing the same things as they did back home. Although we must encourage cultural individualism, we must also encourage eliminating those practices that are in direct contrast to civilized and humane thinking.
Some may disagree, but it is true.
Reply to this Comment | Report This
By: RR on 8/12/2009 12:15AM
ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE THIS SITUATION. Y'all must realize that if you read the Good Book, it says that Satan comes to rob, steal, kill and destroy. He has NO RESPECT of persons. We need to understand that there are some things that are just beyond our control. Now, I know for a fact, if ANY male figure (or family) touched ANY of my kids in the wrong way, they would want to move out of town to avoid what WILL happen to 'em! However, in some countries, not just African countries, it's actually accepted for a male child, teenager or adult to overpower his female counterpart to prove his manhood. I would like to know, if these four boys knew that somebody's waiting for them in jail to do the same thing that they did to that girl, would it make them feel less than manly? Maybe instead of therapy, they all need just one hour in the joint with "Big Black Sam and the boyz" who will show them how to get treated like a piece of meat, just like they did that girl. The truth hurts, huh?
Reply to this Comment | Report This