Читать книгу Predators Live Among us - Diane Roblin Lee - Страница 6

Child molestation is nothing new. It’s been around since the dawn of time, rotting the fabric of society. Until recently it has been discussed only in whispers, but in the past 10 years, newspapers have become more and more filled with stories of the sexual assault of children.

Why? What’s going on?

Several things.

Pedophiles used to live like solitary moles, furtively looking at obscene photos of children in the dark corners of their lives. They had no one to talk to about their interests because they were too shameful.

Suddenly, the advent of the Internet gave them a forum for discussion with other like minded predators. Where the soul destroying pictures were once so difficult to procure, millions of images of depravity suddenly became available with the click of a mouse.

There’s strength in numbers. Reinforcement brought an increased boldness. Child molesters began trading images and videoing scenes of the sexual abuse of children, brainwashing themselves into thinking they were some kind of an oppressed minority group.

Michael Brière was the 36-year-old computer programmer who raped, murdered and dismembered beautiful 10-year-old Holly Jones in Toronto in 2003. Holly had simply been walking home from a friend’s house and innocently passed Brière’s house on the way. Unbeknownst to anyone, he had been looking at child pornography on the Web and had begun to have fantasies about having sex with a child. After a couple of years of indulging in his “dark secret,” he became consumed with the idea. “I really wanted to have sex with a child. And that was all consuming. I just came out of my place and she was just there.” For the sake of 40 minutes of indulging his darkest fantasy, Brière lost his place in the world and Holly was lost to the world.

Sexual abuse of children is becoming epidemic in our society, as will become apparent throughout this book. Whatever the sources or motivations, children are being used and abused in alarming numbers. Things have to change. We have to find ways to keep them safe and clean up the moral air we breathe.

We, as a society, need a paradigm shift.