Saturday, June 23, 2012

What can be done?

Many people on Aruba support "Boa", they say my book shows only the tip of the iceberg, that reality is much worse. Because sexual abuse of minors is hardly punished it has become endemic and one of the most guarded secrets of the island. In the year 2010 television and newspapers talked about the tragedies people told them, the minister of social affairs, Michelle Hooyboer Winklaar,  has called upon UNICEF and organized an international congress on the issue. Two white marches against sexual abuse were organized by the Foundation Lisette Gomez, Lisette being the mother of two small abused children. But since then all efforts have died away. Lisette has an anxiety disorder, the foundation does not exist any more and the papers are silenced. The government wants to make believe that everything is fine now. Nothing has changed. People are still afraid to go to the police, because many times the police sides with the suspects. It's a world where men with guns make their own laws and innocent people learn how to lie out of fear. Is Aruba in hands of wrong people, maybe drug cartels?  Aruba is a beautiful island with a lot of intelligent and beautiful people who deserve better. What happens on Aruba, can happen anywhere where small societies are cut off from external control. I think the islands have to organize an independent control system between them.
I'm translating my book into English and hope that later on it can be published in America. Not to bring Aruba in a bad light but to get the power to change things on an international level. Because children, which are abused on a daily base, live in a permanent war zone and a few  talks on some congresses won't change their fate. More active measures have to be taken.

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