Our Precious Little Girls

 Early this week I read a tweet, it said 23 year old youngest grandmother in the world. Two things crossed my mind in that instant. 1) she was black or 2) she was from a third world country. Turns out that the world's youngest grandmother is from Romania. She was married at the age of 11 and gave birth to her first child at 12.  Her daughter is now 11, married and now a mother. (I just read up on the facts and this apparently happened a couple of years ago and is now just getting attention.) Child marriage in their culture is "tradition" as the woman called it. I can't and won't judge these people. But I will say that this breaks my heart, why can't we let our kids be kids? Why can't we see that our little girls are dependent on us to protect them and keep them from "traditions" that may ultimately harm them?

  Last night after seeing a facebook post I stumbled onto an article about an 11 year old girl being gang raped. The headline said that six men (minors and adults) were arrested after the minors started showing the videos they recorded of the acts on their cellphones. Once I started reading the story, it got worse...up to 20 possibly 30 different men raped this little girl, first in ones home then in an abandoned trailer. They called their friends and had more guys show up, all while recording it to show around to people.
 One of the teens called the little girl and asked her if she wanted to go for a ride. She went and that was the end of it. Can't you imagine, what type of world are we living in? What type of people do this type of thing? I'm broken over this, my heart goes out to her she didn't deserve this, not what these men put upon her.
   However, I do have one question...where was her family that she could get a call from a high school boy and she thinks it's okay to go with him and his friends? Where was her family to protect her and teach her that she is more precious than what some boy could "promise" her? Where was her family to question these men when they walked up to the door and asked for her? Why didn't anyone stop her from leaving?
   These guys knew what they were going to do, they knew who to call, they knew where to take her, they knew she wouldn't have anyone to help her or question her or love her enough to stop her from leaving her house. This is a shame, this is sickening and unnecessary and terribly awful. This is our world.

   Where little girls are becoming mothers, or tortured for the pleasure of men. Where women subject themselves to injections and knives and hospitals so that men might look at them. Where our pop stars walk around with no clothes on and we allow our daughters to emulate them. Where we listen to music that teach our girls that they aren't anything without a big ass, big boobs and knee pads.
    This is the world we've created, and we're stuck. Because even though people are appalled after awhile everyone forgets about what happened, until it happens again.