Child Abuse, Rape and Murder: Is it a media manufacture?

Child abuse, rape and murder are becoming rampant in our society. For most of the other social ills, politics, economy and the way people respond to combination of socio-political and economic anomalies are blamed. Contrary to this, rise of child abuse, incest, rape and resultant murder is escalating more than the other crimes influenced by socio economic and other factors is a new phenomenon. Studying this phenomenon in retrospection reveals that in addition to the decrepit moral and social ambience prevalent in our society, the print, digital media and the internet are also major influencing factors exacerbating this.

Moral decadence affecting the social edifice is a common feature today in every society. This in particular is due to secularization of society which makes ethical and moral values off the agenda in the present day discussions. The society is sliding towards secularism and atheism. As a result, ethics and morality are thrown out together with religion like throwing ‘the baby with the bath water’. Secularism though coined for political purposes to fight religious oppression in the western societies has more or less atheistic influence as a result. The heart that does not believe in god or any moral authority cannot be expected to leash lust purely by conscience and instinct. Compounding this, hedonism and materialism accompanying secularism as a corollary tends to narrow human relationship between each other to mere physical contacts without moral and ethical decorum like animals as opposed to dignified human relationship built on ethical and moral boundaries and values respecting family, community and society. Even respectable people with religious conscience do fail due to human frailty by the impulse of lust but feel remorseful after perpetrating such an evil act. This in the case of an atheist would have no remorse. In the case of the secularism bordering on atheism, conscience and moral values are disabled by hedonism and materialism thus making man or women to behave worst than animal. Materialism, hedonism and lust unleashed would not make one feel the moral compunction of harming the other. Incredibly, this is our emerging culture built on atheism and hedonism in the name of secularism. Moral and religious values are downgraded in the name of freedom, secularism and modernity. In this state, man or woman sees the other merely as the opposite sex worthy of enjoyment without any trappings of status, relationship, human bond or fraternal responsibility. Men and women carries multiple identities in the family like father, brother, uncle, cousin vice versa and in society as responsible adults to whom young adults and children look up for support and guidance are betrayed and their future destroyed by the depravity of the people who are expected to protect and honour the young and the weak in the society. As a result of this phenomenon, our society has descended below that of the animal kingdom, where you see animals only mate seasonally within their species and with the right partner driven by their animal instinct. Whereas the behaviour of men and women has stooped so low rendering the human species vulnerable from each other’s harm.

Sexual depravation destroys the boundaries of family and society and as a result destroys the very foundation of human society. Like the contemporary economics and business built around profit making,  family and social relationship too is coming to be built around lust and hedonistic relationship than dignified family or status relationship build on ethics and morality. Failure to leash the impulse of lust and diminution of dignified and respectful relationship to a mere physical contact free of human love and emotion builds the threshold to the sexual anarchy that we see in our society. It is in this background unnatural sexual relationship like incest, homosexuality and lesbianism finds space. Similarly, child abuse and rape are results of this misadventure of culture influenced by secularism.

Atheism, ethical, moral and religious vacuum caused by secularism in the present society is worsened by the market economy that is purely centred on profit making even at the cost of human lives and the society upon which it operates. In this background, profit centered ventures are many that contributes to this ever growing sexual anarchy. Print, Electronic media and the internet, had they been responsible knowing the already vulnerable state of the society, they could have positively influenced to build a better society. Deplorably, they are part of the problem. Today every segment of the society is enveloped by some kind of media either print, electronic or the internet. The print media having known the depraved taste of the people, instead of giving positive information about responsible and moral lifestyle, are feeding the people with daily dosage of sexually exciting and near pornographic materials to a niche market to increase their circulation and profit. Similarly the electronic Medias of radio and television have talk shows, tele-dramas and programmes that encourage eroticism and excite the libido etc. Compounding this, the internet has become the one stop shop for all and sundry where pornographic materials are dished out in respect to diversities of depravity to suit age, taste and assortments of pornographic materials freely as well as for subscriptions. These are billions of dollars worth businesses parasiting on the innocence and ignorance of the general public about the cumulative effect on them and the society.

The combined effects of the print, electronic media and the internet are influencing child abuse, rape and murder. The exposure to the daily dosage of inflammatory pornographic materials of varying shades planted on fragile minds already free of moral trappings makes the right recipe for the rise of child abuse, rape and murder. The billionaire media moguls are scot free of the complicity in crimes. Their predatory media businesses are growing and gobbling up the society whilst the poor citizens are becoming unwitting victims of social-environmental pollution caused by unethical irresponsible businesses corroding the social/moral fabric of society for their profits.

The state and the society must address this problem urgently. Punishing the perpetrators is one aspect of it but that does not suffice to answer this problem seen as a tip of the iceberg. We need holistic responses that address the cause and effect of a problem. Fragility of human behaviour is nature which is universally controlled by effective moral education, deterrent punishments and social conventions. Punishing the perpetrators alone does not solve the problem unless the causes that influence these are holistically addressed.   The causal factor is the unethical media industry and the internet in the hands of the predatory capitalists. The government must address this by establishing code of good practice for media about expose and display of sexually exciting or pornographic materials injurious to social and moral health of society. Today these are displayed in the name of art and culture which are so alien to our society. A deeper scrutiny of the print media would also reveal that in the name of art and culture certain print media carry materials eulogizing depraved sexual behavior of the celebrities etc influencing our citizens to emulate. Similarly the internet dishing out pornographic materials, the Sri Lanka Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC) should shut the pornographic websites and domains that functions as the conduits corroding the social health of the country. As a responsible state regulatory body in the good interest of the citizens, the TRC must act together with the other state organs to fight this menace of child abuse, rape and murder before it grows in to an epidemic proportion.