REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, By Asma Nadia

Little girl,

Forgive us that late,

That did not do more,

And let you on the wound solitude...

I never understood what was on the adult’s head when pressed a burning cigarettes to a child's skin. Was their cry not stopping him?

I find it hard to understand, what makes a man could hit, punch, hurt, even raping a girl. Were their groans and agony not awakening him?

What is more I don’t understand anymore is, how a human not have a heart to bury an eight years old child and did not respect her body?

I cannot understand why people were able to do what the man did against a little girl.

Especially if it was done by close people, the people she knew.

Was there no sense of guilt?

Or maybe the doll buried with the girl, was a symbol of regret that she had a friend in the realm of death?

Hmm, I really do not understand.

The little girl was a victim. Victims of human values which were begin to disappear. Victims of social values which were increasingly tenuous. Victims of selfishness for his own safety. Victims of human activity with their business respectively.

The little girl was just a kid who wanted to fill life with joy, warmth, and hope for the future. Not one person has the right to snatch it from her.

No parent is entitled to snatch the happiness of their children, moreover their lives, though biological parents.

I remembered a poem written by Kahlil Gibran.

Your children are not your children

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you, but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you

Even if it looks like poetry, but for me the verses above is the philosophy of life that must be understood by everyone.

The child does not belong to the parents, either biological parent or parents who were legally registered as their father and mother. Parents are not entitled to neglect, hit, hurt, maim, rape, or kill a child. If it was understood, then when one was doing one of the things on the above, then another adult who knew, the neighbors, teachers, officials, or anyone, has the right to interfere with it, for the safety of children.

What happened to the little girl was not something that appeared suddenly. There were symptoms and characteristic feature of beginner, there were bruises which had ever seen, there were indications of neglect, there were many things that could be read. It's just probably because they felt uncomfortable with the family, may also felt not entitled to reprimand the parents concerned, there was no reprimanding or confronting parents.

It is true there was no legal obligation, for neighbors, teachers or anyone who saw it, but it was the issue of concern and sensitivity. It is true that the guilty one was who perpetrate a crime and criminal act, but wasn’t preventing it also was kindness?

I remembered when my husband and I stopped the car, exclusively to rebuke a mother who let her small child running on roadside without hold, and almost getting hit. Actually her husband did not accept, and would like to argue that the kid is their children and it is their fully business how to keep the child.

We just said that, although their children, but they did not have the right to let the child in danger. Then we gave the concept of home safety briefly on that parents, and made them understood. On another occasion we have also been rebuked the parents whom we did not know, whom physically punish their child in public spaces, said the rude words to their child, and other things.

Even if it looked like meddle with other parent’s business, but we did because we believed, parents do not have the right to hurt or harm, even if their own biological child. Hopefully, our awareness and sensitivity towards other children could save more children in this world.

Ikuti Whatsapp Channel Republika