Earth - The Planet That Eats Children

Perhaps 'eats' is not right, but let's face it, we come pretty close in terms of our sick behaviour to children. We rape them, we beat them, we murder them and we leave them to starve. You doubt it?

Take the case of Sangeeta Persaud who suffered from convulsions. Now convulsions are a terrible thing to experience and especially for a child. So what medical treatment did she receive? Well if you followed the link you'd know. She received an exorcism to get rid of the naughty demons that were possessing her. She died as a result of that exorcism. Unfortunately the only demons were those who were allowed to kill her through their own ignorance.

Then, there is the case of Garsha Wilson. How did the world treat this poor young thing? She was raped, strangled and then buried alive. Twelve years old and subjected to this.

But it gets worse. Ilham Mahdi al Assi was forced into marriage at just 13 years old and split open internally by the sexual invasion of her husband. It was rape. Some religious groups do not consider forced sexual intercourse to be rape when the criminal act is perpetrated by the woman (or in this case, child's) husband.

Quite apart from these incidents - not isolated incidents either - there are also the 24,000 children who die every day - needlessly.

The biggest crime here - and the reason for my title - is that the world sits smugly back and lets it all happen. We feel token outrage - sometimes - but don't lift a finger to change it. We let religious groups perpetrate astonishing cruelty because we somehow feel that they have some God-given 'right' to do so. And we stuff ourselves stupid with chocolate Easter eggs when a child dies every four seconds.

We might as well be the planet that eats children. We certainly take no real trouble or effort to protect them.

Planet Earth, I am ashamed of you.