Once again, for the peace of my mind and work hours, I was away from the usual stuff i.e. the henious human activities. But, today is self-claimed off day, and the first news I read is: "More than 15 million children were exposed to sexual content online without their consent." - UNICEF Report.
The list goes on with the detailings: 20 million children aged 12–17 across 21 countries experienced at least one form of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation or abuse in a single year — almost 1 in 5.
15 million were exposed to unwanted sexual content.
9 million were pressured to engage in sexual conversations or share sexual images.
4 million had sexual images of themselves shared without their consent.
Around 1.1 million children in nine countries reported being depicted in AI-generated sexual images or videos.
More than 4 in 10 children who experienced abuse told no one.
Less than 1% of cases were reported to police, social workers or helplines.
Nearly 60% of the reported experiences occurred on mainstream social-media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and WhatsApp.
These facts and figures are now everyday talk. But my concerns are: why even a single child has to face it? Why does we only care, when it is our child? Moreover, when will this system stop prioritising maximum profit, and do something about some humanity. It is the next generation we are talking about. Yes, there are many other concerns, but this one issue is a great sin for humanity.
First two questions are more of moral and ethical nature. And I strongly believe that it is the third one causing the first two problems.
Why even a single child has to face it?
Aren't we all tired of statistics? Like we literally have to wait for the problem to become "Global Crisis" to take it serious. Otherwise, intentionally or unintentionally, we are keeping a blind eye.
The ugliest thing is, it is not a single incident or process. The problem does not end with the child being exposed to such content. We all know that childhood is where a person begins to develop their understanding for everything: trust, safety, relationships, boundaries and their own identity. And when the development is interrupted by exploitation, the consequences reach much further. A child may grow carrying fear, shame, confusion, and the list goes on. A child may even has to face victim blaming. Alas! This thing is quite common in our region. Moreover, unlike the prepetrator, who may simply disappear from the scene, the victim ahs to live with the psychological impact.
This is where, we have moved from incident to impact. What if some survivors may become extremely protective of other. While others may struggle with being normal. What if, in some cases, harmful patterns become normal for the victim; and later on, he exchanges the role?
Why do we only care when it is our child?
For this question, I am not going blame anyone. Like it is easy to runaway with a blame game i.e. the system is this way. Because for this one, I have to question my own humanity. It is highly possible for me, to become emotional when the victim is someone I know, someone from my family or someone whose face has a label. But when the same thing happens to a child somewhere else, it suddenly becomes another disturbing piece of news. As an example: Epstein Files. How many times have I used it for my personal narrative building? A lot! But do I really care from the heart. Well, I would like to remain silent on this one, because it is hard to acknowledge my mistakes. So the concern is simple: it has to be for all, without any biasness.
Now to the main question: Maximum Profit.
I am not going to bash out like capitalism invented this henious act. Simply, it did not. Predators existed long before social media and this system. So, maybe it is purely human nature. Some people are just good, or at least, they are good with pretending to be good. The other are just acting on their true nature. But one thing is for sure with capitalism. It is such a system where almost everything can be measured in terms of value. This whole thing reminds me of "Historical Materialism" concept by Karl Marx. Mind you, I am not a Marxist. I just do not like any system for which morality comes after everything. Religion is out of debate here!
So, for Marx's idea of Historical Materialism, the concept is: to look beyond ideas and morality alone, and examine the material conditions in which people live. How we produce, distribute and collect things. Because, it can influence our institutions, relations and priorities. In simple words, the economic structure of a society can shape the way that society functions. With this narrative, once again, I am not saying that a profit-driven system automatically produces evil people.
Rather, the concern is much simple: what happens when the system starts rewarding something that conflicts with our moral responsibilities?
Because all day long, we see one thing in common - the profit. There is this concept of attention economy, male gaze economy; there is this engagements turning into profit. Even this written piece here is the example. For one person, it is a misfortune; for other, like me, it is resulting in some benefit. So, maybe, we should not be surprised when humanity becomes secondary, that too is doubtful, to the numbers.
At the end of the day, I do not have a revolutionary solution to offer. Because, I do not believe, there is any single one for this rotten system. But I do know that there are things that should remain beyond calculation. At least, child's dignity, safety and future tops the list. We have built systems sophisticated enough to connect billions, generate unimaginable wealth and aritficial worlds, yet simplest and most important thing - humanity - still seems difficult.
So maybe just be a good human, even if it takes pretending.
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Peace 🕊️
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Picture was taken by me using Infinix Note 50 Pro. And the data mentioned above was in Urdu language, translated by ChatGpt.
