What's going on out there?

As I write I'm sitting on my big double bed with the cat asleep on my lap. I've just had a big breakfast of three different types of cereal and some freshly ground coffee. Later, I'm going to take a drive out to the beach, go for a bit of a walk. On Monday, I will go to work, in a good job. I live in a country where there are systems in place that mean I will be looked after if unimaginable things happen. 

Life is comfortable.

I know I can't make generalisations and I don't know the situations facing all of you who read this, but I imagine that most of you are living in similar circumstances. Most of you have a bed to sleep in, most of you had a good breakfast this morning. Most of you are surrounded by stuff: some things that you need, a lot that you don't.

And often, in the midst of that, it's easy to 

forget that there are millions of people 

for whom reality looks very different.

In India, there is Meena, who was kidnapped and taken to a brothel when she was 8. There, she was beaten with sticks and rods and threatened with death if she didn't do what the brothel owners told her. When she escaped and went to the local police station, the police mocked her and sent her away.

In Ethiopia, Woineshet was kidnapped and raped by a man who wanted to marry her. This is common practice in Ethiopia for men who know they will not be accepted by the girl's family or cannot afford the dowry. The rape disgraces the girl, making it unlikely that she will be able to find someone to marry, therefore almost forcing her into a marriage with her rapist. The law says that a rapist cannot be prosecuted if their victim later marries them.

In Congo, the soldiers see it as their right to violate girls. Dina was in her mid teens when she was raped by five men, and then had a stick shoved inside her, causing horrendous internal damage.

In Cameroon, Prudence had no prenatal cate. When she came to give birth, the baby couldn't come out and after three days in labour, her birth assistant sat on her stomach to try to force it out. This caused Prudence's uterus to rupture. She was eventually taken to hospital but her family couldn't afford the price of the emergency caesarean. She and her baby died.

Even as I write these things, the thoughts that enter my mind are along the lines of, "maybe I shouldn't say that, maybe that's too brutal to tell, maybe that will make people uncomfortable", but what I'm realising is that maybe we need to be made uncomfortable. It is too easy for us to switch off, to block those things out because they are not in front of us but we need to know what is going on in the world, this same world that we live in.

Through most of these stories, one of the things that overwhelms and kind of scares me is the lack of help from the authorities. Here, in NZ, I know that if something terrible happens, there are systems of justice, systems that help. But in many of those countries, there is no one. And I think that's one of the reasons it is so vital that we get involved. Someone has to help. Over the next few weeks, I'd like to look at what that looks like. 

For now, if you take nothing else from this, take this: horrendous things happen every day to people who are people, just like us. Those things have to stop and that means that we have to stop ignoring them. 

*Stories taken from 'Half the Sky' by Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn. Read it.