In last few weeks, increasing and frightening events of sexual abuse of women and especially very small children focused the attention of both national and international media into the graveness of the situation. The incidents were one after the other, horrific and shameful. We can also link an incident of a few months ago when a religious scholar or Mullah had raped a ten years old girl who used to go to him for religious education. Recent incidents included of rape of a three years old girl, the verdict of a court in Balkh when a father was sentenced to death who used to rape her two daughters and a couple of other incidents were reported when young boys were raped and in some cases murdered to conceal the truth. All these incidents are shameful and pose a big question mark on our moral status. Once again, some NGOs and other so-called protectors of women and children got an issue to raise some funds for their NGOs and personal bank accounts.

Both print and electronic media is full of experts, religious scholars and representatives of different walks of life who are busy in condemning these sad and shameful incidents and busy in giving their expert views about different aspects of these incidents. No doubt, these incidents are worthy of any level of criticism but it would be very unfortunate if we failed to move any further than a routine condemning remarks and did not suggest or do anything that should really address this problem. First of all, it must be understood that such incidents are not new to the world. We have felt them more than others as they are new to us and are absolutely against our centuries old traditions and religious teachings. At present, India is the most effected nation where mass public protests against the cases of rape and murder forced the government to introduce legislation to decrease such incidents.  

Before suggesting solutions for this problem, it would be more rational if we try to find out the reasons behind these incidents. The reasons for this problem may be slightly different than the other parts of the world but some reasons are universal. The biggest reason is the alarming and badly deteriorating situation of moral values and ethics. In a sense, we have almost become a morally corrupt nation. If last three or let’s say, four decades have deprived us of material development, we have equally become poor on moral grounds. The monster of war not only destroyed our economy and infrastructure but it also swept away all other sources from where nations get their moral or ethical nutrition. Schools and universities were destroyed, scholars and bright brains either left the country or were made to fade away under the dust of war, religion badly lost its good image and inspiration due to the deteriorating moral conditions of religious scholars and lately by the so-called extremist groups whose cruel and extreme definition of Islam made large numbers of people turn away from their version of religion. We have already left the habit of book reading and are left with no means of healthy entertainment like parks, games, sports and others. In such circumstances, the only mean of entertainment and joy is to have sex, the illegal form of which is not permitted by religion, law and cultural traditions. In such restrictions, people consult to the rape and in order to hide their identity, they feel compelled to kill the victim. When we talk of moral corruption, it is not limited to rape and murder as well rather many other crimes are flagrant and we only do or stop from doing anything when we are forced by the stick of law. It is the case that we can hardly trust anyone in our society as almost everyone is corrupt. We throw the trash anywhere we like and we drive in the most irresponsible manner. This lack of moral values is getting serious with every passing day and our lives are also getting harder with every passing day. 

The absence of fear of law comes on the second place. In many societies, people may not be pious enough to keep away from rape or any other similar act but the fear of law becomes a factor to stop the people from all such bad works. Unfortunately, extreme corruption in police, law enforcing institutions and legal system can help a person easily escape from any kind of punishment which in turn encourages the criminals to commit crimes time and again. In most cases, the crimes were committed by top government officials, police officers, industrialists or their relatives for whom law carries no importance and no fear.

Another reason, which can be called universal as it is found in every part of the world, is increasing sexual lust and desire in the society. Easy access to different channels, internet and similar sources of porn movies, pictures and other materials to entice people sexually have created so many disturbances in a society which was not mentally and emotionally ready for this sudden outburst. Religious and social scholars repeatedly alarm us about increasing adultery and prostitution in our society which are all due to the increased sexual lust and desire.

In 2013, Afghanistan once again broke all the past records of poppy cultivation and most definitely, majority of it is going to be consumed in the country. Taking drugs and smoking heroine and other addictive drugs is much common in cities while in rural areas, especially in some northern provinces, there are jokes that people cannot work actively without eating a small part of opium while children sleep when they are given a small dose in the evenings. It has been reported that many criminals had taken so much drug that they had no sense of their crimes they had committed. Drug addiction also indirectly becomes a reason for many similar sad incidents.

Once, religion acted as a strong factor to stop people from large number of evils and motivated them to involve in good activities but as mentioned earlier, due to large number of factors, religion has lost its effectiveness. With this, we also lost a free and strong source that stopped people from evils which is evident by the increasing number of crimes and other immoral acts.

Now that we have addressed the actual reasons, suggesting solutions is no more difficult. The first and foremost work is to change the minds and thoughts of people and that is possible by a standard, meaningful system of education. We also need to increase the number of libraries so that people should have habit of reading books and may develop their minds to become the actual and responsible citizens of a modern world. With this, we should not ignore the importance of our traditions and religious teachings. We can be good examples to inspire others to regain their trust on our traditions and religion. There can be many more things to be done but it is necessary that we should stop deceiving ourselves and others and look for those actual steps that might bring an end to the problem.