Unless and until our society recognizes cyber bullying for what it is, the suffering of thousands of silent victims will continue.
Cyber bullies can hide behind a mask of anonymity online, and do not need direct physical access to their victims to do unimaginable harm.
Mostly I'm telling people that they don't have to be victims.
Judge Aquilina did what Michigan State University officials, USA Gymnastics, and the Karoyli ranch officials did not: Immediately believed the women who had been abused, validated their lives, and ended their perpetrator's access to them and other victims.
What often happens in a court of law is that, if victims do get their day in court, they are on trial as much as the perpetrators.
In many cases, in order to protect organizations, administrators often move abusers around, discount victim statements, stonewall victims in administrative processes, and/or offer legal settlements with non-disclosure agreements to victims with the express intent of protecting the institution and ridding themselves of the victim.
Judges can bring their own biases about sexuality in the courtroom, causing victims untold pain in the telling and retailing of their stories.
When we dwell on the enormity of the Second World War and its victims, we try to absorb all those statistics of national and ethnic tragedy. But, as a result, there is a tendency to overlook the way the war changed even the survivors' lives in ways impossible to predict.
With what I've gone through, I think it's really important to become a voice for abuse victims who have no voice. I want to be able to make a difference.
We owe it to the flood victims of New Orleans to give them truthful answers as to why this event took place and to assure our citizens that tragedies like this will never happen again.
