After all the hundreds of thousands of years that homo sapiens (wise man) and the ‘anatomical modern man’ have been roaming the earth,  we are still today,  talking  front and centre, in the media, fiction, non-fiction, medical journals, popular journals and in personal stories, about abuse.  Men against men, women against men, men against women, men against children, children against children, women against children, institutions against people, humans against animals and the environment.  Have we not learned anything at all during those thousands of years?  It seems not.  Is that what the human condition is?  Is the existence,  the act of living,  of being stuck with others like or unlike us so unbearable that we can only hurt, diminish, or abuse to gain any control of our lives?  Is it a case of l’enfer, c’est les autres? (Sartre, No Exit)

Much has been eloquently said and  and written about this issue and I do not feel I can contribute to the debate.  However, I do wonder, and perhaps, naively: where are the parents of the abusers?  Is it not the goal of a parent to bring up children to become decent human beings respectful of the “other”, whatever or whoever that “other” may be?