Rape. It’s Called Rape.

Photo by elycefeliz

The 9 year old Mexican girl who just had a baby? It turns out she’s 12 or 13. The father? It’s not her seventeen year old boyfriend. In fact, there probably is no such person. No, the baby daddy is her stepfather. Naturally, the media is reporting the story for its sensationalism value, but holy Jesus let’s stop and talk about molestation for a moment.

Let’s break down the lies and examine what happened here. First, the girl’s age is bullshit. They didn’t just make it up for the hospital. Her Mom had to have a birth certificate issued in 2011, and she lied about it then. And yeah, it was a fucking lie. You don’t forget your kid’s age by a couple of years. Doctors at the hospital determined the girl’s age through medical tests. No, I don’t know which ones. No, I don’t care. I believe them a hell of a lot more than any other reporting parties at this stage.

Second, on that certificate, the family listed her stepfather as her Dad. Quick little adoption there. If it had been for a good cause, I would be less inclined to get all up in arms about it. But the net effect was to give a pedophile greater access to her body, so I’m not all that impressed.

Seriously. It gets worse. Besides making the girl younger, everybody in the family, from the girl on up, was lying about this seventeen year old boyfriend. So the girl has probably almost certainly been made to feel so ashamed that she blames herself and thinks she seduced her stepfather, not that he raped her. (Oh hell, her blaming herself if probably a given no matter what here) He admits to “twice”. I’m ready to claim “multiple times over the course of many years”.  Her boyfriend claims could be efforts to keep people from thinking poorly of her. Or else they could mean she’s been browbeaten and intimidated to the point that she fears for her life if she doesn’t go with the cover story.

Either way, the next bit of salt in the wound is that her mother is party to all of this. I’m willing to bet her mother knew exactly who the father was all along. Maybe not. Maybe she was all oblivion. My gut says no. I’d guess she has been turning a blind eye to the abuse for many years. Perhaps she, herself, is so badly abused that escape is impossible. I’m not letting her off the hook for what happened to her daughter, but I’m trying to allow for the possibility that she is not just as exploitative as her husband.

Now, the stepfather is under arrest and other male members of his family had to undergo DNA testing. (I can’t tell if this was before he was identified as the rapist here, or whether it happened after just to be sure he was the parent of this newborn.)

In the meantime, here’s this kid, just a little girl herself, who is now trapped into motherhood. It can be hoped she will get counseling and therapy and appropriate support right now. I’d like to end on a hopeful note, thinking some good may come of this evil. But quite frankly, I think that once the furor dies down, she’s going to get cast right back to the sharks who put her in this tank to begin with. Only now, she’ll have a child of her own who will have to endure the continuing abuse cycle.

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