Wednesday - Whose little girl?

[ninanevermore]

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about the photos I saw on my home computer last night that are still haunting me today. Someone in my house visited a website that should not be visited when you have turned off your computer firewall and forgot to turn it back on, and "malware" found its way onto the machine. A scan of the hard drive found 94 infestations of malicious software, most of it categorized as "risk level HIGH." Worms, Trojan horses, rootkits, backdoors, and God only knows what else turned up to work their mischief. Some the programs redirect your browser, so that when you try to go to say the site for, say. the Disney Channel, you wind up on a porn site or a shopping site (it seemed kind of random which one you got). Others load pictures and files onto your machine without your knowledge or consent, so that when you open "New Folder (3)" to see what the heck this is on your desktop, you are exposed to photos of crimes in progress; chilling, sad, sick crimes committed against little girls.

It was a junk hard drive, one used for play and not work. It has been destroyed, physically, because we didn't trust that it could be cleaned. But the images have stayed in my mind, and I can't find a program in the internet or anywhere else to uninstall them. I keep wanting to ask these children, who looked to be between the ages of 8 and 12, so many questions.

Whose little girl are you?

Do you even know that what they are doing to you is wrong?

Are the people who are supposed to love and protect you the ones holding the camera, or maybe standing outside the frame telling you what to do and how to pose? Or were you stolen away by evil men while your parents only hope and pray in vain that you are not being used in the way that they are using you?

Do you know that no child deserves this?

Do you know that most people are not like the ones you are with? That most of us are horrified by the way they treat you? That the thought if it fills us with rage?

Whose little girl are you? I need to know. Because you could be any little girl I pass by on the street, and if you are I want to help you.

Were you ever loved, really loved, the way a child ought to be? Or is this exploitation the closest thing to affection that you have ever known?

Do you know that you should be in school?

Do you know you should be riding a bike and feeling the sunshine on your skin, rather than lying spread-eagle on a bed wearing nothing but the ribbons in your hair while someone takes your picture?

Do you know that when you go to bed at night, you have the right to feel safe and secure? Do you know that your body belongs to you alone, and that no one else should be touching it without your permission?

Whose little girl are you?

You have so many different faces. In some pictures, your face is Asian, in others you look distinctly Eastern European, and in others still you look as American as Apple pie to me. I confess, I didn't look at all them. After seeing a few of the images I felt sick at your situation, and could bear to see no more of it.

Who is that man in some of the photos? The coward who shows his genitals but not his face, because he knows what decent people would do to him if they knew who was? Are you his little girl? Does he tell you that you belong to him?

Because you don't.

In a way, you belong to all of us. You have stolen my heart, and now you are my little girl, if no one else will claim you. I want to help you, whoever and where ever you are.

If only I knew how.


* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Comments

[serene-orange.livejournal.com]

did you report it?

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Not even sure what site installed the program that installed the images. I'm sure the authorities are familiar with them; if they wound up on my machine, they are on thousands of others. It's one of the nasty little trick of the malware programs.

Your first response when you find something like this is to get rid of it. It's like toxic waste. The hard drive was smashed to pieces and picked up with this morning's trash, so it's kind of hard to retrieve at this point. From what I've heard and read, the Feds and Interpol are probably well aware of the images and others like them. Its kind of like trying to be the first one to report an urban myth to Snopes.com; by the time they hear about it from you, it's already old news.

[serene-orange.livejournal.com]

I would still report it. Maybe the authorities and trace it.

[ignusfaatus.livejournal.com]

this happened to me once. turns out the british police set up a sting that went wrong and emailed this pics to people who werent involved. The had to publically apologize.

I am still haunted too.

this stuff could make me run a perp over. and back up. and put it in drive and drag him behind....

yes. I know. I saw it years ago and I still cant forget

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Weird, huh? I've seen the dark side of the Internet before: dirty photos, gorey photos, morbid photos, etc. Each time I said, "Yuck" and got over it pretty quick. But when you throw children in the mix and consider that what is happening to them is prolonged and ongoing, the effect is more lingering and profound.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

You are an angel... :)

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

If I were really an Angel, I'd fly to where they are and get them away from there. Alas, I'm just one more helpless human being forced to acknowledge that humanity has some dark corners that need cleaning out, and here I am stuck without a broom to sweep them with.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

That's the thing though, at least you wish for the broom...

[adamant-turtle.livejournal.com]

Jesus.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Amen.

[robin-rule.livejournal.com]

dear N. welcome to my childhood. i couldn't look at the picture, i was quite sure it would cause the kind of flashback war veterans go thru. thank you for yr anger most of all. thanks for wanting to DO something. that means the most to the Children of the Secret. i never sleep a complete night thru. this is why.
i'm on duty, on guard. that's why writing on LJ is so good for me. Helps beat back the ghosts.

i am soo sorry you had to see that shit. and no i can't apologize for the expletive. that's what it is. you should be ok in a month they say because it didn't happen to you. you will remember, but it will lose it's initial impact.
bless you.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that I want to be okay. If I could look at that stuff and not feel rage, it would mean that I had lost a core part of my humanity.

The rage doesn't bother me; being helpless in the face of it does.

I know their faces and I know details about their bodies that only their doctors should know. What I don't know are their names and where they live. I don't know who is doing this to them so I could point them out to the police and say, "Arrest them! Lock them away and throw away the key!" In light of that, my rage is pretty impotent and useless.

[robin-rule.livejournal.com]

yes, i know what you mean.i never understood why the adults around me never did anything. never saved me. and so the world has a woman who looks at the world from an ascewed (sp) place and isn't good at cocktail parties or friendships.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

It's a natural human reaction to think either, "I must be mistaken; this could not really be what is going on here," or "This is none of my business, so I'll look away."

Also, it is hard for society to find the happy medium between the witch-hunt mentality (where every one is assumed guilty - think Little Rascals Day Care Center (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rascals_Day_Care_Center) case in N.C.) and the not-my-problem mentality (where no one cares who is guilty so long as it doesn't affect them personally, as happened with the Kitty Genovese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Genovese) case).

The trick is for people to do right and reasonable thing, whether it means not making false accusations against the innocent, or taking action when you are pretty sure that something bad really is happening. The problem with the trick is that it really is tricky.

[welfy.livejournal.com]

My heart aches for you, who should have never seen those pictures, and for those precious little girls in the pictures, who never deserved that kind of treatment.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

No one deserves that kind of treatment. I'm sorry that the pictures exist for me to see, but I'm not sorry I saw them. When you see stuff like that, it forces you to think about things you'd rather not think about. Thinking is good. Outrage at man's inhumanity to man (not to mention child) is good. When enough people think about things and get angry, societies take action.

Now, if only I knew what action to take, beyond ranting about it here...

[az-starshine.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of the first time I found child porn on my ex-husband's computer...and how even now, I can't forget the vacant eyes of that naked, blonde, blue-eyed little girl.

And like you said in another comment, it forces you to think about things that you'd rather not think about. And sometimes, that's a good thing. Never easy, but often good.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

What got under my skin was their smiles - they were the smiles that children use when they are trying to please an adult by being good and doing what they are told. In this context, those smiles were awful to see.

[de-wynken.livejournal.com]

sick! that shit pisses me off!

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

That just means you have a conscience. This could get in your way in life, my friend. ;P

[de-wynken.livejournal.com]

we had a long thread about this the other week on my jeep forum (I started it actually). Lemme tell ya..pedophiles would be smart not to pick a jeepers kid to do that to. It was about that guy in Cali that had the website showing how to stalk little girls, and they let him free on some technicality..grr.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

The guy in Cali, as far as they could tell, was looking but had not admitted to touching anyone. Until he does (or until they catch him trying to), all they can do is watch him. They can't arrest him for crimes he fantasizes about committing, but has not acted out. He's a dangerous, unstable element, and I wouldn't want him in my neighborhood (esp. if I had a daughter), but until he does something illegal, there's nothing they can do about him.

[de-wynken.livejournal.com]

I know, that's the consensus we came up with.

the other consensus was that it was wrong to wait for him to get caught if he's an admitted pedophile, fantasizing or not. wrong enough to warrant a hypothetical 'taking care of' if the opportunity ever arose. Besides a buncha guys saying how they'd gut him, I think a good point was made..its up to the parents to protect their kids and not let it happen in the first case. If the parents are the bad guys in the situation, well..that's just shitty luck. Reminds me of a paper I did in high school..it was on Ritualized Sexual Satanic Abuse and MPD Disorders. My stepmonster was a cop and gave me all the police files they had on it to use for case studies (this was the early 90s, right after the big scare about it). Saw some pretty horrid stuff, if only in typewritten police reports. MPD (multiple personality disorders) arose in the victims, because they would develop alter egos to deal with the abuse, and other personalities to deal with 'the real world'. bad stuff :( anyways..

Sometimes the concept of tribal/small village ways is missed..only in a society as large as our current one can someone like that walk around like that.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I think the Ritualized Sexual Satanic Abuse cases were more a matter of mass hysteria than actual abuse. A huge number of patients who visited certain shrinks all came away believing these horrible things had happened to them - yet no physical evidence ever surfaced and no conviction ever held. The victims were the the victims of bad psychology, not ritual abuse. In the end, it didn't matter who victimized them. The false memories created in therapy were ultimately as damaging as any real memories could have been, both to the "abused" and to the lives of the innocents accused of these horrors.

[de-wynken.livejournal.com]

a lot of the cases were real..not the ones that made the media. Most of the real cases are committed by entire families through multiple generations. Hopefully most of that has ended.

[babyalligator.livejournal.com]

how horrifying that must've been for you. it horrified me just reading what you wrote about it.

as another commenter above suggested, you should report it.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

To whom? The local police? These came across the internet from God-only-knows where. Besides, just having that stuff on your computer is a felony. How do we prove we didn't download them on purpose?

It occurred to me to contact the Feds the next morning, but by that point the hard drive was already on it's way to the landfill. Now, anything I have to tell them is hearsay, and the evidence of any crime is long gone.

[hermes-wade.livejournal.com]

I read about stuff like this, and it just breaks my heart to think of another life destroyed. And make no mistake, they've been severely damaged. Some people are able to rise above the trauma and make a decent life for themselves, but even they carry the scars around forever and act in ways that they can't help...trust me, I've known quite a few women who've had to live through a similar trauma and have self-destructive behavior that stems from this sort of abuse.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

The ones I met were definitely damaged. I believe most people have a way of recovering and surviving unthinkable horrors, but they don't walk away unscathed.