While I often have a love/hate relationship with the Internet (being able to buy a CD at 3am: good… hours of my life lost to trolling evangelical web sites: bad), one of the things I’m most grateful for is its ability to give us access to stories that we may never otherwise hear about, whether it’s because the subject matter is a topic the national media won’t cover or because it takes place in a part of the world far removed from our own lives and culture (or in some cases, both).

Take, for instance, the story of a teenager in Bangladesh. After being raped by a man from a neighboring village, she was sentenced to, and given, “101 lashes for having conceived during the assault.” More details can be found here, but suffice to say, the village elders who condemned the girl to her punishment saw no reason to take any action against the alleged rapist. That’s right… in this situation, the survivor of a rape was beaten severely, while her attacker was given no punishment whatsoever.

The outrageousness and sheer horror of this judgment speak for themselves, and I’m going to resist the temptation to compare the plight of women’s rights in other nations with the struggle here. Instead, I’ll just say that it’s amazing to me that I can have the ability to learn about this woman’s story when, ten or fifteen years ago, the travesty of justice this person has endured would have gone completely unnoticed. While I obviously hope that no woman has to face similar circumstances, I know that desire is naive. But if I can gain anything positive out of this situation, it’s this: the more we have access to these stories, the more we become aware of the systemic problems in areas of the world many of us never think about… and awareness tends to be the first necessary step towards change.

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