Posts tagged with choice.

The human face of violence and prostitution

Helen Hsu, July 27, 2009 at 12:50 PM

What do you think of a man who robs you? Or a prostitute?

Have you ever thought of why people break the law?

I'm not trying to justify such acts. That is not what I am trying to communicate. It is merely thought-provoking to see the other side of the story.

It is easy to think of "thugs" and robbers as cold-hearted bastards who just want to hurt you and take your belongings. It is easy to look down on them, and classify them as "bad people".

But are they really?

A few weeks ago there was an attempted robbery in an upscale neighbourhood in Nairobi. The robbers were shot by the police. I discovered there are only two degrees of separation between me and those men: some young people at my centre went to school with those robbers.

And they tell me this is a common story. A few years ago, some youths tried to rob a matatu (a kind of shared taxi) and were shot by a police officer who happened to be in the vehicle.

They tell me that in high school, sometimes their classmates would disappear for a few days, presumably to make a living this way.

They tell me that if you have no money ... really have no money ... then the easiest thing to do is to take a gun and rob someone.

Same story goes for young girls in the slums whose parents cannot afford their education, and they have no means of financial independence. The easiest and fastest sell for them is sex.

But at this point I am reminded of a video clip by the Canadian comedian Stewart Knight, called No excuses: "Whatever excuse you give me, I can give you 50 people that could've given me the same excuse, but didn't."

Poverty is a great motivation for crime and prostitution, but for every person who was driven by poverty to crime, there are many more who chose to escape another way.

Many of my friends at the youth centre come from similar circumstances. However, they chose to volunteer their time and acquire as many miscellaneous skills as possible - from driving, to computer design, to visual art, to peer youth education. Eventually, those skills got them paying jobs.

I also hear of robbers who, upon taking the phone and wallet of the person they are robbing, decide that the person should have fare to go home, and give back some of the money.

There are also robbers who return the bag and SIM card of the women they rob, and only take the valuables.

It is interesting to hear these stories that challenge traditional views of robbery. Maybe it's just important to remember to never dehumanize anyone or to dismiss their motivations. They are only human, and so are we.

It is a complex world we live in, but I am starting to believe more and more that our lives are shaped by our choices and our decisions, rather than our circumstances.

Tagged with poverty, kenya, choice, robbery, prostitution | Comments (20) |