⚖️ The System Was Built to Protect Them

 We’ve made a way of life out of excusing harm and shielding abusers, often without even realizing it.

 Culture is the way we live, the beliefs, habits, and unwritten rules we follow without thinking twice. It’s so familiar that we rarely stop to question it. We grow up inside it, pass it on, and defend it, even when some parts of it harm us. And in our society, one of the most harmful parts is how we have built a culture that blames the victim, excuses the predator, and calls it “normal.”

It’s in the jokes we share without thinking. On social media, the phrase “miaka ni 35,” referring to the prison sentence for being caught with a minor, has become a meme, something to laugh at instead of a reminder of the seriousness of the crime. In classrooms, girls are handed lists of what not to wear, as if their clothes could control a predator’s actions. And when abuse happens, the first questions are about the victim’s outfit, location, or behavior, never about the choices and mindset of the abuser.

And at the root of all this is a disturbing truth: many people still do not understand consent. We have to unpack it because, somehow, in BIG 2025, there are adults who think a child can “agree” to sexual activity. Let’s be clear, kids cannot consent to any form of sexual interaction. Full stop. Any adult who engages sexually with a minor is not “in a relationship” with them; they are abusing them. Yet in this sick society, we sugarcoat it, joke about it, and protect predators instead of protecting children.

The hypocrisy runs deep, even in spaces meant to model morality. We’ve seen pastors exposed for acts of sodomy being shielded by congregants, who argue that “he should be corrected in private, not humiliated in public.” These same people will preach about righteousness on Sunday, but when the abuser is one of their own, the standards suddenly change. It’s religion turned into a loyalty shield — not to God, but to the leader’s reputation.

This is where cognitive dissonance comes in. Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort when people hold two conflicting beliefs at the same time. We say we value safety, yet we laugh at jokes that normalize abuse. We claim to protect children, yet we tell them not to “tempt” adults instead of telling adults not to sexualize children. We preach morality, yet excuse immorality when it’s done by someone we admire or depend on. To reduce the discomfort, we twist reality: the victim must be lying, the incident must be exaggerated, the abuser must be “misunderstood.” And the cycle goes on.

Cognitive dissonance often works hand-in-hand with  Cultural Hegemony, the idea that those in power, whether political leaders, religious figures, or community elders, shape the norms and values of society so deeply that harmful ideas feel natural. If the people we look up to normalize victim-blaming, we accept it as “just how things are.” If influential voices laugh at predatory jokes or preach modesty only for women, those patterns sink into our cultural DNA. And it starts early; our parents and elders, often unknowingly, pass down these beliefs. We grow up hearing them, absorbing them, and eventually defending them, because they came from the people we trusted most. By the time we are adults, we’re not just living in a harmful culture, we’re actively reinforcing it. Over time, the line between what is right and what is normal becomes dangerously blurred.

And when abuse happens, the real priority shows. We protect reputations. The “good name” of the family, the school, the church, or even the country becomes more important than truth or justice. Victims are told not to make noise, not to embarrass anyone, not to “ruin” a man’s life. We saw it clearly in the BBC exposé on child trafficking, the “madam” culture, the grooming, the selling of children, all caught on camera. And still, some leaders dismissed it, calling it an exaggeration. Just like in rape cases, the instinct was to sweep it under the rug, because shame to an institution apparently weighs more than the trauma of a human being.

Over time, victims learn the unspoken rules: silence will hurt less than speaking. Your pain will be doubted, dissected, and twisted back on you. You will be asked to relive it in detail, only for people to say they don’t believe you. And you will be made to carry blame that was never yours to begin with.

This is how we live, a reality where we have normalized these atrocities, knowingly and unknowingly. We excuse harm, protect predators, and shame survivors. We pass these patterns down, teaching the next generation not only how to avoid danger, but also how to survive it. And we’ve done it for so long that we barely recognize the harm anymore.

When we speak up and call it out, we’re standing against the culture we’ve normalized. We’re breaking the generational curses that told us to stay silent. We’re cultivating a new way of living , one where safety, consent, and accountability are not negotiable. The generations before us failed to protect the vulnerable. Let us not fail the ones who come after us. The time to act is now.