I have a question ma'am!

“There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women” –Madeleine Albright

   I have a question for Madam Secretary, what about women who intentionally harm other women? And what happens when a government, organization and the public know about it and do nothing to change the situation?

   I live in a world full of corruption and impunity; awful crimes are committed daily and go unpunished all the time, criminals are not reprehended and the media can’t seem to get enough of it because it sells more papers, and helps the ratings. The justice system always claims to not have the resources, or leads necessary to solve any of the crimes happening every day and we’ve all gotten used to that. But, what happens when we are handing them the information necessary, reporting abuse and injustice and they just look the other way?

    Four years ago, my mom’s boss got transferred to another clinic and a new person was introduced into the working dynamics of an already complicated health establishment in my city. The new lady in charge quickly made herself known as the type to play favorites and cast out her least favorite. My mom has always been a hard-working responsible person and she couldn’t help but being surprised when her new boss began mobbing her. A small group of the nurses working there began to see how they were treated differently and were accused of things they did not do. This went on for four years.

   A few months ago they all decided they’d had enough of this constant abuse and harassment and decided to report her to the absolute highest ranking person in the ministry of health that they could find, nothing happened. Then, they went to a well-known women’s rights organization, still nothing. Finally they went on strike and decided to call the media and make it a public scandal. The real scandal was, no one cared. Four years and a few months later, they’re still fighting for her to be transferred and all they get as a response is “we’re processing your request”. “Processing your request” it all sounds so cold and irrelevant to me.

   

   The part of this whole story that shocks me the most is that this person doesn’t know the women who work under her “lead” and she doesn’t hesitate to report them, harass them, and even try to get them fired under false accusations. It is bad enough that women all over the world have to fight against the injustice and gender issues brought by men and now we also have to worry about women committing these crimes against other women?! Is this really what we have come to?

   Their struggle will continue until this woman is gone from that establishment. However, their shock and outrage will remain as long as they live. I think we cannot progress into equality in our society as long as people like this continue to go unpunished. A society cannot be changed unless we’re all educated to understand that no one is to be treated like less than a human being. But, how do we educate the new generations properly when the generations before us come so tainted by corruption and hate crimes? I can only hope that the new generations will learn about these hateful acts only through history and not through real-life experiences as I have.