Kids, too are victims of brutal acts

True, those blood-filled images on TV of seals being inhumanely butchered in Newfoundland were quite upsetting. These unscrupulous practices of so-called seal hunters would rightfully outrage anyone with a minimum of respect for life. I was shocked myself, as were so many respected politicians who joined their voices to the rest of the scandalized crowd.

Yet what appalls me more than these cruel images is the heavy and conniving silence around far more horrifying and brutal acts happening every day, in the house next door and in every village, community and town of our prosperous country.

I just wish the public outcry could be as loud about all the children who live in emotional and physical poverty and who are abused and scarred, often by their own relatives.

Maybe if we were individually and collectively concerned about our kids half as much as we care about seals, or bingo, or the RRSP deadline, we would never again hear about a teenager taking his or her life because years of buried pain, sadness, loneliness, despair and anger were too much to handle.

Philippe di Pizzo
Gjoa Haven, NT