To you whose consciences have died

At first, when the name "the project for protecting children from exploitation and harassment" reached my ears, a strange feeling came over me. I did not see only my own children, I saw thousands of children: those who play in the alleys of the streets, who steal small smiles onto their faces while waiting through them for great hopes, striving hard to climb out of the swamp of wars and pain, looking for a safe refuge, not only from the occupier but from a hidden disease that has crept between the folds of society until it rose to the surface.
Harassment and exploitation. What am I to say to you, when this disease was created according to the nature of human beings, since the world is never free of evil or of good. But the problem lies not in the disease but in the cure. You may ask who made Pharaoh tyrannise the earth. I will tell you: it is because we stayed silent and feared that the monster of shame and disgrace would swallow us, and we forgot that the children of our hearts are the victims, so we squandered their rights and gave the perpetrator the chance to roam free under the cover of silence.
So when consciences are absent, I can only say to you, my little ones: forgive me.
If their hardened heart has broken on the banks of the dream, so that nothing is left of it but the crumbs of pain, and the feelings of mercy have been killed within its folds.
Forgive me if my voice has not reached the farthest corners and my cry has not filled every part of the homeland.
Enough, you dead consciences. How long will we stay silent while the children of our hearts have their childhood stolen from them and are stripped of their innocence?
A mother holds her daughter's hand trying to pull her out, and finds nothing but walls of shame surrounding her.
A father leaves that beast to tear at his child's insides because the walls built to deter him were made of mirage and not of flame.
Until when?
But today we rise from the folds of silence, so that the choked and faltering voice may become stronger and stronger and the lower hand higher and higher.
My team and I have sworn that we will know no rest and that our eyes will not close until we convey this project's message to the farthest reaches of the world, to those who know nothing of the injustice of this life.
By Najat Al-Jubairi, general coordinator of the project