I cried when I read about the Nurul Huda rape and murder case. To think that humanity can be so ugly, that three human beings found it in their hearts to rape and strangle an innocent 10-year-old girl.

I cried knowing that Nurul Huda was only one of many victims of gruesome rape-and-murder cases. I cried knowing that rape is not considered a horrible enough crime to merit swift investigation and prosecution of the perpetrator. It needs to be coupled with murder, preferably by some really cruel, mutilating way. The victim should be young and innocent, a 'good girl' who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The perpetrator should be a despot, drug-addict and/or good-for-nothing pariah.

We forget that for every one rape case that gets solved, countless go unreported and if reported, remain unsolved. For cases that are investigated and where the perpetrator is brought to court and charged, our ridiculously obsolete laws so often favour that perpetrator and so often lead to his acquittal. It is the victim who suffers. She is the one who has to bear the taunts and accusations; being called 'loose' and 'immoral' and 'shameless' and of course, we have all heard this one before: "She was asking for it lah..."

The government, the courts and society were all happy to fight on behalf of Nurul Huda. She was too young to have wanted it surely. And hey, she's dead. So that proves she wasn't asking for it. We have a mindset that says unless the victim can show all sorts of signs that she fought back (the ultimate sign would of course be her death), she was 'asking for it'. We forget that a simple 'No' from her is enough.

We forget, or just ignore the fact, that ordinary men can and do rape. Men who are husbands and fathers and productive members of society. Men who are respected and well-liked and even loved. Rape is not caused by an uncontrollable urge to have sex or any abnormality in the perpetrator and it is plain shameful that so many of us still buy into this myth. Rape is about the exertion of power. Rape is about control. Rape is a form of violence, used overwhelmingly against women.

And society plays a significant part in creating this culture of rape and violence against women. We are the ones who create this unequal power relations between men and women. We feed skewed messages to our young. We teach our sons to be tough and in control. We teach our daughters to be meek and submissive.

Our sons are grown men now, and they are trying to be tough and aggressive. It is hard because they themselves are being forced to submit to a higher authority. They are no longer in control. But they do not want to disappoint you. They do not want to disappoint their expectations of themselves (which you droned into their heads). And so they lash out at those weaker than themselves; wife, children, girlfriend, female colleague, random helpless victim etc.

They assert themselves using their new-found weapon of aggression: violence. They may stick to one form of violence or they may use a combination of two or more. They may hit their victim. They may taunt her. They may spit at her or press against her. They may threaten to harm her, then act on that threat. They may sexually assault and rape her. The forms may be different; the intention and effects are the same. And as the ultimate way of showing that they are in control, they murder the victim.

So how do we deal with this problem? Kill the perpetrator, like we do drug traffickers and murderers? Better yet, why not give the perpetrator the flogging of his life and televise it for all to see? Surely that would scare away any potential rapist, or will it? By now we should know that neither flogging nor even the death penalty is an effective deterrent against crime. In fact, they only serve to accentuate this culture of violence and disregard for human rights. The man cared nothing for the rights of that child so why should we think about his rights, you ask.

We should because we are not at his level. We believe in human rights and justice for all. Violence is never the answer to violence; re-education is. Let's change the mindset of these perpetrators.

To do that, we need to change our own mindsets first. We need to respect women as equals. We need to respect their bodies and sexuality. Let's not give knee-jerk responses every time such cases become hot topics. Let's actively work towards eliminating violence, specifically violence against women and children. Then at least there will not be more Nurul Hudas in the future.

NB: I have, for the sake of ease and convenience, taken the perpetrator to be male and the victim to be female. However, I realise that there are cases where the perpetrator is female and/or the victim is male. In such cases, the male/female terms can be used interchangeably.