Why Don't We Care Enough?

Is it their hopeless condition, their non-status, their low-life occupation, their fecklessness, their reminder of the inequity of society that encourages us to bypass the human need of street people? Is it that we feel hopeless about being able to do anything ourselves to effect a change, to offer them dignity, to ensure that their lives, already rife with injustice and pain, are at the very least, safeguarded from real harm?

Or is it because we feel their presence degrades society as a whole? That we have somehow failed them? Are we so busy with our own lives in the production of the wherewithal to enable us to get on with our lives, to advance our aspirations, that we simply cannot be interested in the well-being of these women? These failed, flawed women - by virtue of their degraded condition, their dependence on alcohol, on street drugs - who make us feel they've given up on their lives, so why should we bother?

A little bit of everything in there. Not the least of which is the righteous atmosphere of declining to be involved with individuals who have permitted themselves to sink so low. Who pact with themselves to live in such drearily degrading conditions. Who offer up their bodies for hard cash to sustain themselves in this hard and dreary world. Is there a whiff of fear, that it could happen to anyone; ourselves?

Whatever the reasons, these are suffering human beings, and it's fair to say that society in general has abandoned them. Likely not the first time in their lives their needs have been neglected. It's a safe bet that many of them, as children, were also neglected, that their imperatives as children requiring the attention of an emotionally supportive parent simply weren't met.

Easy enough to have children. More problematical looking after their essential needs. A situation that perpetuates itself endlessly, since many of these prostitutes, street walkers, casual sex-trade workers have had children of their own - similarly abandoned, left in the care of extended family or Children's Aid. Still, these were people whose presence, even on the dark side of the city, urged the civility of some kind of care.

But these moths attracted to the city lights that would offer them sustenance though it demeaned them as independent, intelligent souls, were left adrift by society. They would disappear, one after another, missed only by those who worked alongside them, their families long since having given up on them in the despair of hopelessness. Or sheer disinterest.

To be fair, some left for other promising areas to patrol in other cities. Some died of natural causes. But an alarming number disappeared off the face of the downtown streets they patrolled never to be seen again, victims of truly foul and violent ends. Even when an acquaintance might worry and approach police, they were met with a patronizing disinterest.

But then something happens to bring people together in the determination to insist on action, and it is discovered that these disappeared women have fallen prey to murder. A mass murderer is apprehended, a trial ensues. Incontrovertible evidence is displayed, ensuring the accused will meet justice.

And women still keep disappearing.