It takes an unfortunate event to change the course of your life forever. It is chilling that one moment you are the epitome of effervescence and light, and in the next, you are desperately clinging to life.
Whenever a story of a girl who has allegedly been raped surfaces on social media, it always takes the nastiest turn. The victim becomes a case on a table, a cadaver for curious forensic eyes to dissect, a theoretical reality for debate. The girl becomes a story—and it matters little whether we are well-meaning or self-protective. We end up as villains, stripping her of her humanity: hiding behind the safety of our smartphones, debating whether to trust her or crucifying those who decide not to. Slowly, it becomes about us, devolving into a mud fight of contrasting opinions. Somewhere in the chaos, the girl becomes merely a topic. But the girl is a human being first. A person with real feelings.
When I was in secondary school, there was a saying: “Never judge a man until you’ve walked two moons in his moccasins.” I realise something sad—empathy has become a cloak we wear and discard at our convenience. We say it flippantly: “Put yourself in her shoes!” But rarely do we understand what it truly means. Feeling someone’s pain isn’t thinking about it; it is embracing it as your own. It is carrying their wound and bearing it. It goes beyond “I can imagine.”
Imagine if it were you—trapped in your room, a place that was once your safe space. Imagine the moment the atmosphere shifts, the chill crawling up your spine, until every hair on your body stands on end—no escape, just you and a predator, not only ready but able to pounce. Imagine being grabbed, pushed, yanked, viciously violated. The screams tearing from you. The futile fight. The domination. Imagine losing control, worse yet, accepting defeat. Can you bear to imagine the aftermath? The sleepless nights, the impossibility of trust, the loss of faith, hope, and light, the self-hatred that takes root within you?
What if, just what if, she is telling the truth?
Perhaps there is no neutral place to stand when someone alleges sexual abuse. However, it is a risk we must take. How I see it: it doesn’t matter whether I eventually look like a fool, whether the girl lied or manipulated me. The truth will always come out, and I am accountable—willing to be made a fool of. When someone says they’ve been hurt like this, the first response should always be belief and a commitment to justice.
I understand that cruelty might not be the intention—that curiosity and self-preservation make us question, prod, and search for clarity. But intention does not cushion impact. Treating logic as a shield in the face of such violation is merely a way to mask indifference. Logic should never one-up empathy and consideration. To demand a perfect syllabus of facts before offering a shred of comfort is its own kind of violence. But this is the risk we must bear.
The Internet has a short memory, like a tide that washes the shore clean every few hours, awaiting the next scandal. Unfortunately, the girl is the centre of her story and cannot move with the tides, no matter how much she wishes. Her trauma is too real—etched into the bedrock of her being. After we return to our lives, she is left grappling with what remains of hers…forever.
Perhaps walking in someone’s moccasins is not about your strength, but about honouring their experiences. To follow the path as closely as possible, to feel their pain, to live through their moments. Perhaps empathy is not about certainty, but simply the brave decision not to forget that the girl is more than just a story.
Maybe the question was never about proof, but about posture. About who we choose to be when someone says, “I was hurt.” We can stand at a distance and analyse, or we can step forward and honour her humanity. Belief is not blindness; it is a decision to prioritise compassion over spectacle. And perhaps the real test of empathy is this — when a girl becomes a headline, will we remember that she is a human being first?
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