What wrong has a boy or a girl done to come into the world and find themselves immersed in a reality that resembles a nightmare more than a promise? This question is not rhetorical—it is an open wound. When people think of hell, they often imagine it as a distant, otherworldly place, almost surreal. But it is enough to look honestly at what happens every day on this Earth to realise that there is also an inner, earthly hell—real, tangible—that does not need eternal fire to burn: indifference, cruelty, hatred, and human selfishness are enough.
Hell is in the children bought and sold like objects in human trafficking networks in Southeast Asia—Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand—their dim eyes having stopped dreaming far too soon. It is in the girls forced into prostitution, deceived, broken, stripped not only of their freedom but also of their identity. It is in the tiny hands of children sewing clothes in suffocating factories in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, while the world wears those garments without asking where they come from. It is in the lungs of these children who inhale toxic glue to dull hunger, because sometimes the only way to survive is to stop feeling.
Yet hell also descends into the depths of the earth, into cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or diamond mines in Sierra Leone, where young lives are consumed by dust and danger to extract materials that fuel the technological progress and materialism of others. It is in the streets of large cities, where children and teenagers grow up without a home, without school, without anyone to say their name with love, to guide them and care for them. It is in the desperate journeys of migrants, in deserts that swallow hope and in seas that become silent graves.
And again, it is in skies torn apart by bombings, in cities reduced to rubble in places like Palestine or Ukraine, where war is not a headline but a daily reality made of fear and loss—something we should never accept as normal. It is in violated bodies in forgotten wars, where rape becomes a weapon and humanity dissolves, as happens in Sudan and elsewhere. It is in the prisons of authoritarian regimes, where dissent is punished with torture and enforced silence.
However, hell is also quieter, but no less devastating. It is in drug addiction that traps young lives with no escape, in communities destroyed by the trafficking of weapons and substances that fuel seemingly endless cycles of violence. It is in overcrowded refugee camps, where entire generations grow up suspended, without a future. It is in famines, where hunger is not a feeling but a sentence. It is in homes submerged by water, in destroyed crops, in families forced to leave everything behind because environmental and/or political climates change faster than our ability to respond.
It is in the persecution of minorities, in planned genocides, in lives erased for being “different.” It is in the normalization of all this, in our ability to read, scroll, and forget. I also ask forgiveness if I have not been able to clearly mention other horrific examples (though it would likely take days to read a complete list).
So the question returns, stronger than before: how can we go on like this? How can a planet so extraordinary—rich in beauty, biodiversity, and possibility—also be the stage for so much suffering inflicted by humans upon other humans? The contradiction is tearing. The same human beings capable of creating art, science, and love are also capable of destroying, exploiting, and annihilating.
And yet, stopping at horror alone would be another form of surrender. Recognizing hell must not mean accepting it as inevitable, but becoming aware of it in order to choose not to be complicit. Every time we ignore, justify, or feel too small to make a difference, we contribute—even unintentionally—to keeping it alive.
The hardest but most necessary lesson is this: evil thrives in the absence of responsibility. We do not need to be heroes to change the world, but we must stop being passive spectators. Becoming informed, speaking out, making conscious choices, showing respect, educating, helping when possible—these may seem like small acts, but they are cracks in the system of indifference.
Children should play, study, be carefree, and grow in Virtue and Wisdom. And if this does not happen, it is not because the world is inevitably cruel, but because we have not yet done enough to make it different.
Therefore, I believe that hell on Earth exists, but it is not a final condemnation. It is a constructed and orchestrated reality, and, precisely for that reason, it can be dismantled, piece by piece. The question then changes: no longer “what wrong has that child done?” but “what are we willing to do, today, so that they no longer have to suffer like this?”
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