Normally contrived plots like these are not likely to win my approval. But in this SVU story you cannot but admire the witness and what sacrifice that Saidah Arrika Ekulona was prepared to make.
A rather self centered slut of a woman played by Diora Baird is attacked and raped by a man with a mask on her apartment stairs. His attack was interrupted by a black woman who pulled him off Baird. It was Ekulona but she has good reason for not wanting to come forward. She's rightly afraid of immigration, she's here in the USA illegally.
She came here because rape is a weapon of war in her part of the world. Lest you think it is exclusively from her continent I would remind one of the recent wars in the Balkans with the breakup of Yugoslavia.
A devil's choice faces her, but she is one of the greatest of heroes ever shone on SVU episode. Contrast that with the victim who sadly ends a life as a self centered slut because she contacts a flesh eating bacteria from the crime.
But the perpetrator is his own special kind of low life. Eric Lange who has a telescope and spends time checking out Baird thinks he's going to get away with it because of Baird's character and Ekulona's immigration status. He's got reason to think it to.
In the end Ekulona inspires one cast member to pursue a different line of work. ADA Alexandra Cabot who stands by Ekulona every step of the way leaves the DA's office to go to work for human rights sexual assault victims. As Ekulona tells Detective Benson, "she inspired me".
The story goes off kilter, but I think others might get inspired.
A rather self centered slut of a woman played by Diora Baird is attacked and raped by a man with a mask on her apartment stairs. His attack was interrupted by a black woman who pulled him off Baird. It was Ekulona but she has good reason for not wanting to come forward. She's rightly afraid of immigration, she's here in the USA illegally.
She came here because rape is a weapon of war in her part of the world. Lest you think it is exclusively from her continent I would remind one of the recent wars in the Balkans with the breakup of Yugoslavia.
A devil's choice faces her, but she is one of the greatest of heroes ever shone on SVU episode. Contrast that with the victim who sadly ends a life as a self centered slut because she contacts a flesh eating bacteria from the crime.
But the perpetrator is his own special kind of low life. Eric Lange who has a telescope and spends time checking out Baird thinks he's going to get away with it because of Baird's character and Ekulona's immigration status. He's got reason to think it to.
In the end Ekulona inspires one cast member to pursue a different line of work. ADA Alexandra Cabot who stands by Ekulona every step of the way leaves the DA's office to go to work for human rights sexual assault victims. As Ekulona tells Detective Benson, "she inspired me".
The story goes off kilter, but I think others might get inspired.