We live in an age when it is considered to be a weakness to be unable to defend oneself from harm – crime rates are at an all-time high, and there are cases of molestations, theft, robbery, and murder amongst other criminal offenses every day.

Worse than all of these, however, is the crime that the people chose to commit against one another – victim-blaming. If a woman is molested, rather than blaming the molester, we blame the molested; why was the molested wearing revealing clothes, why was she traveling home so late at night? She must have done something wrong to get molested.

Why didn’t she protect herself?

Similarly, there has been an alarming rise in incidents of bullying amongst students in schools and colleges. While it is true that violence can never be a proper solution, getting bullied simply because of one’s inability to articulate their concerns to authorities as well as the indifference of authorities towards such incidents cannot be the right course of action. If one does get bullied, then that person has to stand up against violence – and while it is an extremely idealistic notion that the best way to stand up against violence is through non-violence, it would be impossible to teach a child not to cower in front of students who might very well be older and bigger than him/her.

Crimes against the elderly have increased to a great extent as well. People have often threatened the elderly for money using physical force; this is a deplorable and heinous act, and the first response to such acts of violence must come from the victim at the specific moment in which such violence is perpetrated. For this to take place, the victims – be it the young, the middle-aged, or the elderly, must be able to immediately counter any form of violence towards themselves with an act of defense from their own side, and this is where self-defense plays a major part.

Self-defense for all ages has now become an absolute necessity – one cannot survive in the harsh conditions of our modern world if they do not know how to protect themselves. Moreover, it is an irrelevant point that only people who go out into the daily thoroughfare need to be well versed in methods of protecting themselves – everyone, regardless of their age and gender, is susceptible to violence. Therefore, it is only logical that everyone learns how to keep themselves safe from bodily harm, and the only plausible solution is through self-defense classes for all ages.

Children have already begun learning karate from a young age, and this serves as a precedent for adults to also follow their wards. There are multiple institutions that teach self-defense to kids, adults, and the elderly in different, specialized courses – in Japan, people are even trained in the usage of batons to ward off an assaulter and incapacitate him. This should serve as a marker to all nations of the world to introduce self-defense lessons for the sake of their citizens as well as for the sake of maintaining law and order, as well as set an example to the general populace to know at least one form of self-defense to protect them.