Silence is the Enemy

[the0lady]

In Liberia, sexual predation during the civil war was “normal.” One major survey found that 75 percent of women had been raped - mostly gang-raped, with many suffering internal injuries.

The incidence of rape has dropped since then but is still numbingly high. An International Rescue Committee survey in 2007 found that about 12 percent of

Comments

[anonymous]

No matter how many times I read or hear stories like that, and I get to hear a lot of them first hand, it never fails to shock and upset me, and quite frankly I hope it never will.

Policies of mass rape as a weapon of war when sanctioned are punishable in the international criminal courts as genocide, but the problem is identifying who, if anyone, gave the specific order and is therefore legally culpable. Which is why that particular law while a nice idea has proved to be utterly useless,a sop to campaigners but nothing with any teeth.

There are a lot of side issues also associated with this that get left out because they're awkward or contentious, like the fact that some of the Christian aid agencies refuse to give out post coital contraception because of their beliefs meaning that not only are these girls and women subjected to the trauma, the shame, the physical beatings and scars, the potential (if not probable) HIV infection they are also often forced to go through with pregnancies or go to unlicenced abortionists. In many parts of Africa refusing post coital contraception or controlled abortion is tantamount to a death sentence given maternal mortality rates.

The further tragedy is that it has a generational impact, women who are deemed to be unmarriageable following bearing a child from rape are often disenfranchised and so they and their children are generally poorer, less educated and lacking in the skills necessary for advancement and empowerment.

It is a reality that often gets lost in this country as the people with the stories to tell are usually asylum seekers who have no access to mass media. People who work with asylum seekers know only too well the scale of what is going on but sadly the answers from authority are usually 'we don't want to know' or 'we know but we can't/won't do anything about it'. Anything that brings the scale of the calculated destruction of whole communities to the fore has to be a good thing, thanks for posting up the links.

[worst_witch]

sorry, that wasn't supposed to be anonymous, my laptop managed to log me out.