"I always think someone is following me and wants to rape me. It is better to die."...

Sigh. :(

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2009/06/silence_is_the_enemy.php

"Sometimes there comes a public health issue that's so big, so overwhelming, so heinous, that you just don't know where to begin discussing it. Nevertheless, the conversation should, and must, happen just the same. Silence may be easier, but speaking out is the only way to demystify the taboos and bring attention to what's going on for those who can't bring attention to it themselves. And maybe, just maybe, bring about some change.

It's no secret that rape happens during wartime. Certainly documents being discussed regarding our own soldiers' treatment of prisoners show that wartime rape--of either "the enemy" or even female colleagues--is not limited to rogue armies in far-off countries some Americans probably couldn't even find on a map. That doesn't make it any less inexcusable, or the crimes any less horrendous, just because we've done it, too.

A recent piece in the New York Times by Nick Kristof highlighted the extent of these rapes even after the war has stopped, discussing rape in Liberia. As Kristof notes, the war in Liberia ended officially in 2003 after 14 years. However, even today--6 years into peacetime--a high percentage of the female population reports a history of rape, including girls as young as 3 years old. Of 275 sexual violence cases treated in just four months' time in Liberia by Doctors without Borders, 28% involved children age 4 or younger, and a third involved children ages 5-12. Children are easy targets, and the most powerless of all possible victims.... "

is one of the largest-scale crimes of the past century.

Mostly eastern.

And then theres all sorts of interesting abuses performed on women in the North for the purposes of enforcing purity and fidelity.

Africa is a continent which has been abused over and over again for at least a thousand years.

but its kept out of sight, like racism is.

And it is not a subject people want to discuss. They'd rather ignore the victim's horrific ordeal.

:eyes:

:cry:

:grouphug:

nt

The scale of atrocities that have happened there is just appalling and largely ignored. If just half of this kind of turmoil had been occurring in Europe we'd have had another world war by now.

I'm not suggesting that war is the solution, just that it seems pretty clear the welfare of millions of people in Africa just isn't much of a priority. I remember all the intense attention paid to the violence in Ireland in the 1980's. Headlining the news all the time. It was certainly deserving of attention, but the human toll was absolutely minuscule compared with the violence and horror coming out of Africa.

We side with Israel, desipte the hugely disproportionate carnage, because they are more familiar to us. Or more correctly to recently past generations.

Perhaps it is heartening in a way that there is sufficient familiarity/empathy that there can even be the vitriolic slanging matches we have today over whether or not we roll over a bunch of rag heads who are standing between us and something we want.

The disheartening part is we have to keep a lid on the powder keg the dying breed is doing its best to touch off for at least another generation.

The Soviets raped their way to Berlin. Hundreds of thousands of abortions.