6 posts tagged “rape”
This should be the last post of this series, and it is actually the original followup to the primary post. I came across some shocking information regarding rape and sexual abuse in South Africa. This hits home for me on several different levels. I have personal experience with such matters, and someone very dear to me wants to go there soon to help out those in need. I must admit that it scares me to some degree, but all of that is another story, for another time...
What information did I come across? Well, according to a study into rape and HIV by the Medical Research Council (MRC), 1 out of 4 men in South Africa have admitted to raping someone. Let's get some stats out of the way, shall we?
Three out of four rapists first attacked while still in their teens, the study found. One in 20 men said they had raped a woman or girl in the last year.
Of those surveyed, 28% said they had raped a woman or girl, and 3% said they had raped a man or boy. Almost half who said they had carried out a rape admitted they had done so more than once, with 73% saying they had carried out their first assault before the age of 20.
Any woman raped by a man over the age of 25 has a one in four chance of her attacker being HIV-positive.
One in 10 men said they had been forced to have sex with another man. Many find it difficult to report such attacks to the police in subcultures where the concept of homosexuality is taboo.A report published by the trade union Solidarity earlier this month said that one child is raped in South Africa every three minutes, with 88% of rapes going unreported. It found that levels of child abuse in South Africa are increasing rapidly.
That should be sobering for anyone. With such astonishing figures, it is important to understand why. Professor Rachel Jewkes of the MRC ahd this to say:
"We have a very, very high prevalence of rape in South Africa. I think it is down to ideas about masculinity based on gender hierarchy and the sexual entitlement of men. It's rooted in an African ideal of manhood."
I must admit that I agree with her. Having spoken with two of my friends who reside there, they confirm that assertion. I am aware of the lack of scientific merit behind such information, but you can't discount unbiased first hand knowledge. There are others who feel the same way as well. Dean Peacock, co-director of the Sonke Gender Justice project, said:
"We hear men saying, 'If Jacob Zuma can have many wives, I can have many girlfriends.' The hyper-masculine rhetoric of the Zuma campaign is going to set back our work in challenging the old model of masculinity."
I think that it stems from the cultural belief and thinking that men are superior and held to a different standard. There is a pervasive belief, practiced by many, with no real fear of punishment, and that inevitably leads to the widespread practice of such behavior.
The government has been rather complacent as well in its efforts to address the issue. In South Africa, only 7% of rapes ever lead to a conviction. In fact, the leader of the country stood trial for the rape of a family friend. His supporters demonstrated outside the court, verbally attacked his accuser and sang "burn the bitch, burn the bitch". He was eventually acquitted.
So what is the answer? Honestly, I don't think that there is an easy one. I think that there are two primary things that need to be addressed. The leadership needs to take responsibility in making sure that such crimes are punished. The need for a reform of the justice system, from the top down, is needed. Without such a reform, you will never change the matter. The second thing that needs to be addressed is the attitudes of the people. If you create a real sense that there may be a punishment for such an act, then you have tackled a large part of this issue. People are much less likely to do something if they know that they may face serious consequences for such behavior. The old model of masculinity needs to be addressed as well. This will be a much harder, and time consuming effort, but it is necessary if this behavior is to stop. People need to be made aware that there are victims in this, that women are equals, and that there are risks involved for both parties such as a sky-high HIV infection rate.
Given the current leadership, I don't suspect that much progress will be made in this area until new leadership comes to power. I remain hopeful however, since change needs to come to South Africa (and Africa as a whole) very badly.
Atrocities are nothing new in Africa. The Congo region in particular has been especially hard hit. I read a very gripping article by the New York Times that detailed that some of the most horrific rapes that I had ever heard of. There are tragic tales of girls as young as 11 months getting gang raped by as many as five men! The vast majority of these women are unable to seek help, and those that do find help severely lacking.
An Excerpt:
…
it has become the norm for armed men to use guns, knives and bayonets to rupture their victims' bodies. Sometimes they shoot bullets up women's vaginas. Victims often are rejected by their families, contract HIV, and are left to live in pain and shame.
In December, he operated on an 11-month-old baby raped by a 22-year-old neighbor. During one week in February, it was a 12-year-old girl who had been savagely raped by five soldiers. They stuffed a maize cob inside her.
Also treated last week was a 4-year-old whose mother sent her across the road to get something from a neighbor. She was kidnapped by soldiers and gang-raped.
The 4-year-old was infected with HIV, and they await results from a test on the 12-year-old. ''If three, four, five soldiers rape you, you are almost assured of contracting AIDS,'' Kinoma says.
Please read this article: Atrocious Rapes
I came across this story detailing the insane levels of "corrective rape" that goes on in South Africa. The gist is that lesbians are targeted to be raped in the hopes that the rape will "fix" them. Of course, this is absurd. There was a case recently about a female soccer player who was brutally gang raped, beaten, and stabbed IN THE FACE 25 times. What caught my eye about this was the official response:
A statement released by South Africa's national prosecuting authority said: "While hate crimes – especially of a sexual nature – are rife, it is not something that the South African government has prioritised as a specific project."
I hope that they wake up and start treating these crimes appropriately. Its yet another example of zealotry gone too far, and how people in power tend to protect their own.
Family Cuts Open Raped Daughter to Remove Fetus
From the article:
The girl is critically ill in hospital after her family sewn the girl up themselves and said she had been bitten by a dog to cover their crime.
A man accused of raping the girl, from the central Afghan province of Bamiyan, is under arrest.
The rural family apparently decided to perform an abortion when the girl was five months pregnant to protect the family's honour.
Rape victims face extreme social stigma, imprisonment and abandonment or murder by their own families in Afghanistan.
Dr Ghulam Mohammad Nader, head of Bamiyan hospital, told the BBC that the girl had been able to explain what had happened but was in a critical condition with infected wounds. She is now being treated in the capital Kabul.
"The girl stayed at home for three or four days in her condition until her father took her to hospital," he said.
"He said a dog had bitten her so that people in the area wouldn't know what had really happened."
Habiba Sarabi, governor of the province, said the girl had been bound and taken to a stables for the abortion. Police are now trying to arrest her family.
Amnesty International reported the death of a young woman aged 13 by STONING, for accusing three men of gang-raping her. This is sick. I truly wish that the world would express its outrage in Mogadishu. Order has to be restored to that region as the people suffer tremendously. What a sad situation.
A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said.
Dozens of men stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death Oct. 27 in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The Islamic militia in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, the rights group said.
Initial local media reports said Duhulow was 23, but her father told Amnesty International she was 13. Some of the Somali journalists who first reported the killing later told Amnesty International that they had reported she was 23 based upon her physical appearance.
Calls to Somali government officials and the local administration in Kismayo rang unanswered Saturday.
"This child suffered a horrendous death at the behest of the armed opposition groups who currently control Kismayo," David Copeman, Amnesty International's Somalia campaigner, said in a statement Friday.
Somalia is among the world's most violent and impoverished countries. The nation of some 8 million people has not had a functioning government since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991 then turned on each other.
A quarter of Somali children die before age 5; nearly every public institution has collapsed. Fighting is a daily occurrence, with violent deaths reported nearly every day.
Islamic militants with ties to al-Qaida have been battling the government and its Ethiopian allies since their combined forces pushed the Islamists from the capital in December 2006. Within weeks of being driven out, the Islamists launched an insurgency that has killed thousands of civilians.
In recent months, the militants appear to be gaining strength. The group has taken over the port of Kismayo, Somalia's third-largest city, and dismantled pro-government roadblocks. They also effectively closed the Mogadishu airport by threatening to attack any plane using it.http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/11/01/amnesty.rape.somalia.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest
There was a study by the University of Sussex that determined that people who drink tend to have better memories when they start drinking, and they tend to forget when they drink past a certain threshold. While this may seem obvious to some, especially those who have a general idea of how the brains neurotransmitters operate, it is a very useful study. Even if something were to be an obvious fact, it isn't justifiable in the scientific community unless there are studies that back it up that have used the scientific method. Anyways...
I know lots of young people who drink. A lot. I am certainly not judging anyone (my nickname in high school was Jerry Booze...and yes, I had a drinking problem back then-but I quit cold turkey once I got a serious girlfriend), but this still causes me concern. People cross limits. Many don't know their limits. And they do it often. It has placed many of my friends in dangerous situations and there have been times that it has crossed the line.
TRUE STORY: A girl that I was seeing called me not too long after we broke up. She was at a party, having a good time. She was making out with a guy, but she ended up drinking too much. She passed out upstairs, and long story short: he had sex with her. I was flabberghasted! In my day we used to hunt guys like that down. Do you know what her response was? IT WAS NO BIG DEAL! This was the advice of her best friend (who had the same thing happen to her! I call it RAPE, but whatever...
Situations like that really make me wonder why people drink so often and so much. I can understand in some cases why people would lose themselves in a bottle (lord knows I have more reasons to drink than 99% of the people out there), but what about the "good kids?" The kids whose parents are well off, and who placate their children? You know the type. What makes them drink? I think that this study answers that question.
I think the key passage is this:
It means that while a drinker may remember the happy events such as socialising with friends at the start of a drinking session, they are less able to recall the negative effects that happen later in the night.
Check out the study here:
