Rape: It's every where!

There was outcry when news spread of a 23 year old woman who was gang-raped and inflicted with grevious (truly horrific) injuries, but if I could take a moment to draw your attention to the following:

- 11 year old girl gang-raped and inflicted with grevious injuries.  She has undergone 14 major reconstructive surgeries (and will have at least 1 more), and her family is being pressured to drop the case (Jaipur)

- a 6 year old girl was raped (Moga district)

- a 6 year old girl was (allegedly) raped (Sindh, Pakistan)

- the age of a woman raped in Central Park (New York) in September 2012: 73

- 14 men have been accused of repeatedly gang-raping an 11 year old girl in Texas (they said she 'dressed older than her age')

- in the US, 15% of sexual assault and rape victims are under the age of 12

- 48 women were raped per hour in Congo during the war

- 60,000+ women were raped in the 1990s during the Bosnian conflict

- a 12 year old boy was forced to participate in the rape of his mother (in the US)

- in Afghanistan, women are being imprisoned for being raped

- US forces raped several women in rural Afghanistan

- in Morocco, a 16 year old rape victim committed suicide after bring forced to marry her rapist

- an 8 year old, a 14 year old and a 15 year old were forced to marry a 59 year old at the Tony Alamo Christian Ministry in Arkansas

These are just the 'public' and 'not-so-public' ones.  There are thousands upon thousands that are unheard of.  Thousands upon thousands that are suppressed in order to protect 'honour' and 'family', and other 'reasons'.

Churches, temples, madrassas, schools...homes.

In some cases, when the victims speak out they're branded as liars or prostitutes.  Others (or their families) are 'convinced' to quieten up.  Others die.  Others disappear.

A few get the push their case needs, a few have the attention given to them.  A few may be able to get justice.

The rest?  With bandaged wounds and suppressed trauma, they 'live'...

All

Across

The

World

Rape, clothes and the disturbing mindset (of men) that seems to be encouraged...

When I read comments like ‘if she’s dressed in a short skirt she’s asking for attention’, I just think (excuse the profanity) ‘bullshit’.  The ‘excuses’ and ‘justifications’ made by certain people over why some men behave they way they do, and do the things they do, are, frankly, ridiculous.

In my (uneducated) opinion, it all, basically, comes down to ‘power play’.  Just as there are men who do not want women to be educated because they know that those women will be better than them, that those women will achieve the goals they have set themselves, and those same men will be ‘weak’ (and looked ‘down on’ in comparison), and so will  do whatever they can to ‘dissuade’ women from having access to education that is rightfully theirs, so, too, there are men who, either through experiencing rejection or fearing it, use manipulation, force, coercion and so on, in order to ‘have their way’.

Across the world there are rapists – opportunists and ‘escalators’ – and I think one of the approaches we need to take in countering these people requires us to address the general encouraged mindset.  (Note, the following are generalisations)

‘Wooing’ someone has become ‘aggressively pursuing’ – music videos, song lyrics, and movies have encouraged this and although, for the most part, it hasn’t been ‘direct’, the associative imagery is there.

‘Taking advantage’ of a drunk person is ‘okay’ so long as the person being taken advantage of isn’t absolutely paralytic when the initial advances are made – over the years we have had the repeated excuse of ‘I didn’t think she was that drunk’, coupled with ‘I thought she was just teasing and pretending to be hard-to-get’, and similar claims.

‘Women like to have attention given to them, and that’s why they dress ‘provocatively’/smile at you/touch your arm when they laugh etc’’.  Sure, touching someone is a strong indicator of being comfortable with that person, but being comfortable with a person doesn’t mean ‘I want you, I need you, oh baby, oh baby’.  Similarly, smiling at someone isn’t a ‘come-on’, and when nuns and women wearing burqas and niqabs are being raped there is no way you can say they were ‘dressed provocatively’.

…but that’s what some people have and do claim…that wearing a burqa is the lady’s way of saying ‘come and find out what’s underneath’…that it’s a ‘cock-tease’…and an invitation…

So if a woman wearing a bikini and sarong is ‘asking for it’, and a woman wearing a burqa is ‘asking for it’, and a woman wearing jeans is ‘asking for it’, and a woman wearing a baggy tracksuit is ‘asking for it’…what the heck are women supposed to wear that will make it clear that ‘no, I do not want you to try and have your way with me!  I’m not interested!  Leave me alone!’?!

I’m not going to deny that there have been instances of a woman consenting, regretting it, and then claiming rape.  It has happened.  But those instances are few and far between.  The guys at the receiving end of such claims are rightfully confused, but when there’s resistance to advances (and, yes, women usually are aware enough to say ‘no’ or try to dissuade things from progressing beyond the kissing and ‘petting’ stage) or no resistance because she’s physically unable to because she’s either unconscious or close to being so, there is no basis for confusion or misunderstanding.

None.

At all.

…and when it’s a child…well, just be glad I (and many others) will never get our hands on you because, frankly, you’d wish you were dead or that I/we would kill you.

I’m keeping this post relatively tame, but in light of the demonic behaviour of ‘those’ rapists in India, the rape of a 6 year-old in Pakistan, the revelations that so many vulnerable people were exploited in the UK…and so on…I really want to rant and rave (impotent as such ranting and raving may be).

Words aren’t enough – the women and children of this world must be protected!