Double Atrocity

Gang rape is terrifying anywhere, but particularly so here. Women who are raped here are often ostracized for life, even forced to build their own huts and live by themselves. In addition, most girls in Darfur undergo an extreme form of genital cutting called infibulation that often ends with a midwife stitching the vagina shut with a thread made of wild thorns. This stitching and the scar tissue make sexual assault a particularly violent act, and the resulting injuries increase the risk of H.I.V. transmission.

That is twice unspeakable. The frying pan of their own culture is hardly kinder than the fire of destruction raging around it. In case anyone hesitates to call this genocide, the Janjaweed matter-of-factly announce it to their rape victims: "They said, 'You are black people. We want to wipe you out'". But I can't come up with a word strong enough and vile enough for this double brutalization of women. It's as if the very power of giving life is despised and feared.

All from Nicholas Kristof's Sunday column, "A Policy of Rape". It's very hard to read. Kristof, who's been firing a barrage of columns and reports from Darfur, including online video clips, sounds increasingly desperate himself:

Those women who spoke to me risked arrest and lifelong shame by telling their stories. Their courage should be an inspiration to us - and above all, to President Bush - to speak out. Mr. Bush finally let the word Darfur pass his lips on Wednesday, after 142 days of silence, but only during a photo op. Such silence amounts to acquiescence, for this policy of rape flourishes only because it is ignored.

- amba

Comments

[sleipner]

The brutality and superstition in some of those countries is just unbelievable - Darfur is just a particular egregious example.

I'm not sure exactly where, but I know female circumcision is practiced in some places in Africa - a horrible means by which they ensure women will never enjoy sex. The above mentioned stitching I hadn't heard about but sounds disgustingly brutal.

Another I had heard about that is at least as bad is the belief some men in Africa have that if they rape a virgin they can make their HIV go away. Horrid any way you look at it.

The only way anything will ever turn around in these places is via education and political and economic reform. Far easier said than done, of course.