Attacking the civilian population is a major objective of war. Eric Hobsbawn, the British historian, wrote in his "The Age of Extremes: The Short XXth Century" that the dawn of the XXth century came with new hope: the feeling that wars no longer targeted civilians, or substantially less than in the past. Yet we all know the record of the XXth century: the world had never seen the scale of the systematic elimination and genocide of civilian populations that took place in WWII.
Rape has often been a by-product of war. But Nicholas Kristof's op-ed in today's New York Times sums up the harsh reality of what we have seen over the last few years, and what is taking place today: rape is being used as a primary war objetive, to permanently destroy women's and children's lives. And the international community is not taking action.
The UN sponsored a Conference on rape in war in 2006, Link to BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
yet the international community and the Security Council have done virtually nothing to stop it.
Kristoff, in his op-ed, points out that warfare in being waged through rape, and was first noted when Serbian "rape camps" were discovered in 1993.
There are two reasons for this. First, mass rape is very effective militarily. From the viewpoint of a militia, getting into a firefight is risky, so it’s preferable to terrorize civilians sympathetic to a rival group and drive them away, depriving the rivals of support.
Second, mass rape attracts less international scrutiny than piles of bodies do, because the issue is indelicate and the victims are usually too ashamed to speak up.
Darfur has been turned into a "rape camp." And:
The rape capital of the world is eastern Congo, where in some areas three-quarters of women have been raped. Sometimes the rapes are conducted with pointed sticks that leave the victims incontinent from internal injuries, and a former U.N. force commander there, Patrick Cammaert, says it is "more dangerous to be a woman than to be a soldier."
The international community’s response so far? Approximately: "Not our problem."
This kind of brutality, that most particularly targets childern, is not getting the attention it deserves from world leaders.
Human Rights Watch has called for the UN Security Council to take action. Link: http://www.hrw.org/...
From Kristoff:
The United Nations Security Council will hold a special session on sexual violence this Thursday, with Condoleezza Rice coming to New York to lead the debate. This session, sponsored by the United States and backed by a Security Council resolution calling for regular follow-up reports, just may help mass rape graduate from an unmentionable to a serious foreign policy issue.
This is too important an issue to ignore. And I invite all of you to read this wonderful op-ed. I hope I haven't made too many mistakes, since this is my first diary. Link to op-ed: http://www.nytimes.com/...
Deoliver47 has provided us 2 great links: the first one to a video, the second one to an Amnesty International Fact Sheet:
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
http://www.amnestyusa.org/...