'Living Hell':
Somalia's Hidden Rape Epidemic
By Taylor Hom
Nadifa, a widowed mother of four, left her hut near Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, to search for food. When she returned home hours later, she found a man raping her 11-year-old daughter. Nadifa tried to defend her daughter but was torn away by armed men as she screamed. The neighborhood watched helplessly as the men abducted Nadifa. She was pistol-whipped, kicked, punched, and scorched with burning plastic.
In Somalia, this is no anomaly. In a country torn by civil war, terrorism, and a mass famine, tens of thousands have died, and there has not been a functioning government for two decades. In mid-October, Kenya invaded Somalia, allegedly to fight al-Shabab, one of the world’s most fearsome terrorist organizations. With rising food prices, aid agencies like the UN’s World Food Program fear increased problems with food theft. While the world focuses on al-Shabab and food aid efficiency, the deteriorating situation has created an environment ripe for escalating gender violence. While the whole of Somalia carries the weight of the famine blistering the Horn of Africa, it’s women like Nadifa who bear the burden of the nation’s humanitarian catastrophe. Ensuring the safety of Somali women will pay long-term dividends for the stability of the country, and in the short-term, save thousands from the horrors of rape.
Sinead Murray, a program manager for the International Rescue Committee, says there has been a four-fold increase in sexual violence since June. More and more women are being raped while fleeing to refugee camps, and even more tragically, once they are inside the camps as well. With no form of authority to punish the rapists, women fear menial tasks like walking to a bathroom. Establishing an efficient means of food aid in this corrupt nation is essential, but it won’t do much good if women have to fear leaving their homes.
International forces have given money and various forms of aid to the Transitional Federal Government in Somalia and neighboring Kenya, who hosts thousands of Somali refugees in Dadaab camp, the world’s largest refugee site. It is time these international forces, alongside the Somali and Kenyan governments, make protecting women a priority. Rape has become not just a tactic of war but a devastating social norm. Amid so many other problems, women’s rights have been placed on the backburner. If gender violence continues unnoticed and unpunished, beside the scars of starvation and war, there will be a fear embedded in the women of Somali that no level of international aid can heal. Gender violence undermines any potential success in the region.
Somalia is one of the world’s worst places to be a woman, according to a recent survey by Trust Law, a project of the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Somalia’s minister for women's development and family welfare, Maryan Qasim, says she is “completely surprised” that Somalia isn’t number one (it currently ranks behind Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo), calling the nation a “living hell” for females.
Since women rarely report sexual violence, the statistics are at best fuzzy. Being a rape victim is taboo in Somalia. Al-Shabab considers a woman that reports her own rape to be a criminal. In 2008, Amnesty International released a report of a 13-year-old girl who was killed after her family reported she was raped. A number of eyewitnesses say she was brutally beaten to death in front of 1,000 spectators. She was buried neck high and pelted with stones. Allegedly, during the stoning, nurses were sent to check if the girl was still alive. They reported yes, so they removed her from the ground and continued to beat her until she died.
Rape has become an everyday crime that wriggles itself free from any form of justice. Sexual violence is seldom reported because many women “fear that their families will blame them, communities will reject them or simply because they feel ashamed to talk about it,” says Ann Burton, a senior public health officer at the United Nations Refugee Agency.
It is important that along with food aid, support is given to clinics that aid victims of rape, paving the way towards some kind of justice, showing that rape doesn’t have to be a fact of life. Organizations like Sister Somalia, which established the first sexual violence hotline, should be supported and encouraged. They also provide medical service, counseling, and business starter kits for rape survivors. But Sister Somalia currently only serves 300 women a year--among them Nadifa--but this is just a small fraction of the nation's victims.
Women travel hundreds of kilometers with their children to find peace at camps like Dadaab in Kenya, now the word’s biggest refugee site. Here, gangs of men have found opportunity. In the 50-mile stretch from Mogadishu to the border, bandits wait for refugees where they often rob men and rape women.
Once in the Kenyan refugee camp of Dadaab, the majority of the families are female-headed, according to the UN. Many husbands have died, been killed, or simply abandoned their families, leaving women to lead their families through drought, famine, and civil war, alone. As the camp continues to grow, sexual violence has increased drastically. Women fear leaving the safety of a large group for such quotidian tasks as retrieving firewood, since groups of men often lurk in the woods waiting for a lone woman.
"Some women interviewed during (the IRC) survey said they witnessed women and girls being raped in front of their husbands and parents, at the insistence of perpetrators described as 'men with guns.' Others were forced to strip down naked, and… they were raped by multiple perpetrators," says Murray.
Dadaab camp now constitutes Kenya’s third largest city, and some reports claim that Somali citizens employed by the Kenyan government to protect the border against al-Shabab are often rapists themselves. Kenya receives millions in aid from the U.S. If Kenya has enough troops for an invasion into the southern portions of Somalia, they should be able to provide some sort of protection around the refugee camps.
Kenya is right—al-Shabab needs to be eliminated. But protecting women cannot wait until terrorists, famine, and disease are defeated entirely. Protection for women must be implemented simultaneously. If millions of dollars, countless pounds of food, arms, and drones are devoted to Somalia by western powers, then they can afford to emphasize the plight of women, especially in and around the refugee camps.
The UN and other aid agencies say that the hundreds of millions of dollars in aid has not been wholly effective. While much of it is lost in the corrupt and disorganized political system, it’s also impossible to ensure food reaches the female-headed households if women are afraid to leave their huts. Making sure that women feel safe, especially in and near refugee camps, will do wonders to improve the efficiency of aid delivery.
The country is in shambles, and helping Somalia will not be simple. Many analysts are worried that in the coming rainy season diseases like malaria, cholera, and measles could ravage an already weak population. But we cannot wait for the many ails of Somalia to be cured before the Somali women are noticed. Right now, there is an unacknowledged war being waged. The rape epidemic has become an emblem of Somalia’s chaos. The shattered nation is in desperate need of organized governance. To address the plight of women would not only be a step towards justice, but towards the rebuilding of a cohesive and functioning society.
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Taylor Hom is an editorial assistant at the World Policy Journal.
[Photo courtesy of Flickr user IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation/Turkey's photostream]
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Male Rape:
Too Taboo to Address?
(This article was originally published in The Mantle)
By Emily Cody
A population-based assessment completed recently by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that nearly 40% of women and 23% of men in three Eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had been subjected to gender based violence (GBV) since conflict reignited in the mid-1990s. Though some INGOs operational in the region have questioned the methodology of the survey, no one has questioned the existence of GBV against men. While GBV against women has been significantly researched, GBV against men remains an emerging issue often relegated to the back burner.
Statistics on both men and women have to be taken with a grain of salt; many survivors of GBV simply do not report incidents due to a myriad of reasons, foremost being fear of stigmatization in their communities. So what is to be done? One problem is with reporting. Many well-intentioned NGOs often don’t know what they are looking for. There has been increased awareness about monitoring GBV against women.
GBV against men is often accompanied by other acts of violence and may not leave visible scars, so it is often skipped over in interviews or can be easily obscured. Men also tend to report GBV differently, often speaking more as an observer than victim. Another is how reporting is collated. GBV against women is often categorized separately, whereas GBV against men is often presented as an act of torture. Paradoxically, this move is in line with the push to classify rape as torture but has diminished awareness of it for men.
Lack of relevant legal standards also exacerbates the situation. In some countries, legal definitions of rape only apply to women, or do not accurately describe male rape. As a paper on GBV against men by Sandesh Sivakumaran states, “ Through its definitions and the way it talks about events, law has the power to silence alternative meanings – to suppress other stories.’”
Male GBV survivors also face an additional burden in that if they are unable to describe the event or are too traumatized to describe it accurately, they risk the danger of their actions being viewed as consensual homosexual acts, similar to the risks women face when reporting rape in countries with sharia legal systems. This can lead to further stigma and potential prosecution in countries where homosexuality is illegal or extremely controversial, such as Uganda. In some cases of GBV, men have been forced to rape other men and/or women, making them more reluctant to report GBV.
GBV in conflict is an intensely political act: the international community has moved away from a “spoils of war” explanation of GBV in conflict and developed a legal and policy framework which recognizes sexual violence as a particularly brutal instrument of war. Recent analysis has suggested that this explanation itself be furthered into broader discussions of gender and violence. Understanding GBV has a lot to contribute to conflict resolution as it is often at its most prevalent when existing power dynamics and hierarchies have collapsed and are subject to reconfiguration.
At the macro-level, large aid agencies often do not see “the big picture” and for the most part ignore GBV. While networks at the micro-level to help female survivors of GBV are often overwhelmed, there are very little networks available for men (although Refugee Law Project and the African Center for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims have done amazing work in this area providing counseling, with RLP also producing a documentary called Men Against Gender), and providing services often has to be done on the side, which can undermine local NGO’s workload possibly deterring future funding from international donors.
This discourse also had implications for international policy. GBV (against women) has become the main lens through which Western advocacy groups view the DRC, but it also has produced, as Jason Stearns writes
“a pornography of violence [by journalists], trying to outdo each other with the most barbaric gang-rape scenario. This has produced something of a rape tourism in Bukavu and Goma, where the same women are interviewed over a dozen times by researchers and journalists about their rape. This makes them relive their trauma, and few of them see that anything has changed. The second fear is not so easy to dispel. It boils down to this: by using such a reductive approach, do we end up with good policy?...The causes of the conflict are complex, and if we wield policy like a bull in a China shop, we will break things.”
Paradoxically, ignoring issues of the way power itself is gendered (GBV can also be seen as an attempt to “feminise” the enemy, implying they are unable to protect themselves: torture in Abu Ghraib of male Iraqis forced to be naked by female Army officers is a good example) indicates that paradoxically the arguably skewed frames through which conflicts like DRC are viewed are missing part of the picture. It also perpetuates the stereotyping of African men as inherently violent, leading men who have suffered similar trauma to suffer in silence.
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Emily Cody is a researcher in political science and a program assistant at the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies in Uganda, a Sudanese human rights organization.
[Photo courtesy of Enough Project]
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Transforming Harm& Building Safety:Confronting Sexual ViolenceAt Occupy Wall Street& Beyond
Posted Nov. 4, 2011, 7:22 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Statement by members of sexual assault survivor’s team at OWS |
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New York, November 4, 2011: We are writing this statement to inform our fellow occupiers about an incident of sexual assault at Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and the response to it. We are also writing this statement to respond to media accounts that blame the survivor, and that attempt to use this horrific incident to attack OWS. We write this statement as supporters of OWS, as fellow survivors, and as allies. |
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On the morning of October 29, a woman participating in OWS was sexually assaulted at Liberty Square. The person who she identified as having assaulted her was arrested on November 1 for a previous assault and is currently incarcerated. On the morning of the assault, the survivor was accompanied to the hospital by a group of women from OWS, including a social worker, to support her and act as advocates. From the moment the incident was discovered to the present time, the survivor has been surrounded by a network of allies and trained advocates offering resources to provide emotional, medical, and legal support. At every step of the process, and in line with the core principles of survivor support, her wishes as to how she wanted to proceed have been honored, and information from a range of sources has been provided to her about her options. The survivor knew immediately that she wanted to make sure that the person who assaulted her did not harm anyone else at OWS. Community members honored this demand by asking that this person to stay off site, and, when he refused, monitored his activity and ejected him from the space. These efforts provided the survivor with the time and space to carefully review the options available to her. Following two days of discussion with family, friends, supporters, and anti-violence advocates, the survivor decided to make a report to the police and to push for a criminal investigation and prosecution. Supporters from OWS accompanied her to the police station, and will continue to support her throughout the legal process. We have been saddened and angered to observe some members of the media and the public blame the survivor for the assault. A survivor is never at fault. It is unacceptable to criticize a survivor for the course of action they chose to take or their community for supporting them in that choice. Additionally, we were troubled at the time of her report that responding police officers appeared to be more concerned by her political involvement in OWS than her need for support after a traumatic incident of sexual violence. A survivor is not at fault for being assaulted while peacefully participating in a public protest to express their political opinions. We are aware that this is one of several known cases of sexual assault that have occurred at OWS. We are dismayed by these appalling acts and distressed by the fear among many Occupiers that they have caused, as well as their negative impact on our ability to safely participate in public protests. We have the right to participate in peaceful protests without fear of violence. We are also concerned that segments of the media have attempted to use this incident as another way to disingenuously attack and discredit OWS. It is reprehensible to manipulate and capitalize on a tragedy like this to discredit a peaceful political movement. OWS exists within a broader culture where sexual assault is egregiously common: someone in the US is sexually assaulted every 2 minutes, most assaults are never reported, and most rapists are never held to account. We live in a culture of violence in which sexual assault is often ignored, condoned, excused and even encouraged. We note that it is particularly difficult for survivors of assault at OWS to feel confident in reporting crimes to the NYPD – the NYPD’s unjustifiably aggressive and abusive policing of OWS has undermined trust in the police force amongst protesters. As individuals and as a community, we have the responsibility and the opportunity to create an alternative to this culture of violence. Advocates, some of whom are survivors themselves, have worked for decades to address sexual violence generally. We are working for an OWS and a world in which survivors are respected and supported unconditionally, where they are supported to come forward, and where every community member takes responsibility for preventing and responding to harm. We are redoubling our efforts to raise awareness about sexual violence. This includes taking preventative measures such as encouraging healthy relationship dynamics and consent practices that can help to limit harm. We are creating and sharing strategies that educate and transform our community into a culture of consent, safety, and well-being. At OWS, these strategies currently include support circles, counseling, consent trainings, safer sleeping spaces, self-defense trainings, community watch, awareness campaigns, and other evolving community-based processes to address harm. We encourage survivors to connect with support and advocates, and to access medical, legal, and social services, as well as available community-based options, many of which are listed below. We stand together as a community to work towards the prevention of sexual violence and harassment, and to provide unwavering support for anyone who has been assaulted. We commit to creating a culture of visibility, support, and advocacy for survivors, and of accountability for people who have committed harm. With hope and solidarity, Below we have included a list of trusted local resources that provide a range of options for survivors and allies. We recommend the services of these organizations, but we have not contacted them for endorsement of this statement. Contact the Safer Spaces Working Group: saferspaceows@gmail.com Audre Lorde Project's Safe Outside the System Collective: http://www.alp.org/community/sos Rape Crisis Providers in NY:http://www.health.ny.gov/community/adults/women/violence/rape_crisis/rape_crisis_provider_report.htm |
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Support New York: http://www.supportny.org |