Rape & War in the Congo

Came across this story and it was too disgusting not to comment on.

Lisa F. Jackson debuts her new documentary, "The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo" tonight on HBO. What immediately sets this film apart is the fact that Jackson actually goes to the Congo and interviews victims and rapists, soilders with a sick and twisted analysis of power:

"Did they want you to sleep with them?" Jackson inquires, her voice incisive, a bit on edge. A translator repeats her words in Swahili. Is it about control? Sex? Why violate a woman, leave her to bleed in her village, while her husband watches, tied to a tree? Why would 20 men line up and take turns, one after the other, raping a girl until she passes out and separates herself from a pain too evil to imagine?

Why insert a machete into a woman, leaving her organs so torn and dysfunctional that she flees her village and hides her shame and her stench in the bush, another victim of war?

"After we've been raped, our men don't want us anymore. We are considered half-human beings," a lonely woman confides to Jackson and her camera.

In another scene, the gray-sweatered rapist doesn't flinch at Jackson's question: "If she says no, I must take her by force. If she is strong, I'll call some of my friends to help me. All this is happening because of the war. We would live a normal life and treat women naturally if there was no war."

The war started in 1998 when Congolese rebels and Rwandan troops tried to oust the country's president, Laurent Kabila. But the fighting metastasized into a conflict over land, ethnicity and natural resources and lasted long after Kabila's 2001 assassination and well beyond a 2003 peace accord. Eastern Congo, the flashpoint of the conflict, degenerated into a state of near constant violence, with regular troops, rebels and regional militias routinely looting villages and routinely raping women and girls.


...How many such children will be born of rape? One cannot say. But the number of rapes, as told by the film's collection of rapists, is staggering.

"Well, those that I remember, I could number them to 18." It's green beret again, touting his rape tally.

Camouflage hat says he has raped seven women. Green hood says five. Red T-shirt admits to two. Black sunglasses: about 20.

Black skullcap says, like an accountant: "It's hard to keep record of the number of women that I've raped. The thing to keep in mind is the fact that we have stayed too long in the bush, and that induced us to rape. You know how things are in combat zones. We raped as we advance from village to village."

If ever there needed to be glaring evidence of how rape is used as a weapon of mass destruction, this is it.

Family Violence in Baltimore

On March 31st a Baltimore man, Mark Castillo drowned his three children in a hotel bathtub and then attempted suicide. He had a history of mental illness and domestic abuse. His wife Amy filed for a restraining order in December of 2006. At the hearing in January 2007 Judge Joseph A. Dugan Jr. denied a restraining order partly because Amy was still having sex with her husband. Amy testified that she had sex with her husband because she feared what he would do if he suspected that she was taking action against him. "I am not satisfied," Dugan said, "that indeed there is clear and convincing evidence of abuse in this case."

I heard about the deaths of the children on Monday but did not know about the denial of the restraining order until today. Check out the Feministing post about it.

It is absolutely horrid to think that a judge would deny a restraining order based on sex. This woman consented to sex with her husband out of fear for her family. The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN)states that “If you didn’t say no because you were legitimately scared for your life or safety, then it may be rape. Sometimes it isn’t safe to resist, physically or verbally — for example, when someone has a knife or gun to your head, or threatens you or your family if you say anything.”

Castillo threatened to kill his children many times and had attempted suicide before and put the blame on his wife. Amy Castillo also testified that Castillo once told her that "the worst thing he could do to me would be to kill the children and not me so I could live without them." Castillo raped his wife and she was denied a restraining order because of it.

How are we supposed to move forward with women’s rights if our legal system cannot even protect us from domestic violence and rape? How is it possible that some would think that it is unnecessary to protect women and children from abusive relationships?

1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men are sexually assaulted in their lifetime.

While women are less likely than men to be victims of violent crimes overall, women are five to eight times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner.

Three in four women (76 percent) who reported they had been raped and/or physically
assaulted since age 18 said that a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, or date committed the assault.

Read more statistics on the Family Violence Prevention Fund website.

We need to recognize the violence that is occurring in our communities and homes and work to end it. Rape, sexual assault and domestic violence are not "family or relationship problems." Just because it is happening inside someones home does not mean that it is not our problem. It's everyones problem. Get Involved.