Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
This column by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times has sparked outrage and a need for action to combat the use of rape as tool of terror in many hot spots in Africa. What he reports is tragic and appalling. And after reading this, please go to the end for information on what you can do to help:
In modern times, we've seen mass rape as an element of warfare in Congo, Darfur, Bosnia, Rwanda, Liberia -- but the lesson here in Liberia in West Africa is that even when the fighting ends, the rape continues. And that brings us to Jackie, a lovely 7-year-old with tight braids and watchful eyes.
He tells the story of this young girl, raped by the security guard at her school. And puts it in a larger context:
Jackie is now in a shelter for survivors of sexual violence -- and what staggered me is that so many of the girls are pre-teens. A 3-year-old survivor has just moved out, but Jackie jumps rope with girls aged 8 to 11.Of course, children are raped everywhere, but what is happening in Liberia is different. The war seems to have shattered norms and trained some men to think that when they want sex, they need simply to overpower a girl. Or at school, girls sometimes find that to get good grades, they must have sex with their teachers.
"Rape is a scar that the war left behind," said Dixon Jlateh, an officer in the national police unit dealing with sexual violence. "Sexual violence is a direct product of the war."...
In Liberia, sexual predation during the civil war was "normal." One major survey found that 75 percent of women had been raped -- mostly gang-raped, with many suffering internal injuries.
The incidence of rape has dropped since then but is still numbingly high. An International Rescue Committee survey in 2007 found that about 12 percent of girls aged 17 and under acknowledged having been sexually abused in some way in the previous 18 months.
Then there is the age of the victims. Of the 275 new sexual violence cases treated between January and April by Doctors Without Borders in Liberia, 28 percent involve children aged 4 or younger, and 33 percent involve children aged 5 through 12.
"The rape of little children is common," said Oretha Brooks, a social worker at the excellent Duport Road Clinic in Monrovia. "It happens on a daily basis." She introduced me to Wynnie, a 9-year-old girl in her waiting room who had been raped twice.
For similar accounts of the same phenomenon in the Congo, read this column, which was based on testimony given by Eve Ensler in front of a Congressional committee.
So what can you and I do about it? We can start by donating to organizations like Doctors Without Borders. And you can help raise money for them indirectly by going to two blogs, On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess and The Intersection. Isis and Sheril Kirshenbaum have pledged to donate the earnings from their blogs for the month of June to Doctors Without Borders and the more hits they get, the more money is raised for that cause.
But there's more you can do. Speak out. If you have blogs, write about this issue and get others interested in it and motivated to help. Write to your Congressional leaders (Sheril will have a static letter available after today that you can use) and urge them to use whatever means are possible - political, diplomatic, economic, whatever - to help bring this to an end.
As the title of this collective blog project says, silence is the enemy. Let's all speak out, to whatever degree we can, against this monstrous reality.
Politics
Comments
There will be a lot going on all month, including a soon-to-be-launched centralized hub. Thanks for joining us Ed!
Posted by: Sheril R. Kirshenbaum | June 1, 2009 10:04 AM
Thanks for blogging about this, Ed. I plan on making a donation to DWB today. Unfortunately, rape is prevalent in Africa even outside of former war zones. I'm thinking particularly of South Africa, which according to the UN, averages around 50,000 rapes per year. And as if the problem wasn't horrible enough, South Africa is also home to the form of sexual assault known as "corrective rape" that specifically targets lesbian women. Those with the stomach for it can read more about that here and here.
Posted by: Imrryr | June 1, 2009 10:30 AM
Given we've had some social conservatives show up in this forum with all their attendant ignorance and bigotry, here's an example of systemic rape in a community of white Anglo social conservatives on Pitcairn Island that went on for well over a hundred years, some of these rapes were against infants. Pitcairn is where the mutineers of the Bounty, along with some Tahitians - some of whom they kidnapped to be sex slaves, established a community. Their local power structure not only condoned the rapes, they were the primary rapists while their church leaders, even those living off the island, turned a blind eye. The conservative local women defended these men's acts and merely equated it to a part of growing up or that the girls, even those that were prepubescent, "had it coming".
Posted by: Michael Heath | June 1, 2009 10:31 AM
Micheal Heath - While I don't doubt the truth of the allegations of child rape*, I'd just like to ask for some clarification.
a) "white Anglo social conservatives". Ignoring the initial redundancy, these indivuals are both 'Gothic' (Angles amongst other Gothic/Germanic plus many others) and 'Polynesian', unless you know something I don't (more than possible). Do we know their political views? Can we characterise them as social conservatives? Or do you mean 'traditional' (ie similar to 18th Century England)?
b) "..some of whom [Tahitians] they [Bounty crew-members] kidnapped to be sex slaves..". And you have a citation for this right?
c) "...even those living off the island.." Do you mean the Pitcairn Power Structure ,the Church Leaders servicing only the Power structure, Pitcairn Islanders generally? Is it remotely possible than a church leader who is not a Pitcairn Islander and is living off-shore wouldn't know of the abuse?
Again, I wish to stress I'm not disagreeing at all with your allegations about the culture of rape on Pitcairn. But how are conservative posters (no matter how idiotic, bigoted and hurtful they may be) who respond on this thread responsible for behaviour on a tiny speck of an island lost in the midst of Pacific Ocean? - confused DJ
*I wrestled with 'pedophilia' but finally, after numerous drafts, went for 'rape'. To me the latter seemed more direct and honest, the former a little too laden with connotations.
PS Note I used the word 'allegations'. This is not a measure of disbelief, but simply because I'm not sure about the legal status of these cases.
Posted by: DingoJack | June 1, 2009 11:12 AM
The book I linked to clearly describes the rapists and their enablers with a clearly defined set of ideals that is a typical Christian social conservative worldview beyond the systemic sexual abuse. That island's inhabitants were nearly all members, not mere attendees, but members of the 7th Day Adventist Church from early in the 20th century to early this decade when some of these crimes were prosecuted.
The Tahitian men that came over in the Bounty voluntarily were soon murdered for their women. The Tahitian women were either kidnapped, escaped, or sucumbed to this strongly patriarchal society. All the men on the island refused to even demand punishment of those that raped their own daughters, in fact they enabled them.
Posted by: Michael Heath | June 1, 2009 11:26 AM
Sorry Micheal, I was momentarily overcome by my inner idiot. What are the book's details BTW? -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | June 1, 2009 11:37 AM
DJ - click on the link in my first post in this thread, you can either read my review of the book or click on the book's link to get more reader reviews and an abstract.
Posted by: Michael Heath | June 1, 2009 11:58 AM
See, 'inner idiot'. Thanks Michael. - DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | June 1, 2009 12:19 PM
Somehow I don't think the culture of Pitcairn Island was in any way a normal society from the start.
Posted by: rnb | June 1, 2009 12:21 PM
I have some more suggestions for action in my post about it here...
Emailing people in your address book would be a good start. Quick and easy.
Posted by: DuWayne | June 1, 2009 1:28 PM
Don't forget about those peaceful UN peacekeepers that rape little girls.
Posted by: Oatwhore | June 1, 2009 2:00 PM
Oatwhore - Do you have a citation for the details of the trial, conviction, sentencing & incarceration? - curiously DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | June 1, 2009 2:08 PM
Michael, that is incredibly frightening.
Thanks for this post Ed. I've been a long time supporter of Doctors Without Borders- they do some incredible work. I'll be renewing my membership as soon as I can. While this is a sad reminder I'm glad to have it. The only thing I worry about is forgetting about boys. While girls are probably victimized in greater proportion, surely the boys aren't faring much better.
And Oatwhore, I don't doubt that some UN peacekeepers are rapists. And I'm sure some of them come from cultures where sexual abuse is as widespread as it is in Liberia. Others are no doubt just criminals. The difference is whether or not it is systematic or endemic to the UN peacekeeping force in such a way that the UN itself is culpable. If you could demonstrate that (for example) the UN is lax or actively protecting rapists, or perhaps elaborate on what your point exactly is, I'd be happy to agree with you that it is something worth fighting.
If you can not, then I think I'd just prefer to put my money and effort where it might actually do a little bit of good.
Posted by: Leni | June 1, 2009 7:19 PM
It is difficult to respond to this in an appropriate manner. One thing that is lacking here, as is often or almost always the case with any African country, is perspective. Make no mistake, I am not at all trying to deflect attention from this grave form of criminality and injustice. Nor am I trying to minimize its importance. However, it must be said that this is only one of many equally grave issues that face these impoverished nations, the list is longer than you would imagine, but Liberia is a good example in some respects.
Liberia as a country is like a burn victim who has 90% of their skin charred. Go back and examine the history, starting if you want from the founding, but be advised, you have to dig deep to get any semblance of reality even unto today. Until 1981 Liberia was touted as the "only republic in Africa". That was more or less true depending on how loosely you were willing to define republic. Then there was a coup d' etat, the sitting president was assasinated, the government as such was summarily executed or assimilated, and the nation was taken over by a military dictator of rank Master Sargent in the national guard, Samuel K. Doe.
What followed was an eight year long nightfall, sunset, what have you, on a country that though far from ideal in any sense was possessed until then of a remarkable degree of freedom and community despite consisting of 22 different tribes and a dominant sect of expatriots. Doe brought Liberia into the 20th century. (I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible.) In 1989 Charles Taylor with backing from dubiously attributable sources "invaded" the
Northernmost county of the country from Guinea setting off 13 years of mayhem and brutality and chaos that probably rivals the insanity of Cambodia but will never be documented. That insanity spread to the neighboring countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. And through it all, the USA, the de facto colonial patriarch of Liberia stood by, hands in pockets and did virtually nothing other than evacuate their own and other embassy personnel from Monrovia to Freetown. And kick some fuel into the fire.
At the moment I cannot think of a suitable analogy to put into context what I am trying to get at here. I am not at all trying to say that child rape is a triviality, rather it is one scene depicted by a Johnny come lately (Kristoff) in a huge tapestry of depraved and horrific history. What I guess I hope for here is that people who take up the cause of doing something about this one particularly galling and repugnant crime, will realize through educating themselves, that it is only one of many. That there is a systemic malady that lingers long after two decades of abominations.
The USA could have prevented all of this when Doe took power, he was literally at our mercy, the national currency of Liberia was the US dollar. Not only did the US not impose constraints on Doe's dictatorship, they gave him hundreds of millions of dollars. He soon had converted to Liberian currency, the Liberian dollar, which of course was utterly worthless outside Liberia. What was really at issue was not the idealism of government by the people but the avarice and greed of multinational interests in gold, diamonds, tropical hard wood, iron ore, bauxite, rubber...
Apologies for widening the scope of this thread, I hope I have not violated the codiciles of polite discourse.
Posted by: Krubozumo Nyankoye | June 1, 2009 9:58 PM
Krubozumo,
I also would not want to minimize the audacity of these crimes. But I remember I comment I made to my World History class two weeks ago based on much travel and seeing unspeakable poverty and suffering combined with 18 months of teaching World History seeing the causes of these tragic effects:
I would arm all of the poor villagers of the world so they could defend themselves from the people who oppress them. Then I would educate them about the principles of sound government. People will continue to suffer until they are free from corrupt Western puppet governments that have sold out to the divide and conquer strategy that has caused people from the same ethnic groups to turn on one another repeatedly. ( see "Belief Watch" Newsweek April 27, 2009 p.12) The article was titled How Darfur Became a Killing Field"
I am for helping these poor kids too though.
Ed,
If you give me something I will give it out to my students. Many come from wealthy families who care about this stuff.
Posted by: King of Ireland | June 2, 2009 12:13 AM
"I would arm all of the poor villagers of the world so they could defend themselves from the people who oppress them. "
This. Does. Not. Work. Ever.
Posted by: democommie | June 2, 2009 7:41 AM
KoI, I respect your intentions, but I gotta take issue with some of your statements...
I would arm all of the poor villagers of the world so they could defend themselves from the people who oppress them.
That's the cause, not the solution, of all the civil strife we've been seeing in Africa: one tribe or village arm themselves to fight off a brutal strongman, then become the next brutal strongmen whom their neighbors have to either endure or try ot fight off. Repeat until Gods know when.
Then I would educate them about the principles of sound government.
A lot of sound governments, run by educated and decent people, have been overthrown in Africa from the Cold War on. "Everything will be okay if we just go in and educate them" is pure wishful thinking.
People will continue to suffer until they are free from corrupt Western puppet governments that have sold out to the divide and conquer strategy that has caused people from the same ethnic groups to turn on one another repeatedly.
Is all the violence we're seeing today coming from "Western puppet governments?" I've seen a lot of violence coming from people like Robert Mugabe, who claim legitimacy based on the fact that they're fighting AGAINST "Western puppet governments." I agree the West has a lot of innocent African blood on its hands -- but we're not the only ones with blood on our hands. Blaming outsiders exclusively for Africa's troubles, explicitly or implicitly, hasn't been helping Africa to solve its problems.
Posted by: Raging Bee | June 2, 2009 9:38 AM
Raging Bee,
So what will work? The reason for the guns is that education alone has not worked. I also refuse to believe that they puppet governments are fighting the "real" puppet governments. All of a sudden our foreign policy has just changed over the last 20 years because we are elightened and good now. We are deceived and most of this horror is intentional and greed motivated from outsiders. The poor children get caught in the cross fire. I know it is just a movie but "Blood Diamond" shows what is really going on.
Gun control and limits allows the bad guys to have all the arms. Why don't we civilized Westerners burn all ours and then ask others to go without. We are not going to disarm ourselves. Will never happen. So why should they?
Posted by: King of Ireland | June 2, 2009 8:43 PM
Horrific, disgusting, insane. And unfortunately I have exactly 0 outrage to spare Africa.
Maybe if I thought my outrage would help, maybe if I thought my (trivial) contribution would do any good I could muster up some outrage, but probably no.
For the discussion on UN soldiers:
The difference between the UN peacekeepers and the locals is that usually the UN peackeepers pay for themseleves. I say usually, not always. Doesn't make much difference when the girl (or boy) is as young as most of the cases I read about, but money puts food on the table. The problem is that the UN considers both the paid and unpaid versions to be equally bad.
For the discussion of Pitcairn:
It's been so long ago that I read anything about that - I went through my HMS Bounty/Polynesia phase sometime in Jr. High. Does anyone know what happened to the community on Pitcairn after the revelations about systematic child abuse came out, or a good, reliable, source I can check out.
DWB - Great people, their work is amazing.
Africa - My views on this topic are not fit for public consumption.
Posted by: rsm | June 2, 2009 11:19 PM
When europeans began colonizing in both Africa and the "New World" they had a relatively easy time of it, militarily, due to the fact that they had firearms to use against stone or iron age weapons used by the locals. As time went on and unscrupulous individuals upset the balance of armaments by selling the locals firearms the europeans had to "uparm" their soldiers (and mercenaries). When Italy invaded Ethiopia in the 1930's they had vastly superior weaponry and slaughtered the Ethiopians quite handily. The same has been true in the Congo, most of the rest of Africa, Asia and the Americas.
A never ending spiral of escalation has countries that were formerly a concern to only their immediate neighbors (North Korea and Pakistant, for instance) now possess nuclear arms and delivery systems to reach out to distant targets. Giving the downtrodden guns will not solve their problems. The Taliban is a testament to that.
Posted by: democommie | June 3, 2009 9:43 AM