March 11, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Rape as a Weapon of war

Mass Rape, a Weapon of War, Traumatizes South Sudan
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCEMARCH 11, 2016

The aftermath of an attack in February on a United Nations camp for civilians in Malakal, South Sudan.

GENEVA — First they killed her husband. Then, the South Sudanese woman said, government soldiers tied her to a tree and forced her to watch as at least 10 of them raped her 15-year-old daughter.

A little more than two years after the outbreak of civil war in South Sudan, the United Nations said Friday that all parties to the conflict had committed serious and systematic violence against civilians, but it singled out forces loyal to President Salva Kiir as the worst offenders.

“Crimes against humanity and war crimes have continued into 2015, and they have been predominantly perpetrated by the government,” David Marshall, the coordinator of a United Nations assessment team, said in an interview that was videotaped in South Sudan and released Friday along with the team’s report.
The mother’s account to United Nations investigators of the rape of her daughter was among many stories cited by the United Nations as evidence that government forces and affiliated militias had used sexual violence systematically to punish and terrorize civilians. Opposition forces also committed atrocities, but to a lesser degree, the United Nations said.

“This is one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world, with massive use of rape as an instrument of terror and weapon of war, yet it has been more or less off the international radar,” Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than two million forced to flee their homes since the start of the conflict between Mr. Kiir and his former vice president, Riek Machar, in December 2013, the United Nations said. The two sides agreed last August to set up a transitional government, but they have yet to do so.

In its 102-page report, the assessment team estimated that 10,553 civilians had died in Unity State in the 12 months that ended in November. Most appeared to have been killed deliberately, the team said.

The South Sudanese conflict intensified last year, particularly in Unity State, “where there has been a push by the government, both through the military leadership and the political leadership, to displace, kill, rape, abduct and pillage large portions of the civilian population,” Mr. Marshall said. “The consequence is that there has been much terror.”

Rights groups that have been expressing alarm about South Sudan for the past two years seized on the report to press their demands for a Security Council arms embargo and the establishment of a special war crimes court.

“While justice and an arms embargo alone will not solve this disaster, they are an essential contribution to ending the litany of appalling abuses against civilians,” said Jehanne Henry, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. Tom Andrews, a former United States congressman who is president of United to End Genocide in Washington, said: “The time for pleading and begging South Sudan’s government to implement a peace deal is over.”

The United Nations assessment team, which visited South Sudan between October and January, recorded detailed accounts of how civilians, including women and children, had been hanged from trees, burned alive, shot and hacked to pieces with machetes. Churches, mosques and hospitals came under attack, the team said.
The team said it documented more than 1,300 cases of rape between April and September in Unity State alone, and 50 more cases from September to October. Mr. al-Hussein said the numbers “must only be a snapshot of the real total.”

Government forces carried out most of the rapes in 2015, although in some cases, criminal gangs that have flourished in South Sudan’s prevailing lawlessness were involved, the team found.

Army-affiliated militias, made up mainly of youths, raped and abducted women and girls essentially as a form of payment, under an agreement that allowed them to “do what you can and take what you can,” the team reported. The militias stole cattle and other property under the same understanding, the team said.

Some women reported being taken as “wives” by soldiers and kept for sexual slavery in barracks where they were raped repeatedly. In some instances, witnesses said, attackers killed women who resisted them or even looked them in the eye, or who showed signs of being unable to withstand continued gang rape, the United Nations reported.

In one incident, witnesses saw soldiers arguing because one of them wanted to “take” a 6-year-old girl he thought was “beautiful.” Other soldiers eventually shot the girl, the witnesses said.

The United Nations team concluded that the violence it documented required a degree of preparation that suggested there was a plan to attack the civilian population. Attacks by the armed forces loyal to Mr. Kiir largely targeted members of Mr. Machar’s Nuer community, which is consistent with the government’s political objective of weakening its opponents and communities perceived as supporting them, the team said.

Critics of the government also became targets of state violence, the United Nations team said. Human rights activists, journalists and United Nations aid agency staff members were threatened, harassed, detained and in some instances killed, the team said.

One journalist, Peter Julius Moi, was shot dead in the capital, Juba, in June, only days after Mr. Kiir threatened to retaliate against journalists who reported “against the country.”

Another journalist, Joseph Afandi, who had written articles critical of the government, was found dead near a Juba graveyard earlier this week, according to the local news media, which reported that he appeared to have been beaten and burned. Mr. Afandi had been released in mid-February after two months of detention without charge.

“There needs to be a commitment to end the violence, and then there needs to be a commitment on meaningful accountability, to investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators,” Mr. Marshall said in his recorded interview.

But the reality is that “that can’t happen given that the machinery of violence is basically the state,” he added. “Both the military arm and the civilian leadership are part and parcel of the problem. They are orchestrating the violence against their own civilians.”

The United Nations report came as the world body’s Human Rights Council prepared to take up the South Sudan conflict. The council’s 47 members will vote this month on a resolution that is likely to call for the United Nations to appoint a special rapporteur to monitor developments there and report back to the council, according to diplomats engaged in negotiating the text.

So here we are, hearing stories of murder and rape during war. I think that the UN should stop rapes of women and girls.It is totally uncivilized to fight a war this way. Civilians do not often have a lot to do with the causes of war and yet they regularly pay the price.

I believe that it is an crime worse than murder. Rape, especially in the third world countries, takes a woman’s life away from her and she is still alive to watch how it unravels and disappears. Little girls, if they are not killed during the rape, often have serious physical and emotional injuries. Soldiers often use rifle butts and knives to commit the rapes. Fathers and brothers are many times made to watch. There have been reports of rapes among little girls as young as six years old.

Think about your daughters and granddaughters going through an experience like this. It is horrifying. The UN needs to intervene and punish all soldiers who commit rape and murder among innocent civilians. We must focus on our similarities and remember we are all children of the universe. We are star matter. Yes, you may have decided that you have a right to participate in war but nothing ever gives you the right to injure innocent citizens. Wars don’t accomplish anything; they destroy lives and countries. They are good for nothing. This depravity is despicable in the eyes of civilized peoples.

Namaste,

Barbara

Soldiers waging war on civilians including rape and murder.

Soldiers fighting in the South Sudan war

March 9, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Violence Against Women in Politics

A hidden reality: Violence against women in politics

Madeleine Albright

Updated 8:28 AM ET, Tue March 8, 2016

In Sao Paulo, Brazil, women protest violence towards women, on International Women's Day in 2013.

In Sao Paulo, Brazil, women protest violence towards women, on International Women’s Day in 2013.

Tuesday May 8 at 2 p.m. ET.

(CNN)Last October, Zainab Fatuma Naigaga, a female opposition party official in Uganda, was arrested along with her male colleagues while on their way to a political rally. The men in the group were ushered aside, while Naigaga, the only woman in the convoy, was manhandled by police and ended up stripped down in public to nothing but her headscarf.

Madeleine Albright

In Bolivia, Councilwoman Juana Quispe was pressured to resign after helping female colleagues file complaints of harassment. When she refused, other council members blocked her from attending sessions and suspended her from office. She was reinstated after a legal battle, but one month later her body was found dumped near a river in La Paz. She had been strangled. Though the case has not been solved, close observers of the region said it was clear the killing was politically motivated.

Quispe was not the only elected female leader in Bolivia to be targeted in this way. Another local councilwoman, Daguimar Rivera, was working to expose corruption when she began receiving anonymous threats. Shortly thereafter, she was found dead — shot three times in the face.

Clearly, these are not isolated incidents.

The terrible reality is that one in three women will experience violence in their lives. Of those affected, an alarming but uncounted number of women are specifically targeted because they are engaged in public life. It is a pervasive but often overlooked barrier that prevents women across the world from having their voices heard. On International Women’s Day, we must call attention to this problem.

Through the decades, female leaders have been pushed down, shoved aside and beaten up. Too many still suffer from harassment, intimidation and violence simply for being female and politically active. These horrific acts — whether directed at women running for office or those simply lining up to vote — are intentional efforts to demean and restrict the political participation of an entire gender. There are often no consequences for the aggressors in these cases. We are frequently told that such violence is cultural, but I say it is criminal and we have to stop it.

Of course, attacking anyone — male or female — for political reasons is abhorrent. But eliminating gender-based persecution is important because women in government can be counted on to raise issues that others overlook, to support ideas that others oppose, and to seek an end to abuses that others accept. And perhaps because of their growing ranks in politics, women across the world have experienced a backlash in person and online. We cannot allow violence to be the cost for women who are simply exercising their fundamental human and political rights.

While the threat of violence is far from the only barrier for women in politics, it has a deep and long-term impact. Because harassment and violence often occur in private and protected spaces, many have learned not to complain about it. If they speak up, they run the risk of appearing to be a liability, rather than an asset to party leaders. Even worse, they can sometimes subject themselves to further harassment and discrimination. In a vicious cycle, such attacks, especially on high-profile women, dampen the political aspirations of other women and girls.

Activists and leaders around the world are beginning to recognize the scale of the problem and are taking steps to address it. A few countries have introduced legislation to criminalize acts of violence against women in politics. Bolivia, for instance, finally passed a law to protect female politicians after 12 years of grass-roots activism and the killings of Quispe and Rivera.

Passage of such laws is an important step, although we must advocate for their effective and consistent enforcement. Legislation, however, is not the solution everywhere: We need to bring other strategies to bear.

To that end, the National Democratic Institute will launch a global call to action next week to stop violence against women in politics. As the chairwoman of the institute’s board, I will be convening a meeting to launch this initiative alongside the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. It will recommend concrete actions that international and individual actors can take, many of which are basic but common sense.

For example, the United Nations does not currently have specific reporting on acts of violence against women who engage in politics. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls should start including this kind of violence in its investigations.

Because I believe in democracy, I believe that each person should be able to go as far as her or his talents will allow. Women and girls around the world who share that belief are ready to shape the future of their countries. Integrity, dedication to public service, and hard work should be the only entry fee to politics.

I have often said that success without democracy is improbable, and democracy without women is impossible. If we fail to act on behalf of the current and future female leaders in our world, the cost to our democracies will be too high.

When a woman participates in politics, she should be putting her hopes and dreams for the future on the line, not her dignity and not her life. It is time to put an end to the scourge of violence against women in politics, and to ensure that what happened in Uganda, Bolivia and elsewhere around the world does not stop women from being heard and making change.

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March 7, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Anti-Abortion laws don’t decrease abortions

The Return of the D.I.Y. Abortion

DURING oral arguments last week before the Supreme Court in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, Justice Elena Kagan noted that she was struck by the clear relationship between abortion restrictions in Texas and the closing of abortion clinics. “It’s almost like the perfect controlled experiment as to the effect of the law, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s like you put the law into effect, 12 clinics closed. You take the law out of effect, they reopen.”

How women respond to these closings, however, is another story.

We do not have large enough surveys to discern behavior in different states or to track how it has changed over time — and in any case, people may not feel comfortable sharing the truth in a survey.

Google searches can help us understand what’s really going on. They show a hidden demand for self-induced abortion reminiscent of the era before Roe v. Wade.

This demand is concentrated in areas where it is most difficult to get an abortion, and it has closely tracked the recent state-level crackdowns on abortion.

In 2015, in the United States, there were about 119,000 searches for the exact phrase “how to have a miscarriage.” There were also searches for other variants — “how to self-abort” — and for particular methods. Over all, there were more than 700,000 Google searches looking into self-induced abortions in 2015.

For comparison, there were some 3.4 million searches for abortion clinics and, according to estimates by the Guttmacher Institute, there are around one million legal abortions a year.

The 700,000 searches included about 160,000 asking how to get abortion pills through unofficial channels — searches like “buy abortion pills online” and “free abortion pills.”

There were tens of thousands of searches looking into abortion by herbs like parsley or by vitamin C. There were some 4,000 searches looking for directions on coat hanger abortions, including about 1,300 for the exact phrase “how to do a coat hanger abortion.” There were also a few hundred looking into abortion through bleaching one’s uterus and punching one’s stomach.

Search rates for self-induced abortion were fairly steady from 2004 through 2007. They began to rise in late 2008, coinciding with the financial crisis and the recession that followed. They took a big leap in 2011, jumping 40 percent. The Guttmacher Institute singles out 2011 as the beginning of the country’s recent crackdown on abortion; 92 provisions that restrict access to abortion were enacted. There was not a comparable increase in searches for self-induced abortions in Canada, which has not cracked down.

Of course, we cannot know from Google searches how many women successfully give themselves abortions, but evidence suggests that a significant number may. One way to test this is to compare abortion and birth data.

In 2011, the last year with complete state-level abortion data, women living in states with few abortion clinics had many fewer legal abortions.

Compare the 10 states with the most abortion clinics per capita (a list that includes New York and California) to the 10 states with the fewest abortion clinics per capita (a list that includes Mississippi and Oklahoma).

The number of new state laws that restrict abortion spiked in 2011. Women living in states with the fewest abortion clinics had 54 percent fewer legal abortions — a difference of 11 abortions for every 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44.

Women living in states with the fewest abortion clinics also had more live births. However, the difference was not enough to make up for the lower number of abortions. There were six more live births for every 1,000 women of childbearing age.

In other words, there appear to have been some missing pregnancies in parts of the country where it was hardest to get an abortion. Self-induced abortions could be playing a role, although more research must be done on rates of pregnancy and unintentional miscarriage in different regions.

One recent survey in Texas also reported a surprisingly high number of attempted self-induced abortions. It found that 4.1 percent of Texas women were sure or suspected that their best friend had tried a self-induced abortion. The researchers asked about best friends because women may not feel comfortable admitting their own attempts. In fact, so much secrecy surrounds abortion today that it is likely that many women would not know that their closest friends had tried a self-induced abortion.

According to another survey, which was published in Sociological Science, 34 percent of Americans who have been involved in an abortion — either they had one or they were the potential father — disclosed this to no one else. Among those who did tell others, they told an average of 1.2 people. We can expect that people would be even less likely to inform friends and family members about self-induced abortions.

No one has the right to tell any woman what to do with her body. This is pure misogyny. Some women just don’t want to have children. They know whether or not they are ready to have children or not. If we ever get a 100% successful birth control, we will have less abortions. Abortions have been performed since the beginning of time in all civilizations and cultures. Women have always fought to control their bodies and their reproductive experiences. We can’t go back to the self abortion because we will have a spike in the number of women who die from the complications of the procedure. They people will scream again because women are dying. We are in a crazy circle of cause and effect. This decision is a woman’s decision, not a societal decision.

Stop the War on Women

Namaste,

Barbara

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March 6, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Drum Prodigy

I just love these kids. What an amazing child. I hope you enjoy this half as much as I do.

Have a wonderful evening.

Namaste,

Barbara

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March 4, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Goodbye, Downton Abbey

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The final episode of Downton Abbey airs on PBS this coming Sunday. THe entire series is (or will shortly be) available on DVD or Blu-Ray. It may be a good present for an anglophile you know!

NPR had an interesting discussion about it (see link below).

http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2016/03/04/468973612/pop-culture-happy-hour-a-fond-farewell-to-downton-abbey#

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March 3, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

All God’s Creatures

With the campaign for US President, and everything else that’s happening in the US and around the world today, it’s easy to forget about Mother Earth.

We continue to violate Mother Earth, on a daily basis, and some of here most wonderful creatures, such as Kamok, in the video below, are now endanger of becoming extinct.

Elephants continue to be killed for their ivory tusks, which is so senseless and cruel. Rhinoceroses are being killed for their horns. Poachers take their trophies and leave the bodies to rot as they carry off their spoils from the hunt.

We cannot continue to rape and pollute our planet and not expect to lose many wonderful creatures and, eventually, ourselves as our planet becomes less and less habitable.

Wild animals, like children, are part of our rich inheritance from our ancestors and we are not doing a good job of taking care of either.

Children are hungry, children are homeless, children are illiterate and unloved.

Baby Kamok lost her herd and her mommy due to a physical condition, but luckily for her — and for us — there are people who care, who took her in, and healed her and protected her from predators.

We can do no less for our own children, for ALL the children who live on Mother Earth, because we are all one race — the human race — and all children are ours.

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child and elephant

March 2, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

“I Hope To Be an Old Woman who Dresses Very Inappropriately”

Women in business
Dress in man-style suits
And treat their secretaries
In a man-style way.

Women on campus
Wear “masculine” thoughts
And look to daddy for
Good grades

Married women
Give their bodies away
And wear their husbands’
Wishes

Religious women
Cover sinful bodies
And ask redemption from god
Not knowing
She is within them.

That’s why I’ll always love
The fat woman who dares to wear
A red miniskirt
Because she loves her woman’s body.
The smart woman who doesn’t go to college
And keeps possession of her mind.
The lover who remains a mistress
Because she knows the price of marrying.
The witch who walks naked
And demands to be safe.
The crazy woman who dyes her hair purple
Because anyone who doesn’t love purple
Is crazy

Dear Goddess: I pray for the courage
To walk naked
At any age.
To wear red and purple,
To be unladylike,
Inappropriate,
Scandalous and
Incorrect
To the very end

—–Gloria Steinem, author, advocate, revolutionary

Gloria Steinem grew up in Toledo, Ohio and came from my neck of the woods. She is a writer, speaker, editor and activist. Since the 1960’s, she has helped to challenge divisions based on sex, race, sexuality, class, and religious doctrine. She has written for the New Yorker Magazine and Ms. Magazine.

Ms. Magazine is a national forum for women writers and for feminist art, culture, and political activism. Forty years after its inception, Ms. remains the only nationally distributed magazine for women that is owned and controlled by women.

I have read several of her earlier books such as, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions and Revolution From Within. She also contributes frequently to anthologies, and introductions in other feminist’s writings.

She is also a co-founder of the current wave of feminism; a board member of Equality Now, a global human rights organization. She is also a co-founder and board member of the Women’s Media Center. They name and change media bias against women and to increase their presence and power.

She graduated from Smith College in 1956, with a degree in political science. Gloria went on to live in India from 1957-1959. She worked as a travel writer and social activist. She studied Ghandi’s methods of non-violent revolution and that is part of the reason the women’s movement has been able to make gains without violence. She was back in America when she covered McGovern’s 1968 presidential campaign. She has spoken at many colleges across the country, such as Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.

I met Gloria Steinem at Chautauqua Institution, NY, in the mid eighties. She was speaking and I was there for the season. She was warm, witty, encouraging. We crossed paths often at marches and rallies and I looked forward to seeing her welcoming smile and hearing her new ideas.

Chautauqua is the oldest gated community in the United States. It was founded in the 1800’s and every year there is a summer program where literature, culture, religion, the arts and music are studied. It is situated in Chautauqua Lake and provides a lovely setting for learning, discussion and thinking. I used to go there every year. They also have one of the remaining independent book stores in America. My second favorite is the William Faulkner bookstore in Pirate’s Alley in the French Quarter.

If you are interested in Chautauqua Institution, please see earlier blogs about this wonderful place of learning nestled along the Chautauqua Lake.

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Writer Gloria Steinem sitting cross-legged on floor w. sign "We Shall Overcome" re pop culture

Writer Gloria Steinem sitting cross-legged on floor w. sign “We Shall Overcome” Gloria is now in her 80’s and continues to strive for human equality and against the War on Women.

A uniformed officer arrests feminist Gloria Steinem during an anti-apartheid protest outside the South African Embassy in Washington, Dec. 19, 1984.

March 1, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Till It Happens to You

At this year’s Oscars, Lady Gaga and a stage of Sexual Violence Survivors took a stand for all the victims, with her anthem which became the theme for the documentary “Hunting Ground” about sexual violence on college campuses.

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A Woman’s Issue

The woman in the spiked device that locks around the waist and between

the legs, with holes in it like a tea strainer

is Exhibit A.

The woman in black with a net window

to see through and a four inch

wooden peg jammed up

between her legs so she can’t be raped

is Exhibit B.

Exhibit C is the young girl

dragged into the bush by the midwifes

and made to sing while they scrape the flesh

from between her legs, then tie her thighs

till she scabs over and is called healed.

Now she can be married.

For each childbirth they’ll cut her

open, then sew her up.

Men like tight women.

The ones that die are carefully buried.

The next exhibit lies flat on her back

while eighty men a night

move through her, ten an hour.

She looks at the ceiling,listens

to the door open and close.

A bell keeps ringing

Nobody knows how she got here.

You’ll notice that what they have in common

is between the legs. Is this

why wars are fought?

Enemy territory, no man’s land,

to be entered furtively,

fenced, owned, but never surely,

scene of these desperate forays

at midnight, captures

and sticky murders, doctors’ rubber gloves

greasy with blood, flesh made inert, the surge

of your own uneasy power.

This is no museum.

Who invented the word love?

—————–Margaret Atwood, feminist author and poet

Author of the Handwife’s Tale

Margaret Atwood

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February 29, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

Equal Pay for Women

Women all over the world face inequality when it comes to pay. It’s not just in the United States.

It shouldn’t be that way. We make strides — for a while — but it never lasts.

Each of us needs to determine, in our own minds, what we are worth. Then we need to stand up and clearly declare our value as a Person, not just as a Woman.

Traditionally, women devalue themselves — we are taught to do so — but we are NOT worth less than men. We are not “weaker” then men, we are not less smart, we are not less capable.

Genitalia do not equal worth. The willingness to work, the intelligence to work, that is what matters in the work place. It should be all that matters. But, until we, as women, value ourselves, our employers will not.

Below is a TED talk that helps illuminate the problem.

TED Talk Published on Jul 22, 2015

Veronique sheds light on her efforts for the past 10 years to ensure equal pay for females in the workplace. As an advocate, a business-leader, a mother, and a wife, she shares how the threads of her efforts have been intertwined and effected by these elements in her life.

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February 24, 2016 by IdealisticRebel

I Would Never Hurt You

In reality, in the United States, a lot of men say “I won’t ever hurt you”, but they will look benignly at bruises and fractured bones or black eyes, and feel that they haven’t done anything.

But they have. They have physically abused you. They have battered you.

And they will promise over and over again not to ever do it again. But they will. And each incident will be a little worse than the one before.

An abuser is trying to break your self-esteem, your self-confidence, YOU. He wants to control you and keep you in his power. When he says you can’t leave him , what he’s really saying is he can’t lose his power and control over you.

You need to contact your local shelter or the national help hotline. Get counseling. Make an escape plan, before you’re hurt so badly you don’t care anymore that you’re hurt. Leave, before he kills you.

There is legal help for you in every state. The laws and penalties for battering vary by state, but your local shelter will help you get through the process. They know what to do.

It is time to begin a new, violence-free phase of your life.

All you have to do is reach out.

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