Sexual and gender-based violence who can take the blame?

Generally, war and conflict damages societies, town or cities. It spoils the life of women, men and children. Moreover, it leads to the people’s displacement or refuge. But, most badly it exposes women to sexual and gender-based violence. Therefore, people should eliminate sexual and gender-based violence against women.

It is obvious that during conflict women face sexual violence such as rape or molestation.  This violence imposes physical, psychological, social or sexual harm. Women’s bodies become a battleground over which a disputed parties struggle. They humiliate women, the helpless innocent victim of war in apparent absence of the role of law within the conflict zones.  Therefore, many resolutions have been mandated by the UN Security Council to eradicate violence against women such as 1325(2000) and 1820(2008) which recognize that “rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive with respect to genocide”[1]  This act obliges us, the advocate of gender mainstreaming to take stand and support women who are suffering the consequence of any disputes.

On the other hand, gender based violence is not only restricted to women.  It refers to the fact that whether being male or female is subjected to attacks or threats.  In other words, a person gender is addressed according to the societal and relationships between feminine and masculine within specific group.  It is, therefore, our duty to end this status quo of violence against women.

 Finally, tackling the issue of violence against women and calling for women empowerment   is usually confronted with traditions and stereotypes a matter which hardens the task for the advocates and demands a courageous stand to fulfill this noble task.

Written by Osman Suliman

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[1] - Cited in the course leaflet of  Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325(2000) in Africa. 

The Human Cost of War

The images of the crying children on a warfront haunt me to no end. The rhetoric that is being shamelessly spilled in support of the wrongdoing is angering me to no extent.

I feel guilty each time I eat, or lie down to rest.

I feel guilty when I am able to go out on my own without having to fear a bomb going off in my face.

I feel evil when I read such painful news in the paper, and then put the paper aside and head to work.

I feel terribly, terribly guilty when I want something, and actually get it.

I feel stupid that I cry for a lost opportunity, or for not getting something I wanted.

I feel like my life is a derisive mockery of reality when I feel sad for Robin Scherbotsky never being able to have a child, or that the Harry Potter series is over. 

Why?

Because I can do these things without fearing war, or living under a constant threat to my very existence. Because I can do these things while so many cannot, because of the crippling effect of
war. And while I can and do these things, families in the Congo, in Mali, in Gaza, in Syria and in so many other places count minutes off their fingers as the clock is ticking on their lives.

Why do we wage war? Why do we go to any lengths to justify the propriety of the war we wage? Why is war so inherent in our daily being? Why are we so quick to launch missiles and spray bullets when there is a peaceful way instead?

Waging war is not the choice of a people. Common man may hate, but he does not detest. Common man may curse, but he does not deliver harm. It is the ugly weft of politics and corporation-driven
economics - a heady mix – that plays the filthy catalyst that keeps war going, because it is good for business. This is then translated into jingoistic campaigning, where people are taught to live in fear. We must wage war, or the terrorists will kill us all. We must fight now otherwise history will repeat itself. We must fight, we must kill. Otherwise, we will be killed.

Sounds familiar? You bet. The world is a huge jigsaw puzzle: each piece representing a people forced to live in fear. No piece wants to fit in. No peace is trusting of the other. Fear drives the  wedge further. Fear turns into intolerance. Because fear drives judgment, judgment drives intolerance, and intolerance drives hatred. 

And inside each piece in the puzzle, are some people who have been educated enough to know that this is all a foolish attempt of the years of myopic leadership. But they cannot act, for if they do,
they are silenced. But they are left only to wonder in the solitary confines of their mind, in pieces of paper and little rooms in cyberspace. How can people sleep at nights knowing that children cry for food, for safety, while their parents have been killed? How can people run normal lives knowing that women face the threat of rape and sexual violence and live in fear of the complete erosion of their existence?

How is a world leader walking his walk without compunction when he sanctions war?

While all this happens, little children cry on the streets. Women lie in hospital beds. Men fight though they are wounded to the bone.

It isn’t their fault they fight. They are victims of the same fear that the rest of society is, and are taught a foolish perversion of patriotism: that fighting on the boundaries of their country,
obliterating the face of their enemy, killing, raping and wounding the women and children of their enemy is the service they should do to their country. But as they shoot, they don’t shoot the enemy. They shoot, kill, maim, rape and wound another person like them.

And that misery is the Human Cost of War.

What does it matter if you are Hutu or Tutsi, Arab or Jewish, Congolese or Rwandan, Indian or Pakistani, Chinese or Japanese, Shiite or Sunni? What does it matter what language you speak, what god you worship, what prayers you chant, or what food you eat? The same red blood flows. The same white bones prop the body. The same eyes look back. The same nose breathes in air. The same tongue gasps in pain.

What does it matter, really?

Syria’s Second War

This is a screenshot from a crowd-sourced map of Syria. The red dots are not representative of major towns or cities. Rather, the red dots indicate where the latest reports of sexual violence have come from, and the number of attacks reported. Women Under Siege, like other organizations, has dedicated itself to tracking the casualties of the civil war. It is a particularly difficult task in Syria, where NGOs, aid groups, journalists and health workers have limited access, but it is clear that violence against citizens, especially violence against women and children, is rampant in the ongoing conflict. It would appear that there are two battles raging: the fighting between the rebel groups and the Syrian military, and the quieter, but no less devastating war being waged on the country’s most vulnerable citizens.

Rape is tragically almost inevitable in war. Yet in Syria, as in Bosnia and Darfur, the mass rape of both women and men has been particularly widespread and vicious. The armed government forces are said to be responsible for the worst of the attacks, rather than rebels or citizens, making the government’s destruction of its people psychological as well as physical. Rape is used as a tool of intimidation and humiliation. Waves and waves of horrific stories are emerging from Syria. Soldiers who are mentally tortured by having their wives, sisters or mothers raped in front of them. Women detained to be kept as sex slaves. Soldiers forced to rape as part of duty. One 23 year old who identifies himself as Mohamed, describes what caused him to defect to the rebel side:

“The officers were mostly Alawite, and they would target the houses of [opposition] activists in Homs and gather the young girls and rape them,” Mohamed said. “After they’d finished they’d tell the soldiers outside to come in and rape the girls, too. The girls would generally be shot when everyone had finished. They wanted it to be known in the neighbourhoods that the girls had been raped, but they didn’t want the girls to survive and be able to identify them later.” (source: http://www.yalibnan.com/2012/08/13/syrian-army-accused-of-vicious-systematic-rape/)

The counts of human rights violations is Syria are mounting daily. While the rest of the world is becoming numb to the endless stream of news of carnage and causalities, it is incredibly difficult and incredibly important to remember that behind the skyrocketing figures are real women and children caught in the crossfire of Syria’s hellish civil war.

Violence map: https://syriatracker.crowdmap.com/reports/view/2720
Women Under Siege’s map: https://womenundersiegesyria.crowdmap.com/