RAPE

We are horrified when we read the treatment women get in traditional Islamic societies. We are quick to create petitions demanding for equal or at minimum, better treatment for women all over the globe… all over the globe except for the ones in our own backyard.

Women that are raped in our country are ignored, ashamed, mocked by their neighbors, abandoned by their so-called friends, questioned by their peers and victimized by the system; a system that more and more seems to think that women are not as valuable as men and if raped, she probably brought the act upon herself.

Those women that have the courage to take her rapist(s) to trial find themselves accused of provoking the assailant into sex. As if they lured them just like the mermaids in the legends lured sailors into doing what otherwise they wouldn’t have done if it wasn’t for their irresistible songs. We hear that the woman was a drunk, dressed provocatively, had had many sex partners in her life, everything you can think of and her name and life are dragged in the mud in order to blame her and spare the men that perpetrated the vile act.

The court system seems to accept what many of us have said for years: that men can only think with one head at a time and therefore the court and defense lawyers believe the perpetrators are the victims because they couldn’t control their penises.

I wonder if they ever stopped to think what rape entails. Not physically, that is not that much of a deal and will heal fast, pretty fast. But the psychological effect is different; more so when those around you instead of offering support, point the finger at you; especially today, where the pictures bearing your face and name can be found everywhere in the Internet and social media, pictures that were placed there with the sole intention of shaming you. Before the Internet you could simply move and start a new life somewhere else, where no one knew you or about what had happened to you. That is not possible today and even though everything pass with time, for some victims the shame is too big to bear and the time too slow to heal them and these victims, overwhelmed by the treatment they are forced to endure, decide to cut their lives short… and those that raped her, mocked her and shamed her go about their lives without a care in the world.

Rape, that four letter word that can change someone’s life. We sympathize with burglary victims, I’ve heard so often what the feeling of coming into your home and find it upside down and all your belongings either gone or thrown all over the house because the thieves searched for something of value. The disgust of thinking that the hands of these criminals were touching your personal belongings, your underwear… how violated one feels! We all sympathize with this, why then we cannot sympathize when the hands violating you where all over your body against your will?

Now imagine for just a minute that you are in a party with friends, those that you think you can trust. As any other would do in a party, you are enjoying a few drinks and perhaps that day your body couldn’t hold the same amount of alcohol and you pass out. Imagine that while you are out, the men in that party decides to have sex with you, and the women present did nothing to stop them. Obviously, you are not a willing participant, but they have fun with you, they take compromising pictures of you and spread those pictures all over the Internet and that is how you find out, days later, that not only one but many of the men in that party fucked you. I can’t say they had sex or made love because that isn’t what happened… What happened it’s basically Necrophilia but people will be outraged if they found out that someone fucked the corpse of a dead relative but they blame the victim if she was unconscious and fucked by those around her. No compassion for the living, outrage for the dead.

I wish those that are quick to judge a rape victim and victimize her over and over again would experience something similar. To perhaps feel what it is like to have the hands of a stranger, or worst a person you trust, all over you without your knowledge or approval, to have someone stronger than you force you into sex when you don’t want to. To know that sensation of filth that no soap can ever wash away no matter how much you try. To walk into a place and noticing the change of expressions, the exchange of looks at best or the open rejection at worse, it’s like having the scarlet letter burnt into your forehead and you are a marked woman by no fault of your own.

The punishment for raping an adult woman is very lenient, unless the rape victim was killed during the attack or if the victim is a child, the rapist(s) basically get a slap on their hands. This happens because the victims are trashed during the trial and basically share part of the blame in the eyes of the jury and, because “boys will be boys” and no one truly blame them for acting on their instincts. Not until there are more severe sentencing for these barbaric actions will anything ever change. Not until those involved in degrading the honor and good name of a victim get penalized along with the rapists will these shameful actions stop. In today’s society, those that participate in the destruction of the victim’s life go unpunished and that should not be. If you know a drug dealer, and hold drugs for them – but you are not selling them, distributing them or doing anything with them but hold them – you can rest assured that if you are caught, you will be punished a punishment as harsh as that of a drug dealer… so why do these people that shared the pictures of the victim, that laughed about it and that abused her afterwards go without any repercussions for their actions?

The laws must change. It is far more destructive to rape a person than it is to smoke a joint, but the jails are filled with pot users who are serving a far longer sentence than a rapist and a rapist is far more dangerous to society than a pothead will ever be.

Food for thoughts.

Introducing Mr. Bill

^”The life of each human being begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, irrespective of sex, health, function or disability, defect, stage of biological development, or condition of dependency, at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.^”

"FERTILIZATION- The term ‘fertilization’ means the process of a human spermatozoan penetrating the cell membrane of a human oocyte to create a human zygote, a one-celled human embryo, which is a new unique human being."

 

The above is some of the text that appears in the H.R. 212 - The Sanctity of Life Act bill currently in Congress and endorsed by Republicans Paul Broun, Mr. Akin and Mr. Ryan among others.  In total this bill is endorsed by a total of 53 Congressmen and 3 Congresswomen.  How there can there be Republican women that do not understand that the fundamental goal of the GOP is to overturn Roe vs. Wade is beyond me.  If this bill passes, which I doubt, it will grant personhood to any fertilized egg, regardless of how it got fertilized, excluding incest or rape as a valid reason to terminate a pregnancy.  The life of the mother will also be removed, how can you determine which person has a right to live and which one doesn't?

This is the ultimate assault on a woman's right to control her life and her destiny.  This bill is a definitive invasion of her privacy.  I can't think of a valid reason other than future slavery, that the GOP might have to  be so determined in getting involved in what transpires in a woman's vagina and uterus.  Vagina envy?  Not getting enough?  Making sure that even son of bitches leave a little bastard for posterity?  I don't know what their reason is, but it is very dangerous.

While the GOP is creating more and more personhood - now we have clots and corporations proudly sporting the title of "personhood" granted by the far Right while women are becoming lesser people under the law.  I am yet to see a law that will diminish by one iota the right of men, those rights remain intact.  There is no doubt that for the religious Right a pair of testicles and what most of the times its a joke of a penis are far more important and valuable than a vagina or an uterus.  To think that every single one of them were raised by a woman and that they in turn hate women so much as to do everything in their power to place them in the kitchen.  

"The Sanctity of Life"  What a joke!  This coming from a group of people that thrive on wars, where thousands of our youth get slaughtered.  This coming from a group that looses no sleep when sending someone to death row even when there is a possibility of that person being innocent.  This coming from a group that worship guns which is nothing else but an instrument of death.  But we have to believe that they are pro-life.

This charitable group of people that are holier than thou are also working diligently in removing funds from medicaid, medicare and welfare... so they can increase the overly obscene defense budget.  Once more they are proving that they don't give a damn for a child that is alive and kicking... only the oocyte, embryo and fetus are sacred, a child can go to hell for all they care.  The Religious Right doesn't care about life, how can they when they hunt doctors that practice abortions and kill them?  Anyone that believe that they believe in life while committing murder is a big hypocrite; and I don't care that they are protecting the unborn "baby"... It is not a baby until it breathes air, it's a cocyte or an embryo but NOT a baby.  Killing a doctor that is practicing what up to know is a legal service is MURDER; two wrongs will never result in one right, sorry.

This bill H.R. 212, doesn't specify what the penalty or sentence would be if a woman uses a hanger to terminate her pregnancy or what a doctor's penalty will be for performing an abortion to save the mother's life.  This of course it's not mentioned because it will be a matter of the State where the "murder" of the oocyte was committed.  If it is a death penalty State, they'll fry the mother or the mother and the doctor, if one was involved.  If it is a no death penalty State, then they will be sentenced to life in prison.  Absurd!

When a bill is put together by men who have never experienced rape, who will never know what it is to be pregnant and not being able to afford a child or hating that child because it is the product of rape or incest, when these men think that they know more than a woman about the subject or what decision works for her best interest, when these men think they are so righteous as to force upon women their views, then these women are being raped by their government.  These women are being raped over and over again and they are being forced to put their lives at risk, unnecessarily.  Self-performed abortions have taken place since the beginning of time, usually resulting in the perforation of the uterus and the death of both mother and child, but the GOP couldn't care less.  

Another bill has been introduced (H.J. Res. 110) to amend the Constitution regarding parental rights.  This bill provides the parents "the liberty to direct the upbringing and education of the child."  It does not provide any exceptions, which means that a rapist will have an equal voice as the victim when it pertains to their offspring.  Ridiculous!

These Republicans are the only murderers here with an insatiable thirst for blood.  They don't care who dies; they just want to look "Christian" enough in the eyes of the Evangelical, Religious Right who are the ones filling their pockets for them to do their dirty deeds.

Source:  www.opencongress.org

 

Karma is a Bitch...

On April 3^rd of this year, the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) released a study that corroborates what many of us have been saying for about a decade: That the people of Sudan, in particular Darfur, have been enduring a constant attack that at best kills them and at worse leaves them facing a slow death, an ethnic cleansing. There have been numerous accounts of all type of torture imaginable perpetrated on the non-Arab speaking citizens of Sudan: rapes, beatings, electrocutions, gunshots, bombings, burnings, amputations and killings that, for reasons incomprehensible to me, the world has refused to act, react or admit that these atrocities are taking place under their watch for a decade. The governments of the “civilized” world have sided with China and Russia – the two major forces that are supporting Omar al-Bashir in his ethnic cleansing.

Perhaps I am being too harsh in saying that the world or governments are siding with China and Russia – but isn’t doing nothing the same as accepting? I can understand that there is too much at risk, the last thing anyone wants is a war, especially against these world superpowers; however, there is no excuse for us to continue conducting business with them as if they were not monsters against humanity. By continuing with “business as usual,” we are in a way helping perpetuate the massacre and we are supporting the tormentor.

The PHR's study might help to put pressure on those with the power to do something. So far, there has been no reliable proof that any of these atrocities were taking place, at least that is what the governments of the world have claimed up to now. This study will help shine a light on this matter that, perhaps because it is so atrocious, others have refused to accept it and what’s more important, do something about it.

This study reveals that nearly half of the women treated were victims of rape or gang rape. There were even reports of men that were sexually assaulted and some even raped. The evidence also showed that injuries inflicted on these people were consistent and showed evidence of beatings, fires, amputations and all other forms of torture. We must remember the evidence at hand is only from those that survived or reached a medical center; how many others died on the field or on the way to the center are unknown. Every single piece of the evidence recorded and examined by PHR was consistent with the claims. Every single one. PHR stated in their study “Our findings show that in all of the medical records that contained sufficient detail, the medical evidence was considered to be at least consistent with (if not highly consistent with or virtually diagnostic of) the human rights violations disclosed by the patients.” Further in the study, PHR said, “Rape and other forms of sexual violence have been recognized as war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as instruments of genocide.”

The study represents a milestone that will aid the International Criminal Courts in proceeding with more tangible proof and with any luck receive the support of other nations in the capture of Omar al-Bashir and put an end to his reign of terror.

There might be something worthwhile celebrating this Easter week: Hopefully these findings will mark the beginning of the end for al-Bashir and a new beginning for the people of Darfur. 

I encourage the reader to look at the PHR’s study. Please, click here to read it.

To donate to the Save Darfur Organization, click here .

To donate to Amnesty International, click here.

To sign the International Petition for the People of Darfur, click here.