jctr.org.zm - Quarterly Bulletin; Bulletin 67

Our media is full of stories of how women are abused and disadvantaged simply because of their female gender and sex. It is surprising though that this problem is often forgotten or thought of as not a problem at all by many people in our societies. In this case study way of writing, O’Brien Kaaba picturesquely portrays the problems of abuse of women because of their female gender.

It is dangerous to be a woman. Many years ago the great philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote, “Woman is only an occasional and incomplete being…a misbegotten male. It is unchallengeable that woman is destined to live under man’s influence and has no authority from the Lord.” One would be forgiven for thinking that the contemporary world no longer entertains such blatant male chauvinism as was the world of Thomas Aquinas.

The woman’s world is a violent one. Women suffer violence everyday at the hands of men, as Catherine MacKinnon stated, “Women know the world out there because it hits us in the face. Literally, we are raped, battered, pornographed, defined by force, by a world that begins… entirely outside us.”

One needs only to review instances of sexual violence to understand the world of the woman. It is not the case that men never suffer sexual violence by women. But the pattern of violence is of women suffering at the hands of men. Sexual violence against women is neither isolated nor accidental. It is, as Margaret Davies states, that women “are the victims of a pattern of subordination which is manifested in many ways.”

Cases of sexual violence in Zambia are soaring. There is hardly a day that passes without the media carrying despicable stories of how a woman was violently raped or a girl bestially defiled. Police statistics indicate that between the years 2000 and 2005 1341 cases of rape and 5919 cases of defilement were reported to the Victim Support Unit. It is understood that these are only the tip of an iceberg as many similar cases go unreported for various reasons, ranging from personal shame to fear of reprisals.

My mother and father died, I don’t know how. They were sick for a long time. I went to live with my aunt; I was in grade six, and stayed in school. Auntie [actually a step-sister] wasn’t married, but she had two children ... step-brother was older, like a father. He raped me. He said if I tell some people, he’d kill me … I was bleeding from the vagina for three days.

Another young Zambian girl narrated her agony to Human Rights Watch at the hands of the man she held in high esteem:

I had a problem. I used to go to church, and I was raped by the priest. I used to be in the youth group, and did things for church, like sweeping and other things. The priest used to be a good man. I thought I could rely on him, but after what happened…. I went to work; he called me to his office, telling me what work we…should do. He started undressing me, and said that if I screamed, he’d shoot me and my parents. I never told my parents what happened… I’m scared to tell the police; they won’t believe me because he’s a priest. I might have HIV/AIDS or STDs. It happened three months ago. I haven’t had a period since then. I am so scared. I’ve stopped going to church, I stay away from men.

These are tales from Zambia the oasis of peace, Zambia, the Christian nation, the land that has never known war.

For women in the war zones the risk rises. For example, between 1991 and 2002, all parties to the Sierra Leone conflict perpetrated rape, sexual slavery and other crimes of sexual violence against Sierra Leone women and girls. Some statistics indicate that at least 250,000 (or 33 percent of the total female population) were subjected to rape or sexual slavery.

During the Rwandan genocide of 1994 that horrifically appalled the conscience of the world, an estimated 500, 000 women and girls were raped. The Rappoteur for Rwanda told the world community of this despicable situation:

Rape was the rule and its absence the exception… under-age children and elderly women were not spared. Women about to give birth or who had just given birth were also the victims of rape in hospitals…. Women who were “untouchable” according to the custom (e.g., nuns) were also involved and even corpses, in the case of women who were raped just after being killed.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda recorded the testimony of a victim of rape:

Witness JJ testified that often the Interahamwe came to beat the refugees during the day, and that the policemen came to beat them at night. She also testified that the Interahamwe took young girls and women from their site of refuge near the bureau communal into a forest in the area and raped them. Witness JJ testified that this happened to her - that she was stripped of her clothing and raped in front of other people. At the request of the Prosecutor and with great embarrassment, she explicitly specified that the rapist, a young man armed with an axe and a long knife, penetrated her vagina with his penis. She stated that on this occasion she was raped twice. Subsequently, she told the Chamber, on a day when it was raining, she was taken by force from near the bureau communal into the cultural center within the compound of the bureau communal, in a group of approximately fifteen girls and women. In the cultural center, according to Witness JJ, they were raped. She was raped twice by one man. Then another man came to where she was lying and he also raped her. A third man then raped her, she said, at which point she described herself as feeling near dead. Witness JJ testified that she was at a later time dragged back to the cultural center in a group of approximately ten girls and women and they were raped. She was raped again, two times. Witness JJ testified that she could not count the total number of times she was raped. She said, "each time you encountered attackers they would rape you," - in the forest, in the sorghum fields. Witness JJ related to the Chamber the experience of finding her sister before she died, having been raped and cut with a machete.

These examples are not isolated cases but are reflective of the magnitude of sexual violence in war and conflict situations. Cases of sexual violence of similar magnitude have been documented from other countries experiencing conflict or war such as Uganda, Burundi, Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Darfur region in Sudan.

Violence against women is not cast in stone and therefore not immutable. There is no one in their right mind who wants their mother or sister violently raped. No one wants anything evil to befall those they hold dear. We can all help make the life of every woman less painful. We can work at the repeal of discriminatory and unfavorable laws. We can individually pledge not to contribute to the list of those who make the life of women into a hellhole of misery.

Above all, we can work collectively at changing the deep-seated perception that women are of less value than men. Every woman is somebody’s mother, sister, friend, daughter, or wife. Women are equal members of society and time has already come when this equality should be recognised.

Quarterly Bulletin

Bulletin 77 3rd Quarter 2008

Bulletin 77
3rd Quarter 2008