WMC Women Under Siege
Rape is being used for ethnic cleansing in South Sudan. But it’s not the first place, or the last.
Wars fought because of ethnic hatred often seem to be more brutal than others. This is just a personal observation, having studied many. Just look at Rwanda, whose 1994 war saw between 250,000 and half a million women raped, often with objects and often publicly, in order to spread maximum humiliation and terror.
WMC Women Under Siege
Rape is being used as tool of ethnic violence in South Sudan
In what experts are calling the single worst atrocity since fighting broke out in South Sudan last December, hundreds of men, women, and children were killed last month when rebels seized the northern oil town of Bentiu. The rebels denied the allegations, saying it was retreating government troops who perpetrated the murders. Then, fighters took to radio airwaves—the means by which most South Sudanese citizens access news—and broadcast “hate messages” calling on men to rape women.
WMC Women Under Siege
When conflict came to Burma’s Rohingya, women were forced to do something unexpected
The roles of family and society, dictated by culture and history, often disintegrate in the presence of conflict. And the Rohingya people, already one of the most persecuted ethnic minorities in the world, were no exception after last year’s violence in Burma.
WMC Women Under Siege
New Holocaust findings highlight larger gap in conflict and rape research
One of the most emailed New York Times stories over the weekend was a piece about the Holocaust. In it, Eric Lichtblau explains new findings from experts at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: that the number of Nazi ghettos, camps, and other sites of systematic human misery is six times what the study authors had predicted.
WMC Women Under Siege
Does the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ matter?
You, as a reader, may not care about the behind-the-scenes debates over word choice, grammar, and punctuation that get journalists like me riled up. But readers and reporters alike are caught in an unusually public semantics discussion this week now that The Associated Press’ stylebook editors have announced that they’re dropping certain words.
WMC Women Under Siege
The fine line between 'obedience' and rape in North Korea
When Shin Dong-hyuk was 10 years old, he watched his mother be raped by her boss. In an attempt to fetch her for dinner, Shin approached the office where he had been told she would be. The door was locked. Through a window he saw her kneeling as she washed the floor, then saw her boss approach and grope her. Shin’s mother and the man took off their clothes, and the boy watched the rest unfold.