WMC Women Under Siege
10 wars to watch (and that the media ignore)
Bloodshed, famine, rape, internal displacement. There are truly few things as awful as the reality of living through modern warfare. The horror, suffering, and pain caused by war are acutely felt on an individual level. Often though, that pain is endured quietly, out of view, while the media focuses on bombs falling and guns firing.
WMC Women Under Siege
November 08, 2013 International,
Violence against women
Women under siege (and on the Web) this week
Our roundup of what's happening around the world and around the Web when it comes to women, war, and sexualized violence this week.
WMC Women Under Siege
U.S. steps up protection of women in war
One of the first things that happens when war breaks out is that the rule of law crumbles. Women become targets of violence—whether through rape or sexual exploitation as food and other resources quickly become scarce. This can have critical consequences not only for the women themselves, but for the escalation of the war.
WMC Women Under Siege
November 01, 2013 International,
Violence against women
Women under siege (and on the Web) this week
Our roundup of what's happening around the world and around the Web when it comes to women, war, and sexualized violence this week.
WMC Women Under Siege
Women in South Africa are living in a war zone
This year has been especially horrific for the women of South Africa. On October 15, two little girls, aged 2 and 3, were found in a public toilet in Diepsloot, a settlement in the north of Johannesburg, according to news reports. The girls, both cousins, who had been abducted in broad daylight, had been raped and strangled.
WMC Women Under Siege
What's going on in Syria is about a lot more than chemical weapons
We're off talk of "intervention" in Syria, and on to trying to get everyone to the negotiating table. It's not going very well.
WMC Women Under Siege
October 25, 2013 International,
Violence against women
Women under siege (and on the Web) this week
Our roundup of what's happening around the world and around the Web when it comes to women, war, and sexualized violence this week.
WMC Women Under Siege
The Index: Rape in War
Number of countries that signed the UK and UN’s Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual Violence in Conflict: 128. Countries that refused to sign the declaration at the UNGA on September 24: 80...
WMC Women Under Siege
'Their untold stories eat away at them': Rape and the women of Mali
In late September, a Malian woman told UN workers that she had been raped, and identified four Chadian soldiers—UN peacekeepers—as her rapists, according to a BBC report. A UN spokesman issued a statement a few days later, reaffirming the organization’s zero commitment policy against sexual abuse and calling on the Chadian government to fully investigate the matter.
WMC Women Under Siege
October 11, 2013 | Fariba Nawa |
International
Afghanistan’s widows of the disappeared
Sabah Mohammed sat at the dining table where she worked in Fremont, Calif., her gaze distant and lost. She wondered if her husband was out there somewhere with another wife and family. Or maybe he was dead. Or maybe he was in a prison camp in Siberia.
WMC Women Under Siege
10 must-read books on sexualized violence in war
Our mission here at WMC’s Women Under Siege is to add to the public record on sexualized violence in conflict. But if you’re just setting out to learn more about a topic as complicated as this, figuring out where to begin might seem a bit daunting.
WMC Women Under Siege
Burma refuses to relinquish rape as weapon of war
On September 24, British Foreign Secretary William Hague’s initiative to end sexualized violence in conflict zones took the 2013 UN General Assembly by storm. The event was hosted by Secretary Hague and Zainab Hawa Bangura, special representative of the Secretary-General on sexual violence in conflict, and included speakers from 27 member countries.
WMC Women Under Siege
‘I Can Still Smell the Dead’: Central African Republic's crisis worsens
Virtually unnoticed in September amid news of back-to-school sales and Miley Cyrus twerking at the Video Music Awards was a report released by Human Rights Watch called “I Can Still Smell the Dead.”
WMC Women Under Siege
Seeking justice through the ICTY: Frustration, skepticism, hope
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was established in 1993 to prosecute “persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory.” But taking into account the thousands of victims of sexualized violence from the conflict is comprehensive prosecution even feasible?
WMC Women Under Siege
Where is 'red line' on rape in war?
I remember a chalk line drawn on blacktop by a group of kids at recess when I was young. The message was clear: This is the line you do not cross. If you stepped over it, you would face the wrath of those kids in whatever game we were playing. Now turn that line crimson and color it toxic. This is the adult version of "do not cross."
WMC Women Under Siege
Sick, injured, untreated: Syrians suffer fallout of assault on medical care
When I was at the Syrian border in Turkey in July, I went to a public park where I heard 4,000 refugees were living. I was told it was not a UN-supported camp, that these Syrians had come over the border because they’d heard there was going to be a camp nicer than the UN one in Kilis, where most people are stuck in tents, rather than the box-like structures known as “caravans.”
WMC Women Under Siege
Rape, murder, forced recruitment overwhelms Central African Republic
A tweet from the London-based online newsmagazine ThinkAfricaPress, posted on September 3, reads: “Central African Republic Moves to Disarm Rebel Fighters. Some of those will be children.”
WMC Women Under Siege
A competition of suffering: Male vs. female rape
One of the main components of our project at WMC’s Women Under Siege is to educate the public about how rape is used not only as a crime of war but also as a strategic tool. During our research on systemic sexualized violence in wartime, we have found that rape disproportionately affects women. But the key term here is disproportionately.
WMC Women Under Siege
As violence soars, a photographic look inside the Zaatari camp in Jordan
Recently, the Obama administration announced a decision to allow 2,000 Syrian refugees to settle permanently in the United States. The refugees would include the most vulnerable—women and children who had been “exposed to everything from torture to gender-based violence to serious medical conditions,” Foreign Policy reported.
WMC Women Under Siege
Tips for interviewing survivors of sexualized and gender-based violence
Recently, the U.S. media has been full of accounts of rampant sexualized violence and intimidation across all branches of the U.S. military. In Egypt, we hear how sexual violence is used against female activists during and around protests in the country. A major reason these systemic human rights violations are coming to light is because brave survivors of sexualized violence were willing to speak out and share their experiences.
WMC Women Under Siege
August 12, 2013 International,
Violence against women
How US policy denies life-saving care to women raped in war
Angelina Jolie doesn't mince words.
“Let us be clear what we are speaking about,” the award-winning actress and humanitarian said in June as she addressed the United Nations Security Council session on sexualized violence in conflict. “Young girls raped and impregnated before their bodies are able to carry a child, causing fistula; boys held at gunpoint and forced to sexually assault their mothers and sisters; women raped with bottles, wood branches, and knives to cause as much damage as possible; toddlers, even babies, dragged from their homes and violated.”
WMC Women Under Siege
‘He bonked them’: Making light of rape in the West African media
Yvonne Ntiamoah, a resident in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, was driving her two daughters home when she heard something on a local radio station that she could simply not endure.
WMC Women Under Siege
Can tracking rape in conflict prevent genocide?
Just as rape and other forms of sexualized violence have historically been viewed as a “natural” part of war, they have often been recognized as occurring in genocide but not necessarily as an act of genocide in itself.
WMC Women Under Siege
Forgotten girls: How one child in Yemen is drawing attention to underage marriage
Eight million people and counting have watched a video featuring an 11-year-old Yemeni girl named Nada al-Ahdal. From what looks like the seat of a car, she talks about why she left home because, she says, her parents tried to marry her off. Al-Ahdal talks about the “innocence of children” and the consequences—including suicide—of being force-married to an older man at such a young age.
WMC Women Under Siege
Sexual assaults, victim-blaming continues in Peace Corps
On November 21, 2011, President Barack Obama signed into law the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act. The act aims to reform Peace Corps’ policies and procedures for preventing and responding to sexual assault. Its passage was intended to end the epidemic of sexual assault against Peace Corps volunteers and endemic culture of victim-blaming in the agency. But the success of the Kate Puzey Act is threatened by the Peace Corps’ use of outdated, victim-blaming definitions of sexual assault.