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worldwideWAMM September 2006
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by Polly Mann, W A M M
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Where there’s war, there’s sexual abuse
Some twenty-five years ago I wrote a satiric play titled “Princess Fay” and in it created a women’s auxiliary to the U.S. Army. In the play, the auxiliary idea was sold to the as an entity providing big sisters to the troops — young women who would sew on uniform buttons, be companions, share mail, etc. so the troops wouldn’t take up with the foreign women in whatever country they were stationed. In actuality, the women would be sexual partners. It appears that some of the U.S. troops have the same idea about women who are today enlisted in the army.
Several years ago I met Dorothy Mackey, a former U.S. Air Force commander and founder of a non-profit organization called STAAMP, Survivors Take Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel (www.militarywoman.org/stamp, 1-888-231-2226). Mackey had been the victim of an assault and rape while in the service. She formed STAAMP to offer support and advice to other victims. Today stories of women soldiers being sexually abused by other soldiers and officers are common. The latest is a U.S. Army Specialist, now confined to the Fort Lewis, Washington, base, who tells of having been sexually harassed and assaulted by three sergeants. Every woman that I’ve come to know who has been in the military tells of having been sexually molested.
Iraqi women are also not free from being sexually abused by U.S. troops. Since the U.S. invasion, the reported incidence of sexual terrorism has accelerated markedly. Iraqi women are often loath to report rape because in rural areas they may be vulnerable to “honor killings” in which male relatives murder them in order to restore the “family’s honor.” In 1993, action was taken on the issue by the General Assembly of the United Nations which passed a Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Subsequent statutes defined rape as a crime against humanity or as a war crime.
The scandal of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib focused on the torture, sexual abuse and humiliation of Iraqi men. However, some female detainees reported sexual humiliation suffered while in U.S. custody. Nearly all female detainees reported threats of rape. Professor Huda Shaker, a political scientist at Baghdad University told a Guardian Weekly reporter that women in Abu Ghraib have been sexually abused and raped.
After interviewing rape and abduction victims, as well as eyewitnesses, Iraqi police and health professionals, and U.S. military police and civil affairs officers, Human Rights Watch released a report in July 2003 that found “police officers gave low priority to allegations of sexual violence and abduction.” After the U.S. invasion, local gangs became active, snatching from the street women and girls, some no more than nine years old. No one knows how many abducted women have never returned. Some are kidnapped and sold to Gulf countries, according to Iraqi police. Human Rights Watch reports that such trafficking had not occurred before the invasion. A U.S. State Department’s report of June 2005 cited an unknown number of Iraqi women and girls being sent to Yemen, Syria, Jordan, and Persian Gulf countries for sexual exploitation.
To avoid such dangers, many Iraqi women have become shut-ins. The Iraqi Ministry of the Interior recently issued notices warning women not to go out on their own. Imam Sheikh Salah Muzidin of Baghdad says, “These incidents of abuse just prove what we have been saying for so long. That it is the Islamic duty of women to stay in their homes, looking after their children and husbands rather than searching for work—especially with the current lack of security in the country.” Maybe here, at last, one could make a case that some segment of the Iraqi society approved some aspect of the U.S. invasion. It has provided a real justification for Iraqi men to insist that women stay at home, looking after their children and husbands. |
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Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy Resources
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Institute for Policy Studies
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The Wisdom Fund
What major U.S. media won’t tell you. Advances social justice and interfaith understanding by presenting the truth about Islam. Current news and analyses about world events. www.twf.org
DemocracyNow!
The War & Peace Report. Daily radio news program available in both readable and internet streamable reports.
www.democracynow.org
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© 2006 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete September 2006 Index - click here
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