Tag: Rape

Another Sad Story

Yes, we in the US treat rape victims as social pariahs….we as a society are getting better but there is still a longer way to go…but I saw this article and had to post it…it is from the BBC:

Offers of help are pouring in for an eight-year-old Liberian girl disowned by her own family in Phoenix, Arizona, after being raped by four boys.

The girl is under the care of the Arizona Child Protective Service (CPS) because her parents said she had shamed them, and they did not want her back.

The boys, Liberian immigrants aged nine to 14, have been charged with rape.

The case has sparked outrage across the US and even drawn condemnation from Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, an outspoken anti-rape campaigner.

Media reports said the girl was lured into a shed on 16 July with promises of chewing gum by the four young boys.

There, they held her down and took turns assaulting her for 10 to 15 minutes, before her screams alerted officers nearby.

The oldest suspect, a 14-year-old boy, will be tried as an adult on charges of kidnapping and sexual assault, police said on Friday. He is being held in police custody until trial.

The other three – aged 9, 10, and 13 – are charged as juveniles with sexual assault and kidnapping.

We read stories like these and make a comment on our society, but do little to stop this type of outrage.  Just what did this young girl do to warrant such crime?  We cannot blame the way she was dressed….or cannot blame her flirting…..we cannot blame….these boys are just sick and should be tried as adults and given a sentence without chance of freedom.

Sexual Trauma And The Female Vet

Veterans who reported sexual trauma, such as rape and threatening sexual harassment, were three times more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

A study released in 2007 found that 22 percent of female veterans and 1 percent of male veterans reported sexual trauma in VA health-care surveys conducted in 2003. That study looked at veterans of all types, not just from Afghanistan and Iraq.

The new study found that these men and women were three times more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness than those who didn’t report experiencing sexual trauma.

Among women who reported experiencing sexual trauma, 76 percent were diagnosed with a mental condition, compared to 47 percent of other female veterans. The rates were similar in men.

According to the study, the most common mental health conditions among the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, adjustment disorders (which cause stress and other problems during certain situations), and drug addiction or alcoholism. All were more common in men and women who reported sexual trauma; post-traumatic stress disorder was much more common in women than men in that group.

Learn more about sexual trauma in the military from the VA.

It is truly sad thgat a female vet has more to worry about than some militatnt taking her life.

Palin’s Alaskan Rape Kit Policy

THis is from an Alaskan blogger Shannyn Moore:

Mountains of controversy are swirling around Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s strange policy of forcing rape victims to pay for their own rape kits while she was mayor of the now-infamous town of Wasilla.

The most interesting take I’ve found is posted by Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore who relates the following:

I sat with a rape victim during the “harvesting of evidence”. Mascara smeared eyes stared blankly out from a cave of shame. “We’ve got swimmers,” announced the forensic tech in the lab next door. My friend didn’t look surprised. In her 60’s, she was still asked if she felt the need for emergency contraception. Surviving the process would have only been compounded and made worse with an itemized bill; victimized twice courtesy of Sarah Palin and the city of Wasilla.

Much can be learned about the Palin Administration’s family values from reviewing their spending priorities. Former Chief of Police Irl Stambaugh included forensic rape kits (up to $1,200 per kit) in his budget requests. He was fired by Palin in 1997. In her termination letter, Palin wrote, “…I do not feel I have your full support in my efforts to govern the city of Wasilla. Therefore I intend to terminate your employment… ” Staumbaugh headed the police department since it was created in 1993. Before that, he served 22 years with the Anchorage Police Department rising to the rank of captain. Sarah Palin hired Charlie Fannon as the new Wasilla Chief of Police and said it was one of her best decisions as mayor. Fannon eliminated the forensic rape kits from the budget. Though the number of rapes weren’t reported, Fannon claimed it would save Wasilla taxpayers $5,000 to $14,000 a year.

Palin supporters ought to be taking a much closer look at her record on these types of issues (charging rape victims for evidentiary examinations so their attackers can be brought to trial) than whether she can juggle five children and the vice presidency. This, more than anything, should push women, pro-life and pro-choice, away from the McCain-Palin ticket. It’s one thing to oppose abortion on moral grounds. It’s quite another to charge crime victims for their own forensic examinations. Such a policy is nothing short of outrageous.

Iraq’s Juvenile Prison System

Hundreds of children, some as young as nine, are being held in appalling conditions in Baghdad’s prisons, sleeping in sweltering temperatures in overcrowded cells without working fans, no daily access to showers, and subject to frequent sexual abuse by guards, current and former prisoners say.

Daytime temperatures in Baghdad last week averaged 44C (112F). They barely drop below 38C at night. Water supplies in Karkh are spasmodic, and Omar said he was able to shower only once every three days. Boys sleep in four dormitories, averaging 75 inmates in a cell about 5 metres by 10 metres, on double bunks or the concrete floor.

Guards often take boys to a separate room in the prison and rape them, Omar alleged. They also break prison rules by lending their mobile phones to boys to ring home, on condition that each time their families top the phone up by $10 or $20. The teaching staff resigned en masse in November because of low pay, according to an international official. As a result, the children lounge around aimlessly with no daytime activities, other than an exercise yard.

Though the boys in the prison have been convicted, international standards for fair trials are never met. “Trials last on average for 25 minutes, no witnesses are called, confessions are used as the only evidence, and court-appointed defence lawyers get the case file on the day of the trial, leaving no chance to consult the defendant in private,” an international adviser in Baghdad said on condition of anonymity.

The ministry is under Shia control and its forces have repeatedly been accused of targeting innocent Sunnis. Sahar Muhammad, the boys’ mother, told the Guardian that when she was able to visit her sons they told her they were beaten repeatedly in the first days of custody and ordered to sign a blank sheet of paper on which charges would be written later.

The UN found severe overcrowding at Tobchi, with around 400 inmates in a prison with an official capacity of 206. “In some cells juveniles were taking turns to sleep on the floor without mattresses,” the UN reported. The ministry of labour and social affairs (Molsa), which manages the prison, said shortages of funds prevented improvements.