Speaking out against Violence Against Women, Silence is the Enemy

Some people may be thinking enough has been said on the topic of violence against women. I have even heard that it is a dead horse and people need to stop griping about it since women now have way more power than men. The pendulum has swung to the other side and now men are those in a powerless position. Even so awareness in regards to violence against women has increased in North America, that is not the case for the majority of the world. And that is why as many people as necessary need to speak up and voice their concerns and do what they can to help a situation that is getting worse around the world. Once friend has even gone as far as calling it the next great holocaust. I prefer the term female genocide.

Today, Phil Plait posted the following blog that is a blog about this blog by Sheril Kirshenbaum entitled Silence the Enemy. It is a very important read and please do your best to spread the word around and get others to blog, donate money and speak out against the massive rape against young women. Sheril talks about the massive rape of young girl in Liberia, Sudan and the Congo. Unfortunately that is just a small percentage of what actually is happening on a global scale.

Here are a few more examples of exactly how widespread this problem is:

• In the Congo War of 2007, the military and militias on both sides raped women on a huge scale. Most were not only raped, but also mutilated -- chunks of wood driven up their vagina, to destroy their cervix and uterus. Female circumcision also runs rampant.
• In Eastern Europe, Russia, and Southeast Asia women are being violently trafficked for prostitution on a scale that rivals the African slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries. Close to 1,000,000 children from around the world, are sold into the sex trade industry each year.
• In India and Pakistan, acid attacks on women, intended to disfigure and/or blind them, are escalating. In Darfur, and other parts of the Sudan, so-called refugee camps have become nothing but "rape camps" in which women are confined and systematically sexually tortured.
• In Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, so-called "ethnic cleansing" included large-scale rape, murder, and sexual torture of women and female children.
• In some Asian countries, it is common practice to kill a child if they are born female. If the child is not killed, many are abandoned or are mutilated in varies ways. One common practice is to drive pins into the newborns skull. This has led to an unbalance between male and female population necessary for procreation of the species.

The violence does not end there. Please do not remain silent and do what you can do to raise awareness. Give your voice for these women who do not have the freedom to have a voice of their own.

julia sherred