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"faithp" [ Profil ] |
| Sujet: |
Re: [GYCA-SouthernAfrica] Fwd: [ungass-nat-wg] Zimbabwe - Rape as an Election Strategy: Documenting the Evidence
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| Envoyé: |
Aug 3rd, 2009 - 02:05:12 |
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Its a very sad story, I am greatly moved. These women need support and
encouragement. why do people victimize women and children, what should be
done to stop this in future.
Faith
----- Original Message ----- e
From: "joya banerjee"
To: "faithp"
Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 6:13 PM
Subject: [GYCA-SouthernAfrica] Fwd: [ungass-nat-wg] Zimbabwe - Rape as an
Election Strategy: Documenting the Evidence
> This is awful....
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Alessandra Nilo
> Date: Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 7:18 PM
> Subject: [ungass-nat-wg] Zimbabwe - Rape as an Election Strategy:
> Documenting the Evidence
> To: UNGASS-Nat-WG
>
>
> I think all of you should read it. It is from March, 14th... but the
> responses are still needed.
> Alessandra
>
> ------------- Segue mensagem encaminhada -------------
>
> Assunto: Zimbabwe - Rape as an Election Strategy: Documenting the Evidence
>
>
>
>
> By Sohaila Abdulali and Betsy Apple
> SATURDAY, 14 MARCH 2009
>
> I was in bed asleep when they arrived. They broke the door. I
> screamed, but no one came to help. There were four men?They told me
> to lie down and remove my pants. They were beating me, and I fell
> down and hit my head on the floor. Then one of them hit me in the
> mouth with his fist. They knocked out my front teeth. It hurt very
> much. They spoke to each other about who should be the first to rape
> me. One of them said, ?Go first, comrade?? I was out of my mind by
> then. I was wet all over my stomach area. I heard them saying, ?We
> have hurt you. So go get tested because we have given you the prize
> of what you were doing.? I knew that they meant I would be HIV
> positive.
>
> After the second one got off I heard one tell the other to pour
> paraffin on the bed and light it on fire. The room was large, but I
> was close to the burning bed? I was afraid that I was going to die.
> The neighbors helped me up. They took me out of the house? Some
> neighbors took me to a clinic by pushing me in a wheelbarrow. I was
> crying and bleeding in my mouth. My uterus was very painful.
>
> Patience (not her real name) did contract HIV from the rape.
> Frightened for her life, she fled Zimbabwe for South Africa, where she
> works as a babysitter and longs for her own child, who is with family
> in Zimbabwe.
>
> Patience is one of the women AIDS-Free World met recently. Her story,
> heartbreaking though it is, is tragically typical. Soldiers banged the
> head of one woman?s toddler into the wall. He died of his injuries.
> Another woman was raped while her small daughter, the child of a
> previous rape, watched. She got pregnant from this second rape as
> well, and her second child is HIV-positive. It goes on and on and
> sickeningly on.
>
> The men seized the women, raped them, beat them, made them cook and
> clean and cower, and then sent them home to spread a message of terror
> and intimidation.
>
> In July 2008, a leading human rights group in Zimbabwe working with
> women and girls appealed to AIDS-Free World for help. The organization
> was overwhelmed by personal accounts from victims of a
> well-orchestrated, politically motivated campaign of rape and sexual
> violence directed at women and girls associated with, or believed to
> be associated with, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), then the
> opposition party in Zimbabwe whose followers threatened to unseat
> President Robert Mugabe. In response, we set out to document the
> sexual violence that had occurred throughout the election period by
> conducting extensive interviews with survivors. The interviews range
> in length from three to six hours each, are conducted by lawyers and
> videotaped, and are ultimately memorialized in sworn affidavits signed
> by the affiants and certified by a commissioner of oaths. To date,
> AIDS-Free World has completed 37 interviews.
>
> In the course of our investigation, we have heard stories almost too
> horrifying to comprehend, and met women who both stun us with their
> courage and break our hearts with the burdens they bear -- ostracism,
> unwanted pregnancies, wounds that don?t heal, and ongoing
> psychological trauma. We have also uncovered clear patterns among the
> stories.
>
> The rapes and sexual violence that AIDS-Free World has documented to
> date occurred from September of 2007 through August of 2008, with a
> surge in violence before the June 27th election. The attacks occurred
> in the provinces of Manicaland, Mashonaland East, Midlands, Masvingo,
> and the Harare and Bulawayo areas, suggesting a widespread campaign.
> The accounts were graphic, highly detailed, credible and consistent in
> a number of ways. The women were supporters of the MDC, and the
> rapists were militia members or supporters of ZANU-PF, Robert Mugabe?s
> ruling party. (The two parties now have an uneasy power-sharing
> agreement.)
>
> In every case, the attack was well organized. Rapists identified
> individual women, often on the basis of prepared lists, and often
> arrested them in their homes. Many women were forcibly marched to
> militia bases established for the purposes of raping and torturing
> opposition supporters. The women were assaulted by men of various
> ages, ranging from teenagers to seasoned ?war veterans? of Zimbabwe?s
> liberation struggle (identified as such by their colleagues). Women
> were beaten, interrogated and raped by multiple assailants. Some of
> the younger girls were taunted before being raped. Many of the women
> were forcibly confined at bases and abused over several days; some
> were required to cook and clean for their captors.
>
> Several of the women witnessed the rapes and beatings of other women
> confined at ZANU-PF bases. Some were stripped naked and paraded in
> public. The women were beaten with sharpened sticks or logs on their
> buttocks, lower backs and the soles of their feet. Several victims
> were burned, cut, whipped and left to die; some were beaten so
> violently that they lapsed into unconsciousness during their ordeals.
> The perpetrators made no attempt to hide their faces or identities and
> some called each other by name before, during and after the assaults.
>
> The lasting physical damage associated with the gang rapes is
> profound. Several of the women have suffered internal bleeding. Some
> of the victims were hospitalized for weeks on end. Compounding the
> trauma of their attacks, several women have tested HIV-positive in the
> months after being gang-raped; many of the others are afraid they were
> infected and their status remains uncertain. One woman was raped so
> violently that her uterus is permanently damaged and she will not be
> able to bear children. Several women became pregnant as a result of
> the rapes. Many continue to experience nightmares in addition to
> their physical injuries. A number of victims admitted to feeling
> ?dead? or suicidal in the aftermath of their ordeal, and at least one
> woman actually tried to commit suicide.
>
> Without exception, each victim was selected on the basis of her actual
> or perceived political affiliation. Many of the women held local
> positions in the MDC, and all of them supported the party. When
> ZANU-PF youth militia attacked several women?s homes, they searched
> first for MDC political literature.
>
> In other cases, attackers specifically sought MDC paraphernalia,
> including t-shirts, as proof of membership. While all the women were
> supporters of the MDC themselves, some were targeted for additional
> violence because their husbands or fathers supported the party.
> ZANU-PF youth militia killed two of the women?s husbands by beating
> them to death because of their MDC participation. One woman?s father
> was beaten to death while she was being gang-raped; one was told she
> was being raped because her husband was not there to take the beating.
> ZANU-PF members gang-raped another woman in order to get her husband
> to come out of hiding.
>
> Most victims were abducted and taken to ZANU-PF bases or to the forest
> or the bush, where they were raped, sexually assaulted and tortured,
> usually by a group of men. The other women were raped in their homes.
> More than half of the victims were raped by multiple men, sometimes as
> many as 10 and up to 18 men, often over more than one day and in one
> case over a period of five days. Most of the victims were told to
> relinquish their allegiance to the MDC and/or were informed that they
> were subject to assault or would be ?fixed? because of their
> membership in the MDC. Perpetrators also accused victims of ?selling
> out? the country, with varied references to the perfidy of Morgan
> Tsvangirai, who was then the MDC?s candidate for president, to Tony
> Blair and to George Bush. Several of the victims were accused of
> wanting to sell or give their country to white people.
>
> Many of the women were forced to attend ZANU-PF rallies or compelled
> to sing ZANU-PF songs and recite ZANU-PF slogans. One victim was
> abducted and interrogated by police about her political affiliations.
> Another victim was gang-raped by a mob in early July after admitting
> that she had voted for the MDC on June 27th.
>
> In almost every instance, the women were unable to successfully report
> their attacks to the police. More than one woman tried to report the
> rape and was told that authorities would allow her to open a file for
> the beating but not the rape. Several were told that the police could
> not get involved because the crimes were ?political.? In some cases,
> sympathetic police officers told the women they were barred from
> recording incidents of ZANU-PF violence. No perpetrators have been
> investigated or arrested for their participation in the sexual
> violence. In several cases, victims continue to live in the same
> communities as their attackers, and are forced to see them every day.
>
> Without the police report required by Zimbabwe law, survivors could
> not gain admission to public hospitals for rape treatment or
> post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV. For those who have or may test
> HIV-positive, their access to antiretroviral drugs is threatened.
>
> In the aftermath of these attacks, these women?s lives are permanently
> changed. Husbands, fathers, and other family members have been
> killed. The stigma around rape and sexual violence is pervasive,
> preventing many of them from speaking about what happened to them.
> Many have been rejected by their husbands, in-laws, or the larger
> community because they were raped. Those still living in Zimbabwe
> live in constant fear for their safety, and many continue to receive
> threats from their perpetrators.
>
> Many women have fled to neighboring countries. Some were forced to
> leave children behind. They have no family, no money, no medical care,
> no counseling, and very little hope for rebuilding their lives or
> obtaining justice. It is difficult to imagine the horrible choice
> they face: remaining behind terrified and insecure, but in familiar
> surroundings with familiar people -- or leaving and going to a hostile
> country where they are invisible, unwanted and often alone. How bad
> does home have to be before you choose to leave the places and people
> you love for a strange and unfriendly land?
>
> Rape as a tool to punish political activity and affiliation is one
> crime that is seldom punished. Given Zimbabwe?s deteriorating
> condition, and the high prevalence of HIV infection, the rape
> campaign, besides destroying women?s lives and the stability of their
> communities, also serves both to spread the virus and to disrupt
> treatment for women who might be too traumatized or injured to get
> what little treatment is available.
>
> Ensuring justice and accountability for abuses associated with
> HIV/AIDS, with the recognition that accountability is one of the
> strongest tools to prevent future violations, is the driving force
> behind our legal program.
>
> Every woman we spoke with wants accountability and justice -- not
> revenge, but simple justice. Many knew and named their attackers. But
> what they want most is assurance that if someone tears a woman apart,
> he will not get away without paying for it..
>
> Since the Zimbabwe government lacks both the motivation and ability to
> prosecute these human rights abuses, the international community must
> step in. We have presented a summary of our affidavits to the UN High
> Commissioner of Human Rights. After we finish our documentation, we
> will explore avenues such as the International Criminal Court. We are
> working towards UN and African involvement both in bringing attention
> to the issue, and in ending the climate of impunity that aids and
> abets campaigns of sexual violence wherever they occur.
>
> Mercy, another survivor, ended her testimony starkly:
>
> The rape has changed my life forever. I am no longer happy. I am
> separated from my children. I do not know where my husband is, and I
> am afraid to return to Zimbabwe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---
> This email is an internal communication of Working Group II of the
> Civil Society Coalition on HIV/AIDS UNGASS (National-level Activities
> around UNGASS HIV/AIDS).
>
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