Centuries worth of human history depict chapters in society where women were put through sexual torture, humiliation, exploitation, and death. These chapters of human nature include mass genocides, times of war, xenophobia, extreme sexism, and femicide, which are mostly perpetuated by the civilian public and at times by foul officials within the government.
To better understand this article piece, one must reminisce about their mother, grandmother, sister, niece, aunty, wife, friend, or your individual experiences as you read on. The case studies about to be discussed are very much real-life events that unfortunately occurred; talking about them promotes women’s empowerment and advocates for their justice throughout the globe to an extent.
During times of unrest or war, women were reduced to sexual products by both sides of fighting forces, rebels, and the general public. In a documentary directed by Michael Sztanke and Gael Fage, ‘Rwandan Genocide: Women’s stories of survival in Rwanda’, female survivors of rape and discrimination share their stories with tears and near panic attacks.
At the very start of the genocide, women and children of Tutsi decent were violently gang raped before being slaughtered by the Hutu militia and their civilian accomplices who fell for their propaganda. Most of those who were fortunate enough to escape with their lives and a bit of sanity wound up in refugee camps. These infamous camps include the Nyarushishi Tutsi Refugee Camp and the Murambi refugee camp, both under the protection of French soldiers from the Operation Turquoise zone in the months of June and July 1994.
Marie Jeane, a survivor, tells a sad tale of how she left for dead while being sheltered in the Nyarushishi refugee camp. In an interview with the documenters, the survivor with tears vividly opened up her experiences of how on one fateful day she was gathering wood outside near her camp before being spotted by some French soldiers at a nearby trench.
Marie had a baby wrapped around her back, but this did not stop the soldiers from dragging her into the trench and taking turns to violently rape her with her child tossed aside in the same trench. She and her son were left for dead and later discovered three days later by some male refugees from the same camp, in a defiled and painful state as she was bleeding and could not close her legs.
The status and well-being of women and children show the power, competence, and progress of a state. It highlights the credibility of human rights, constitutional rights and social responsibility of a nation, and if these suggested pillars are inefficient or corrupted, women tend to face gender-based violence, sexual exploitation within business industries and government institutions, femicide, serial rapes, and poverty that have led to the rise of prostitution or commercial sex work, as some would like to sugarcoat, in most African countries.
When most women have price tags on their wombs, it creates sexualization and exploitation in that country and also encourages the dark fantasies of criminals, rapists, and child molesters. If men and the general society do not value their women, it becomes easily convenient for foreign predators to take advantage of them.
Another survivor, Concessa Jaqueline from the same documentary narrates with tears of how they were quickly disillusioned when they wrongly assumed the French soldiers to be their knights in white armour. She remembers being dragged out of her tent into the bushes by four French soldiers who gang raped her. She sobbed whilst reminiscing how she was tackled to the ground and photographed naked by one soldier while another was raping her. The worst part is that it began again the next day only with more women.
It was the same thing in Murambi refugee camp, survivors talk about a room the French soldiers used to take women to rape and demand they fulfil their disgusting fantasies. Organisations and security personnel tasked with protecting refugees tend to severely abuse the women and children they are supposed to be protecting. It’s a valid raise of an eye brow into the protocols, mandates, and efficiency of foreign organisations that perpetuate human rights and security.
It is unfortunate to reveal that till to this day since the genocide, the French army denies any alleged acts of rape committed by their soldiers in Rwanda to the extent of refusing to identify nor investigate the accused soldiers despite having direct witnesses and victims that are still alive to tell the tale for justice.
In 2004 and 2012, Marie Jeanne, Concessa and Prisca filed complaints against accused persons of rape before the French justice but to no avail. The international system has double standards, and sadly they are manipulatively legal, which is why France gets away with committing atrocities against Africa, and does not receive genuine condemnation from the United Nations and its branches such as the UN-Security Council.
Many countries throughout the world have security issues when it concerns the safety and well-being of women. In countries like South Africa women are killed and raped by their own men almost every day, and in Zimbabwe the rate of child marriages keeps soaring up.
The DRC has been in turmoil because of its riches and despite the war ending it has become culture and religion to sexual assault women throughout several regions. In a different documentary, a certain late Human Rights Activist narrates her journey and her traumatic experience of rape.
She recalls the day her husband was murdered by rebels and how she was gang raped by several men whilst still on top of her husband’s corpse. Masika said she lost her mind when she heard her two daughters aged 12 and 14 scream her name from the other room. That day both her daughters were impregnated and to add insult to trauma, her husband’s family members rejected her and her daughters claiming that they were prostitutes.
Mama Masika helped 10 123 women, and through collaborating with victims shunned by society because of rape just like herself, they managed to collaborate into farming for sustenance and finance for supplies, it’s a gruesome shame she allegedly died from Malaria.
We can only imagine and assume the kinds of horror women in Palestine specifically the Gaza are going through or have gone through. It is essentially imperative to competently and strategically include women in political power, military and global organisations in order to see to the safety and justice of women and children. Women in Vietnam experienced similarities of sexual violence during the country’s war against the USA, American soldiers raped, molested and killed women and children.
The war against women and justice for women should be taken seriously by every individual state and by the global community as a whole, if not it means the total chaos of a present and future generations.
References to Visit:
The Rwandan Genocide: Women’s Stories of Survival in Rwanda | Full Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/@JavaDiscover
https://youtu.be/KOaUDtEhdjw?si=iPDNMbeut6mJtA9B
The Disturbing Use of Rape in the DRC | Woman with Gloria Steinem
https://youtu.be/-IffpoUQpDc?si=71ieBQrHp2vqVyJ7
https://www.youtube.com/@VICENews
The complexities of GBV and Women’s rights in Africa
https://chenwilliamsblog.wordpress.com/2024/12/31/the-complexities-of-gbv-and-womens-rights-in-zimbabwe/