Sexual Assault Paper 2

Alii Holt

Women Studies

Dr. Brown

April 13, 2012

Sexual Assault around the World

            Sexual assault is something that is very common around the world. Sometimes when it comes to social issues as serious as this one, people in the United States tend to brush it under the rug.  It’s easy to over look an issue like this because it’s such a touchy subject, so it’s hard to do something about it. For people who live in the United States, they tend to over look the fact that sexual assault does happen, but it’s even easier to overlook the fact it happens in other countries. The big controversy is whether or not the United States should intervene when this issue becomes a huge problem. In some countries it is illegal to have sex before one is married; there is severe punishment if one disobeys that rule. Sexual assault does happen in the United States, more often than people think, and it happens more frequently in other countries. Sexual assault also happens in poor countries such as Somalia and Nigeria. These smaller countries seem to be over looked most of the time because the issues are well known. The major problem is what should be done about an issue this world-wide.

            Sexual assault is something that can easily be over looked by other crimes happening in the U.S. But sexual assault or violence is more common that most people think. In the United States 22 million people have been raped in their lifetime (Feminist.com). This number is ridiculously huge; this number can even be bigger since, for most women it’s hard to come forward after being raped. Being raped is a very tragic and can be very tough for a woman to come to grips with. Less than half of domestic violence is reported to the police (Feminist.com). Some incidents are just too hard on the women and can emotionally scar them for a very long time. One thing that separates the United States sexual assaults from other countries is that most victims knew their attackers. Almost two-thirds of assaults are committed by someone known by the victim, and thirty eight percent of rapists were known by the victim (Feminist.com). When it comes to domestic violence and rape, the U.S has very high percentages and numbers for both. Thirty one percent of women in the United States have reported domestic abuse, and there has been a reported 700,000 rapes happening each year in the U.S (Seagers 28-105). One reason why sexual assault happens in the United States is because men feel they are more powerful than women and can take advantage of them better. Women aren’t as educated when it comes to defending themselves. This can explain why the number of rapes in the United States is outrageous, and for that number to be that high and to be happening each year is scary to think about. But the United States isn’t the only country having this problem.

            Somalia is a country that is having a continuing problem with famine, is also seeing correlations between famine and sexual assault. In many refugee camps, where families are forced to live, are also faced with more problems than food. The Guardian article, The rape of Somalia's women is being ignored, tells a story about a women who faced just that. Nadifa is a mother of four living in the refugee camps. One day she left her children in her hut to go get food, when she returned she found a gunman inside her home who was raping her eleven year old daughter. She screamed for help and tried prying off the gunman from her daughter. As her neighbors watched the gunman took Nadifa to a nearby shed and beat her, kicked and punched her. Refugee camps like this one make it really easy for sexual predators to make their moves (Shannon).This particular camp is funded by international aid organizations from the United Nations, and the reported that most families in this camp are headed by women. This factor makes it easy for rapist and abusers to target women (Shannon 2011). Some people argue that that UN should intervene with this because they are the ones that are helping these refugee camps. But there are other people who argue that the UN should not get involved in that because it might cause more problems in the long run. The newspaper, The Guardian, names Somalia one of five places in the world that are the worst for women. The women in Somalia are forced to take care of their children, by finding food and shelter for them; this can require them to move to camps then to be very vulnerable. It is hard for woman in Somalia to escape the fear of being sexual abused. They either face the famine and risk dying or go to camps where there is some hope of staying alive.

                In some countries the government and religion take part of the abuse of women. In Nigeria, a woman is put on trial because she got pregnant before getting married. In Nigeria, the government is run my mostly religion, where they enforced the Shari’ah. This sets the rules for how people should act, along with the rule that women should not have premarital affairs. In one incident, Bariya Ibrahima Mugazu, was given one hundred lashes because she was pregnant. But when she went to court she argued that she was forced into having sex. She argued that her own father sold her off to three men for money, so he could get his debt worked off. The problem here is that it is okay for women and children to be used at “pawning” and that it was totally legal. So Mugazu ended up getting lashed for something she didn’t try to do. This situation is really disturbing because her father sold her to men, and she got pregnant because of it and all of it is her fault. The fact that religion is playing a huge role in the Nigerian government, they are trying to crack down on things that make the issue of religion a controversy. “Since the launching of Nigerian Shari’ah in January 2000, the courts have imposed strict Islamic laws, including death by stoning for adultery, amputation for theft, and flogging ‘for the lesser Islamic crimes of alcohol consumption and pre-marital sex” (Ilesanmi 215-232). There needs to be a change with the way the government handles this, it seems they just assume the women just commit adultery all the time. Instead they should look into these issues and get down to the real reason why this is happening and that it’s wrong “pawning” off women in children.

            There are some things that are being done for these women around the world, including the United States and Somalia. It might be hard for the United States to crack down on something as big as sexual violence. In 1996, the United States government directive officially prohibits US military personnel from engaging in child prostitution (Seagers 28-105). There have been thousands of organizations that are aimed to help the women and children against sexual violence. One particular website from Louisiana, Department of Children and Family services, and this website explains what domestic, sexual violence is. There’s also ways to contact people if someone sees these kinds of violence or is being abused (Department of Children and Family Services). For the women and children in Somalia that are being treated terribly in the refugee camps, there are new laws and organizations to help them. In 1992 Save Somalia Woman and Children (SSWC) was founded, and what that does is unite women across the five clans. They then founded a sixth clan and sent 100 delegates to the Somali National Peace Conference in 2000. The resultant Transitional Government was ten percent female, which forced male clan leaders to recognize war impacts on women and children (Seagers 28-105). This should help out the fact that women are getting raped in refugee camps, like the story of Nadifa. There is a great deal of other things going on around the world to help women. One thing is that in the UK they made the “morning after” pill available without a prescription to girls who are sixteen or older in 2001. Another thing that happened in China, shockingly, in 1996 they opened their first battered woman’s shelter.  This is surprising, because it seemed like it took a long time for a shelter to be developed. These are only steps towards a huge issue; it will be hard to change this in just one night.

            The issue of sexual assault is a very touchy issue; it’s a tough subject to pin point and get rid of in a day. We are living in the 21^st century and women are starting to make their run to become better known than just homemakers. Woman have come a long ways from being just looked at as being a Betty Crocker of the household and are starting to take jobs that were only seen as men’s jobs. But that is pretty much only seen in the United States, in some countries, such as Somalia, women are still seen as inferior and still get missed treated. Woman in poorer countries continue to fight for their lives along with their children’s lives. They are still threatened by being raped. There needs to be something done around the world and not just in Somalia or Nigeria. One quote that sums up the entire woman and just the movement in the world was said by Margaret Mead “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has” (Seagers 28-105).

Works Cited

"Facts About Violence." Feminist.com. N.p., 2012. Web. 27 Mar 2012. <http://www.feminist.com/antiviolence/facts.html

"Family Violence Prevention." Department of Children and Family Services. N.p., 2012. Web. 29 Mar 2012.

Ilesanmi, Olufemi. "Sexual offences in a Muslim world: a socio-ethical reflection." International Journal of Human Rights. 14.2 (2010): 215-232. Web. 29 Mar. 2012. <http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.mnsu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=fa81e875-846b-45c2-a2be-b36efe446038@sessionmgr14&vid=6&hid=123>.

Seagers, Joni. The Penguin Atlas of Women in teh World. 4. New York, New York: Penquin Group, 2009. 28-105. Print.

Shannon, Lisa. "The rape of Somalia's women is being ignored." Guardian. 11 Oct 2011: n. page. Web. 29 Mar. 2012.