What’s (not) being done in the Sudan

Make sure to check out the NY Times’ piece today on the horror that women in Darfur are going through right now, we well as the argument over whether violence against women is a war crime. Um…Yes. Discussion over.
Seriously though, it never ceases to amaze me how people cannot make the connection between the incredible increase of violence against women and war. How is systematic rape not a war crime?
Violence against women—which is most often, but not limited to, sexual assault—is par for the course when it comes to armed conflict:
Sexual violence has been a tried-and-true way for armed men to sow terror among civilians in wartime, from the Balkans to Colombia and Congo to the genocide in Rwanda. The latter offers a particularly trenchant lesson for Sudan: Ten years later only a handful of allegations of rape have been investigated and prosecuted, according to a recent report by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch.
So what’s being done right now?
UN secretary general Kofi Annan, has appointed a panel to determine “whether the violence in Darfur meets the international legal definition of genocide.” Huh. I’m sure that will be a speedy process.
Click here for a previous Feministing post on women in the Sudan and the semantic argument over “genocide.”
For a comprehensive look at genocide and the United States’ history of involvement (or lack thereof I should say), check out Samantha Power’s book, “A Problem from Hell” : America and the Age of Genocide.
Also, if you haven’t already read Against Our Will : Men, Women, and Rape by Susan Brownmiller, get to it. It’s a little outdated, but her chapters on war and rape are still relevant.

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