Fascinating read. It's a deplorable situation over there. Those kinds of situations, women in warzones, remind me of a conversation I had just this week with a few friends that I'd like to get some input on if possible. Their argument was that most or all of the rights and protection that women have are given to or granted to them by men. Basically they were saying that if you remove any large and powerful organizing force, a government for example, in that vacuum men will do as they please, and they will please to do bad things, since there is little to fear in doing it. They expanded on this by listing off all the rights "given" women by men in our country and said that the rights of women are pretty much predicated on the inventions and advancements made by men, have a world-wide EMP or a completely devastatng world war and the rights women currently have will evaporate. I'd like to think better of us as a people and myself as a man and see something like terminator (silly I know) where men and women fight together entirely possible but I was unable to completely discount their argument. They say that women only need men to protect them from other men but if those men arent willing to do that, women will be subjugated. I just cant see this but again I couldnt argue against it very well as they had tons of examples, most of history and currently war zones. I apologize if this is covered somewhere else but I was unable to find it. Is there any truth to what they said? No it needn't be the handmaids tale but a lot of the advances made by our society could be rolled back in quite a hurry given the right (albeit somewhat extreme)situation.

I just want to add, that OWFI does a lot of important work helping women that are under threat and have been trafficked, and you can send support through MADRE's website or theirs, which is linked to there, if you have the cashmoney to spare.

Thanks for posting about this, it's such an important issue.

That's exactly why people keep creating large powerful organizing forces. Without them the strong and/or well armed make the rules. Most of us don't want to live by strongest rules(us weaklings, I guess). Rape and other acts of violence remind us of just how close it is.
This is the realm of Science Fiction and there's some good stuff out there. Sheri Tepper's Gate to Women's Country comes to mind.
The after the end of the world as we know it Distopia is a common theme.