A must read on the Sudan crisis by Donna Hughes at NRO. Hughes gives an overview of the history and looks at an aspect of the genocide not much discussed by other sources - the Islamist terror against women and girls.
The widespread and systematic rape and sexual enslavement of women and girls in Darfur has been documented by Amnesty International in a report called "Rape as a Weapon of War: Sexual Violence and Its Consequences." As part of the campaign of ethnic cleansing, rapes are carried out in public, in front of family and community members. Those who resist or intervene are beaten and killed. Victims' arms and legs are broken to prevent escape. The intent is to impose terror on a village, and destroy the victims' and communities' integrity and identity. One rape victim was told by her attacker: "You, the black women, we will exterminate you, you have no God."
Additionally horrifying is the participation of Arab women in the atrocities. According to Amnesty International, Hakama - female traditional singers who praise male fighters - accompany the raiders and rapists. By singing and ululating, they provide encouragement and a song track to rape and pillage.
In western Sudan, many of the women and girls previously have been subjected to female genital cutting, including clitoridectomy and infibulation. These crude, mutilating practices of cutting away of genitalia leaves scars and inelastic tissues. Rape for these women is excruciatingly painful and can cause severe physical injuries.
There is also cultural meaning to these acts of violence: females' genitalia are considered "unclean," and by cutting them away, the girls are supposed to be made "clean" and their virginity and chastity preserved. The victims' own belief in these cultural norms causes them additional psychological trauma when they are raped.
Rape is a violation that destroys the whole of the person in the eyes of society. Sadly, the families of the victims often complete the devastation of these victims' lives by rejecting them. Fearing this, women who have been raped may avoid seeking help in refugee camps because they fear family or community members will discover their rapes.
We...need to take a sobering look at the atrocities in Sudan, past and present, and understand that this is Islamic fundamentalism in practice. It is a threat to all women, everywhere.
Just as world-wide totalitarian communism and fascism were threats to all people everywhere in the twentieth century so too is totalitarian Islamofascism an even greater threat in the twenty first. When will the fifty percent of the electorate that thinks the greatest enemy to peace in the world is George Bush wake from their inexplicable slumber and realize this?
