Dinner and a heavy thought

My housemate and I threw a little dinner gathering for a few of our neighbours last night – potato skins, Greek salad, lemon chicken, rice and veggies, chocolate brownies, and very nice South African red wines. It was a relaxed evening with good food and good company, but began with talk of an incident that occurred earlier in the evening.

On the way home, my housemate was stopped by a woman exclaiming that her 20 year old daughter with severe learning difficulties had been raped. The mother needed money for the police. There is a police station a few blocks from our house so my housemate took the woman and her daughter there, because technically you don’t need money to report a rape. The police told the woman and the daughter to go to the hospital for a gynaecological exam, and that is the last we know of them. We can only hope that the rape in the end was reported and the daughter received medical care and support. Last year, Zambia established Special Victims Assistance units in their police forces. It was meant to increase the accessibility of the police, but for many people even the cost of transportation to the police station is out of reach. There are also miscellaneous charges like photocopying forms and examination reports that may seem like small sums of money, but can make someone reluctant to follow through with the process.

Unfortunately, hearing stories of rape is common. There are billboards around Lusaka with the message, having sex with a virgin does NOT cure AIDS. Newspapers write of defilement on a regular basis. i.e. a young girl defiled in compound. I am not entirely sure whether there is a clear distinction between what is considered defilement or rape. From what I have read, defilement is rape of someone under a certain age and rape is everything else. I wonder if people are just avoiding the word ‘rape’. Hiding under terminology does not make talking about the issue any easier.

According to an IRIN article from November 2006, a dozen girls are raped every week in Lusaka. Since rapes are often not reported, the figure may be considerably higher. Similarly, there is not one understanding of what is rape. I have heard of women who believe that when their husbands force them to have sex, is not considered rape. Often domestic abuse is most underreported. Furthermore, since men often provide the source of income, women do not want to report because they fear they may be left homeless and without any means to feed their children.

Furthermore, it is troubling that rape is a weapon of war. Read this article, Living with the threat of rape in Darfur. African Union officers have said that the threat of rape is a potent form of psychological warfare because women who report become outcasts and no one will marry them. Women continue to risk being raped because it is seen as a lesser threat than their husbands and brothers being killed.

The conflict in Darfur feels like just a murmur now. It does not consistently make the news here, soI am curious how much coverage it is getting in Western countries. In a BBC Southern Africa magazine I picked up yesterday, I learned of an interactive game created by MTV - http://www.darfurisdying.com/. It is meant for kids to discover what is genocide and what can be done. Apparently, when one of the characters is about to be killed and/or raped, an opportunity to send a message to George Bush pops up and maybe the killing/rape is averted. My internet connection is too slow to load it, but if someone tries it out, drop me a message on what you think. Playing a game will not stop the genocide in Darfur, but if enough people acknowledge the conflict, increased public pressure might force governments and corporations to take a step.