Saudi women urged to work in security forces

Original Source:http://www.arabianbusiness.com/saudi-women-urged-work-in-security-forces-551612.html

Saudi security experts, lawyers and some Shoura Council members have demanded that Saudi women be employed in the security forces’ investigation departments to handled sensitive cases such as rape and sexual harassment, it was reported.

Thuraya Al Areed, a female member of the Shoura Council said it was important for Saudi women to work in the sector, telling a local newspaper that often females victims could not report the assault in detail as police stations always demand the presence of the father or a male guardian “who can sometimes be the aggressor himself”.

“More often, police stations ignore female reports in such cases regarding it as a family matter where policemen being men, do not feel able to handle the case,” she said.

“However, if a female was in charge of the case, there would be no need for the presence of a male member.”

Ahmad Al Othman, a lawyer, was quoted as saying that employing women in security services would serve the best interests of females at large.

“It is absolutely important for Saudi women who are nominated for the job to be given specialised training and attend courses in the security field,” he was quoted as saying.

IRAN: Literary magazine faces charges as Islamic dress controversy for women continues

Original Source: http://womennewsnetwork.net/2014/02/11/iran-literary-magazine-faces-charges/?utm_content=buffer535d8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Under charges of going against ‘Islamic values’ Iran’s Press Court with the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has charged the journal’s publisher with publishing materials that denigrate what is considered ‘proper modest dress’ for women in Iran, the black chador.

Mr. Ali Dehbashi, publisher, literary scholar and editor for the well-loved journal since it began in 1998, has kept his magazine afloat by focusing on Iranian history and culture, instead of politics, under the days of President Ahmadinejad. He will now be facing court appearance under the new Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani,  in a legal action that has been described by Iranian activists in the diaspora as ‘Iran’s long history in denial of freedom of the press’.

“Since my youth I have been devoted to respecting and observing Islamic values, and have sought to bring that sensibility to the work published in Bukhara,” outlined Dehbashi in a public statement after the charges were made. “It should be needless to say that I was raised by a veiled, faithful woman and that many women of my own family wear the hejab, and as such, am regretful for what inadvertently and negligently has passed. I extend my apologies to the faithful women readers who comprise part of Bukhara’s readership,” he continued.

The magazine’s material under scrutiny by the Iranian government is a poem written by poet Mr. Mansoor Oji that compares a woman dressed in a black chador to a raven.

“There are many spaces where black is invoked in a way that is abhorrent. If my poem conveys the color black as constricting my heart, it is because of this, not because of the Islamic hejab (headscarf),” said Oji after legal charges were made against Bukhara’s publisher.

Current laws governing the press in Iran are working, as Iran’s constitution itself describes, “to fight against the manifestation of colonial culture,” the culture of the West. The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance Press Affairs office, now headed by Mohammad Jaafar Mohammadzadeh, has been given the authority through the press courts to impose criminal penalties on individuals as well as to order closures of newspapers and periodicals.

“The press have the right to publish the opinions, constructive criticisms, suggestions and explanations of individuals and government officials for public information while duly observing the Islamic teachings and the best interest of the community,” states Article 3 of Iran’s Press Law.

Since taking over the presidency of Iran in June 2013 President Rouhani barred women from being arrested for what is considered by hard-liners as ‘inappropriate dress’ in public. The President did this in an attempt to keep an election promise, but the more relaxed policy may not stay in place as the issue of dress for women in Iran is not completely decided by higher authorities than the office of the presidency.

In early December 2013 two Iran based poets, 28-year-0ld Ms. Fatemeh Ekhtesari and 38-year-old Mr. Mehdi Mousavi were arrested and taken away to Evin Prison. Under a literary culture exchange bringing Fatemeh to Sweden bringing the work of six Iranian poets together with six Swedish poets in a project called, “Resistance At My Writing Desk,” Fatemeh worked to help translate Persian Farsi into Swedish for the project. When she returned from Sweden in this her Facebook page was blocked in Iran. Her blog was also taken down.

As part of the underground post-modern poetry movement inside Iran both Ekhtesari and Mousavi had been under scrutiny in Iran. Today they are considered prisoners of conscience by activists and human rights organizations.

In the first two weeks of January 2014, under the watch of President Rouhani, over 50 people have been executed by authorities. 32-year-old Arab-Iranian poet and human rights activist, Hashem Shaabani, is also one of those who was executed under a court sentence as ‘an enemy of God’. Shaabani was founder of the Dialogue Institute, an organization in Iran’s Khuzestan Province that promotes the understanding of Arabic culture and literature in Iran.

In 2013 625 people, including 28 women were executed. This is 100 more than the year before, said Ahmed Shaheed, United Nations expert in monitoring human rights in Iran to The New York Times on January 22.

Women-only cafes offer new versions of Palestinian public Space

Original source:http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=643647


Discreetly located at the foot of a staircase, the cafe offers a familiar scene: shisha pipes are stacked neatly on the counter, ashtrays dot each table, Lebanese satellite television plays in the background and steaming Turkish coffee is served to a table of regulars. 

Like many other cafes lining the busy avenues branching off of Ramallah’s bustling Manara Square, this is a gendered space. Male employees stand guard outside, surveying the entrance of the cafe with stern eyes.

Unlike most public establishments in Ramallah, Ladies is a cafe for women only.

When the cafe opened in early 2012, it was the first women-only cafe in Ramallah. As in most cities in Palestine, cafes in Ramallah are primarily a men-only affair. Many cafes and restaurants have mixed clientele and some even have delineated "family" sections, but for the most part women rarely frequent cafes on their own.

Ladies promised to provide a different experience, one that barred male clientele and instead offered a public space intended exclusively for women. The hope was that in a society where cafes are traditionally geared towards men, the creation of a women-only cafe would offer women equal access to the public sphere, but on their own terms.

Cafe owner Jamil Ali explains that in a woman-only space, women can feel comfortable and take off their scarves, smoke cigarettes and sit with their legs crossed, unlike in male-dominated cafes where these behaviors might draw attention. 

"She doesn’t want anybody to look at her," he says. "A thousand eyes will go to her, a thousand eyes." But in a public space frequented exclusively by women, she is free to unwind in a comfortable setting. 

In addition to creating a space accessible to women, Ali also sought to ensure that the cafe be economically accessible to a female-only clientele. As he explained, many mixed cafes charge prices out of reach for most Palestinian women. Although the entire menu was originally priced at 10 shekels ($3), after realizing that the prices were still too high for some patrons, the price of drinks were lowered to seven shekels ($2).

"Women don’t have to be on their guard." 

Unlike Jamil Ali, Susie Atilla didn’t set out to create a women-only space three years ago when she co-founded Diva, a cafe patronized predominantly by women inconspicuously located off of a main street in Bethlehem.

Atilla was originally encouraged by the male owner of the commercial center where Diva is located to open the cafe there because a number of other female-oriented businesses had locations nearby. Among Diva’s neighbors are a gym, hairdresser and a Turkish bath.

She explains that even though the cafe was open to a mixed clientele, "the reputation spread that it’s only for women."

"Some men get really embarrassed to come with their wives but we always tell them men and families are welcome!" she adds with a chuckle.

Susie and her sister, Nancy, started Diva as a project meant to provide them with an income for after their retirement from their day jobs. They hoped in the process to create a place where they and their friends could come and socialize. 

When asked about Ladies cafe in Ramallah, Atilla smiles. 

"It’s great for girls to be able to feel comfortable," in a cafe like Ladies. "Women don’t have to be on their guard."

She emphasizes that even though its location is somewhat isolated, Diva offers "privacy," and a place where women feel comfortable. 

The sentiment was shared by many patrons at Ladies interviewed by Ma’an.

A patron from the US uses the cafe as a space for lessons with teenage Palestinian girls she tutors. The parents of the girls, she says, feel comfortable knowing that the cafe only serves women and thus offers a secure public meeting spot for young girls. 

Many of the students’ parents usually only allow their daughters to go to school and come home, the tutor says, but when they heard about the cafe they welcomed the idea.

She concedes, however, that gender-segregated cafes "enforce the idea that girls have to do things in secret."

A Palestinian woman at the cafe adds, "It’s sick, the separation thing. Ramallah is better (than other cities in Palestine, but) you still find people who won’t let their daughters or wives go places."

This customer tells Ma'an that she sees a women-only cafe as another example of the kinds of separation between genders that persists in Palestinian public space. 

She adds that the cafe’s decision to serve an exclusively female clientele furthers the gender divide between men and women in public spaces. 

"The society and the mentality of the people is not going to change soon," she says with a shake of her head.

Creating public spaces for women 

Both cafes, though quite different in mission, have become spaces for women located in a larger urban context that offer comfort and privacy for their patrons. Neither cafe set out to change the fabric of Palestinian society, or the fact that most public establishments primarily cater exclusively to men. 

Rather, each cafe acknowledges the realities of a male-dominated public sphere by offering a place where women can feel comfortable.

Even though all-women cafes like Ladies "(enforce) the separation," a Palestinian patron says, they can also be seen as "a solution that make things easier for some part of society."

And for the many women who frequent Ladies and Diva, but feel uncomfortable or unable to patronize male-dominated establishments, these cafes offer a unique and inviting alternative that offers comfort, privacy, and access.

Atilla, the owner of Diva suggests that "some women in society feel like they need to have a place that is private and that’s where they feel comfortable."

Competing Voices: Gender and Ideology in Egypt

Original Source: http://thedailyjournalist.com/the-strategist/competing-voices-gender-and-ideology-in-egypt/

Secular and Islamist discourse in Egypt share a core essence of masculine dominance.

Egypt and the wider Middle East are undergoing major change following revolutions. But what is the best way to plan for and navigate the future?

A number of post-Arab Spring political and strategic analyses have managed to move beyond a focus on the state to identify trends in order to propose solutions. Among the significant trends, changes can be seen within ideology — which is borne not merely at the state but also at the grassroots level.

But the attention given to what can be leveraged or rather contained is misplaced. Some of these works are pointing to the grassroots level but are superficially fixated on ideology.

The quick conclusion often drawn is the inevitable end of the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite the acknowledgement of lower-level politics and ideological leanings in the shaping of the state, indeed, one pivotal aspect of this political configuration is virtually absent: gender.

The Gender Question

Leaving gender out of a discussion on ideology and its impact on the future is of enormous consequence. Whether we speak of an Islamist discourse or that emanating from the secular stream, especially in the post-revolution Middle Eastern countries, there are virtually nocreative solutions for diplomatic intervention or real steps towards building trust between those of all ideological stances and thus fostering reconciliation.

Brute force, obstinate stances, and the squashing of women’s and minority rights were part and parcel of the Muslim Brotherhood-led government and also the current military rulers in Egypt.

What we have is that although critique has included ideology — to be precise, Islamist ideology beyond the state level — the larger discourse driving this critique is mainly about secularism vs Islamism. The persistent obsession with this ideological split blinds to the fact that both standpoints share a core essence of masculine dominance. With this current essence comes rivalry, mistrust and, significantly, violence.

Women’s oppression is due to a shared ideology on the role and position of the female gender. Islamist politics cannot be singled out as the only arena for the oppression of minorities and women.

It is this shared essence — rooted in the individual’s ethics and consciousness that is going to determine how the masculine or feminine essence will be expressed in home life — in shaping societal norms, laws related to women, human rights or the lack thereof, and the core essence of state politics.

More than an Imbalance in Numbers

This is important to highlight. Women are sorely underrepresented in positions of power and decision-making. However, when the gender aspect is marginalized, the consequence is not that of an imbalance in numbers.

Critically, we witness an imbalance in and distortion of a crucial essence for true transformation. Ideological positions are irrelevant; they are superficially understood. Their essence or what directs discourse on choices and capacities for civility and peace is core.

Women tend to — though not always — produce the critical feminine voice that must account for half of all the ideas, plans, aspirations and insights expressed. That includes the prioritizations around children’s needs, women’s access, diplomacy, peace, and the innate drive for renewal and restoration.

Indeed, men can and sometimes do produce that greatly needed feminine aspect more aptly than women. In my interviews with men leading up to, during and following the Arab Spring in Egypt, I gained insight into the ability of many men to imbue their activism and politics with both feminine and masculine aspects appropriately and in complementarity to produce actions, for example, of compassion; yet, necessarily assertively so.

However, in my personal interaction, interviews and observations, I gained a strong sense that the masculine essence was so distorted and in such form so aggressively dominant that women’s voices around agendas, such as addressing women’s rights or getting their children’s needs protected through appropriate policies, more often become suppressed.

Tactics include not only marginalizing women from “hard” politics in numbers, but also using laws to discriminate against them. They include banning the wife or daughter from educational endeavors of her choice or sometimes in various ways from having her own income.

Indeed, I learned about the various tactics so many women experience from their home life to public life that disable them from fully contributing their passionately felt ideas and capacities. Very recently, I witnessed an Egyptian husband abruptly stop his wife at the dinner table from speaking, reminding her that she is not allowed to speak about politics, as he continued to do so. And in the scheme of it all, that was not an extraordinary event.

The Feminine and Transformation

I also learned from many female, Egyptian activists how important they knew their feminine aspects were to transformation. For example, women expressed that the most important aspect in dealing with people of different ideological orientations and thinking that has been critical to their struggles during the Arab Spring and today, is patience.

Various forms of an inner capacity to tolerate, cooperate, reciprocate and trust were expressed and observed. Such are the core ingredients for civility to grow and civil society to be sustainable — the bedrock for successful transformation. But how many of us will acknowledge that seemingly apolitical forms of interaction in the home and in civil society organizations are absolutely critical to the future of the Middle East?

There is absolutely no other way of moving forward from a consciousness of mistrust, polarization and fear without a capacity to be civil, which is imbued by what I have experienced as largely feminine capacities for compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, receptivity, trust, empowerment, and patience.

Although men can and must contribute to a transformation through such aspects, too, and women do not always live up to any such nurturing, creative or reciprocating role, the torch of the feminine must be carried forward firstly by women.

The majority of NGOs that I entered and studied were mostly populated by women. What is needed, at this point, is that the pivotal actors behind a future transition to peace and prosperity in the Middle East are recognized and embraced for their most essential capacities at the state level, in the judiciary, in strategic planning, and the various projects and initiatives for democratic development.

Libya aiming to make rape in armed conflict a war crime

Original Source:
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/jul/05/libya-rape-war-crime

Silent protest … demonstrators with taped mouths take part in a march supporting women raped during the war in Libya. Photograph: Mohamed Salem/Reuters

When Hussein was searching desperately for his son in the last days of the 2011 revolution that toppled Libya's dictator, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, he was told of a villa in Tripoli. He and other anti-government fighters went there on 20 August.
They found nothing. At first.
But inside was a massive door that it took them a long time to open. "Beyond it was a long, shallow flight of stairs – about 80 in all," says Hussein, 57, whose full name is being withheld at his request.
At the bottom was a torture chamber, including apparatus for electrocution. Beyond was a corridor lined with cells.
"When we broke into the cells, we were astonished," says Hussein. "The first three were full of naked women – maybe 35 in all."
He and his companions could not have guessed, but they were setting in train a sequence of events that has led to the drafting of a bill that Libya's new leaders and NGOs believe is a world first. It would make rape during armed conflict a war crime.
"It has already been discussed in committee," says Juma Ahmad Atigha, deputy president of the general national congress (GNC). "In a few weeks it will be put to a vote in the GNC."
Atigha, who was in Rome this week for a conference on reconciliation in the Arab spring countries, points out that rape is already a crime under Libyan law. "The usual sentence is around 10 years," he says. But rapists convicted under the proposed new law would face life.
It has yet to be decided whether those affected would be entitled to a war pension. But, says Atigha, it was agreed that they should get lump-sum compensation from the state. "That is a must. The plan is for the courts to set the level of compensation case by case. Among the criteria would be whether a pregnancy resulted from the rape and the severity of the injuries suffered by the victim. Some of these women died."
Getting the bill to this stage was not easy, Atigha says. "Ours is a conservative society and anything that has to do with women is very sensitive. Rape is a very big scandal for a family, even though the woman has been forced: it is an attack on the dignity of the family, and the tribe to which it belongs.
"But that is why the regime used rape. So it was logical to regard it as a war crime."
The number of women affected ran into the hundreds, according to Atigha. Nicoletta Gaida, president of the Ara Pacis Initiative, an Italian NGO, thought it could be thousands.
The turning point for the bill came at a conference in Tripoli on 4 May, Gaida says. Her NGO and a Libyan one, the Observatory on Gender in Crisis, had arranged for one of the women freed by Hussein to be present.
Defying the taboos of Libyan society, she stood up and – in appalling detail – told her story.
"She was one of three sisters who, in the early stages of the revolution, had put an anti-Gaddafi post on Facebook," says Gaida. "They were arrested. For nine months, she was sexually tortured with everything you can imagine. When you say rape you think of a man violating a woman. But this was far, far worse."
By the time the young woman had finished her account, the Libyan minister of justice and several other men present were in tears. "It was then that she turned to the minister and asked him: 'What will you do for us?'", Gaida recalls. "The minister stood up and said: 'You and your sisters are the pearls in the crown of the new Libya'."
The idea that the survivors of rape might be thought of as anything but a source of disgrace was a drastic break with the past, and helped the bill being pushed by the Observatory on Gender in Crisis to get the government's backing.
"The main problem once the law has been passed will still be a cultural one," says Atigha. "We know many victims prefer to keep what happened a secret. One thing we want to do is to ensure cases are dealt with by female investigating magistrates."

The Legacy of Silence: Why we Ignore Rape from Guatemala to Syria

Original Source-  http://www.womenundersiegeproject.org/blog/entry/the-legacy-of-silence-why-we-ignore-the-rape-of-women-from-guatemala-to-syr


Researcher- Avantika Lal



Just before 2 a.m. and nearly half a world away, I watched a guilty verdict from Guatemala scroll by tweet by tweet on my phone. Former President Efrain Rios Montt was convicted on May 10 of genocide and crimes against humanity and given 80 years in prison. As the news came through, I felt a satisfied chill—decades after the murder of 200,000 Guatemalans and the rape of 100,000 women, mostly Mayans, justice has actually come in our lifetime.
I watched this long-awaited verdict come down while in Beirut. For the past couple weeks I was in Lebanon and Jordan reporting on the rape and torture of Syrians, who are living with so many levels of pain and sadness it’s hard to begin to quantify them all. A little over a year ago, I was in Guatemala meeting the women of that war.
While clearly culturally different in many ways, the women I’ve met who lived through these conflicts share something in particular: Both groups have been terrified to talk about the brutality forced upon them. Both groups are doubted, ignored, and made invisible through shame.
In Guatemala, I heard women say they’d never told their husbands about their rapes because they feared losing their homes and families. In Jordan and Lebanon, I spoke to refugees, social workers, and psychiatrists who said the same thing about the women of Syria who’ve been violated. In fact, the survivors of this war are so frightened to talk about what happened to them, they only speak about their “neighbor” or “friend” who was raped.

The International Rescue Committee has said that rape is a primary reason why women are fleeing Syria. This photo was taken at Zaatari, a refugee camp in Jordan that houses more than 150,000 Syrians. (Lauren Wolfe)
This distancing, of course, is not always distancing. Every single professional I’ve spoken to who works with women refugees says there are just too many cases in which they can easily identify the victim as the person sitting in front of them. Why, then, won’t these women say that they themselves were raped?
“I’m sure if my husband knows he will divorce me the same day, the same hour,” one rape survivor told a doctor working in Amman whom I’ll call Dr. Meena.
From the suburbs of Homs, the survivor, 23, was on her own with her daughters in her house when shabiha (plainclothes militia) forces broke in at the end of last year. I’ve heard many stories now in which rape appears to be used as a means to flush out men in home raids—in this case, the woman said there were no men home, thinking the shabiha would leave without harming her. She was wrong. Three of them raped her. Her daughters were in the hall. They heard her screaming. She told Dr. Meena they thought she was just being beaten.
She didn’t tell anyone what happened to her until she told the doctor in December. Why not?
“I am responsible,” this woman said.
Responsible for her own rape.
And we wonder why women aren’t clamoring to show their faces.
In a society, as in Syria, that places their purity in their physical bodies, when women are no longer thought to be virgins, they are discarded like dirty tissues.
Take the story of another rape survivor from Homs Dr. Meena examined. This particular girl, 17, had lacerations on her vagina, painful UTIs, and vaginal infections—all of which went untreated until the doctor saw her in December. It took numerous visits for the girl to tell the doctor she was raped and to beg her not to tell anyone. Dr. Meena offered to help the girl with a gynecologist referral, thinking maybe there is a way to make her body look like she is still a virgin. In the meantime, her father is trying to force the girl into marriage.
Everything, everything tells this girl not to speak about rape.
Beyond divorce, I’ve heard multiple stories that detail honor killings after women have been raped in Syria—a survivor is shot by her own brother/husband/whoever in the family. Social workers and doctors who have interviewed rape survivors from Syria have told me that women believe that speaking about their rapes will end their lives.
The concept of purity, and honor, kills women.
As Valerie Hudson and her coauthors write in their 2012 book Sex and World Peace, the founder of a group called the Syrian Women Observatory, Bassam al-Kadi, said: “The killing of women because they are women is a worldwide phenomenon. The problem with us is not that we kill [women], while others do not, the problem is that we reward the killer by saying that he was defending his honor and therefore of good character.”
Stories of  honor killings are very hard to confirm since they are happening inside the hot war zone that is Syria, where journalists and human rights workers are not allowed to investigate. But let’s pretend for a minute that there are no honor killings at all. Now let’s pretend we ourselves are Syrian women survivors of rape and we think we’re going to be killed if we say something. Why would we tell?
And the problem doesn’t always begin and end with the survivors of sexualized violence not wanting to share their stories. Often it lies in the fact that there are few competent services in refugee areas to help women speak about their experiences.
One very active nonprofit assisting Syrian refugees told me they “prefer not to ask” about sexualized violence on home visits with families who’ve just arrived in Jordan. “We’d rather they come to us,” I was told. But how are these refugees supposed to break free of all this stigma and come forward to ask for psychological or other medical help? Most of the women I met aren’t even leaving their houses because they are so traumatized and frightened of their new surroundings. (Not to mention the discrimination Syrians are facing in Jordan and Lebanon, where prices are rising and streets are crammed with cars and anger at the refugees.) To be fair to this organization, their home visits usually take place with an entire family present—men too. So it likely isn’t usually the right situation in which to talk about something as “shameful” as rape.
But then, what is the right situation? When will these women—already vulnerable—ever find the “right time”?
I know some people continue to doubt that rape is happening as part of this war. That thinking is hard for me to understand after all the stories I’ve gathered.
Here’s an easy way to think about this issue differently.
I would ask that disbelievers take a minute to click around Syria Tracker to watch some videos of men being tortured, their throats cut, limbs severed, eyes plucked out. Or they could go to Zaatari, the refugee camp that houses more than 150,000 Syrians in the arid north of Jordan, as I did. It probably won’t take long for men to ask if they’d take a minute to watch some videos on cell phones, as I was asked to. Maybe they would be shown a video of a dead body being stabbed 30 times, as I was. Or maybe they’d watch another being kicked while the back of its skull hangs off. I saw that one too.
Talk to a few Syrians—men or women, doesn’t matter. They’d hear how special—and vulnerable—women are considered in this society. How women must be protected.
Why, then, is it so hard to imagine that women’s bodies are being used alongside men’s as a particularly effective tool of this war? That this precious commodity called “women” is the perfect envelope in which to send a message of domination and defeat in Syria?
Why is it so hard to think that women here too are being tortured in the ways they have been for so many wars?
Could it be because it is unthinkable? That women, noncombatants, are being physically and emotionally destroyed makes no emotional sense. How could such a thing really be happening?
Could it be because there is no “proof”? If so, take a look at this report from the United Nations for proof if that’s what’s needed; here are dozens of more reports we’ve gathered from NGOs, witnesses, and media reports. We have confirmation of many stories that resemble so many others. Is that number not high enough maybe? Do we need to be able to point to thousands of women and men sexually violated to say we condemn this and realize that these people need help?
Now look to Guatemala.
For 30 years, much of the world managed to deny the Guatemalan genocide. The decimation of the Maya people, along with thousands of women kept as sexual slaves or raped, went quietly into history for decades. As of May 10, that is no longer the case. We now have a court verdict that points fingers, names names, and makes visible what was once hidden.
Can’t we, for once, accept that sometimes there are things we can’t easily see that are terrible and disgusting and forcibly hidden and collectively decide that they must be addressed? Can’t we agree that women around the world have been silenced and shamed repeatedly whether it is in a single rape in Steubenville, Ohio, or in thousands of cases as in Guatemala—and in whatever the number will ultimately be in Syria?
Should we tell Dr. Meena’s patients to keep quiet, as everyone else around them tacitly has, or should we raise our hands and let these women—whether they are dozens, hundreds, or thousands—know we are listening and that they have our support? They do not need any more victimization. They need help. And they deserve justice.