Male rape victims in Uganda speak out

I have written before about rape against men in war-torn African countries. Despite the seriousness of the issue, few human rights organizations pay any attention to male rape survivors. Few countries have support services for them, the cultural attitude towards male survivors is highly negative, and the international opinion is that war-time rape is something only men do to only women.

However, there is an effort to change that perception in Uganda:

There remains no reliable statistics indicating how widespread the crime of rape is in Africa’s conflict areas. A non-government organization providing legal aid to asylum seekers and refugees in Uganda is spearheading a project to reach out to men who have been raped.

Chris Dolan, director of the Refugee Law Project, explained the numbers of men experiencing rape are much higher than anticipated.

“We started talking to a handful of male survivors from one of the settlements and they started to meet up and now they have close to 60 members – all within the space of just three months,” Dolan told DW.

Those 60 men are not the only male survivors. They are simply the ones willing to attend the support group. Many more men do not want to go to the group, likely because of situations like this:

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Centre offers help for abused men — Men who are sexual assault survivors have a tough enough time reaching out for help, and turning to something called the Regina Women’s Community Centre and Sexual Assault Line did nothing to ease their discomfort. That’s when staff realized a new identity was in order. The transformation of the nearly 40-year-old organization was unveiled Wednesday when it became the Regina Sexual Assault Centre, with a logo that incorporates symbols for both men and women.

Full house for ‘Men of Hope’ — A charity poker challenge brought out celebrities and a packed house for the Men of Hope’s fundraiser on Saturday evening at Aldergrove Legion. A final tally on funds raised was not available at press time but it should be considerable. Event co-organizers Andy Bhatti and Lee Ferrill were stoked with enthusiasm and gratitude for the countless contributions that night.

Kalamazoo Township man to get 25 years for sexual abuse, keeping autistic boy in dog cage — A Kalamazoo Township man who subjected a boy with autism to sexual abuse and torture that included locking him in a dog cage and pulling out eyebrow hairs will spend at least 25 years in prison. A jury found David John Bassett, 52, guilty of one count each of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and torture, and two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct following a two-day trial last week in front of Kalamazoo County Circuit Judge Alexander C. Lipsey.

Male rape victims meet in Uganda — Video report by AlJazeera English concerning male victims of war-time rape.

G8 announces initiative to tackle sexual violence in conflict

In a remarkable move, the G8 group of nations agreed to address issues of sexual violence against women, children, and men. Yes, men are tacked on at the end in a way that is completely different from how people normally word that phase. It is usually “men, women, and children” or “women, men, and children.” However, at least men and boys were finally included in the discussion.

The international community, human rights organizations, and NGO have completely failed to acknowledge sexual violence against males, particularly in war-torn African countries. As I wrote about before, male victims in those countries often suffer in silence and are turned away by the existing rape crisis services. This move by the G8 may change that.

Of course, it may simply be lip service. We will have to see what happens over the next few months.

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16-year-old boy sexually abused by teacher — A 16-year-old boy was allegedly sexually abused by his teacher inside a residential school located in south Delhi. The 45-year-old accused, who is employed as a Yoga teacher in the school, has been arrested and remanded in judicial custody. The incident took place on January 11. According to the police, the victim is a class IX student.

Child Soldier’s Tale Illustrates Mali’s Dirty War — The boy sits with his knees tucked under his chest on the concrete floor of the police station here, his adolescent face a tableau of fear. He’s still garbed in the knee-length tunic he was ordered to wear by the Islamic extremist who recruited him. It’s these same clothes, styled after those worn by the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century, which gave him away when he tried to flee earlier this week. They have now become his prison garb.

Facing a painful cross-examination, a 9-year-old boy who alleges a former school aide sexually abused him stood up and screamed at the defense attorney — A 9-year-old special needs student testified Friday against the school aide accused of sexually abusing him — at several points, rising from the stand and screaming at the defense attorney for “being a bully” as he was peppered with questions about his problems at school. The child witness — barely tall enough to reach the microphone — told jurors that former Department of Education employee Gregory Atkins followed him into the bathroom of his Upper West Side school multiple times on Feb. 2, 2012.

Fourth-grade teacher in LA charged with molesting 20 students — A fourth-grade teacher who worked nearly 40 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District has been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing 20 students, a year after another veteran teacher accused of molesting nearly two dozen pupils brought national attention to the district and the problem of classroom sex abuse. After a 10-month investigation, eight felony counts of continual sexual abuse and seven counts of lewd acts upon a child were filed Wednesday against Robert Pimentel, of Newport Beach, for abuse that allegedly took place at George De La Torre Jr. Elementary in the Wilmington area, officer Christopher No told The Associated Press. 

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Aversion to Therapy: Why Won’t Men Get Help? — Twenty years ago, Bob Smith’s wife questioned his commitment as a father. She demanded he see a psychiatrist. Smith (not his real name) grudgingly obliged. He went. Once. “The idea of paying some guy $300 an hour to massage your issues,” says Smith, a Los Angeles-area attorney in his early 60s, “is ridiculous.” In fact, the psychiatrist Smith talked to found plenty of issues to massage. His 45-minute assessment suggested that Smith was toting a veritable luggage store full of psychological baggage that needed unpacking.

The Boy Scouts of America kept secret sex abuse files hidden for decades — For decades, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) kept secret files of accused pedophiles, a process meant to identify and ban molesters from working with children. But, an ABC15 Investigation found that didn’t always happen. The BSA tracked thousands of allegations from around the country, involving scout masters molesting boy scouts. But our investigation discovered, few cases were reported to authorities.

Central Africa: Invisible Victims – Sexual Violence Against Men in the Great Lakes — According to recent studies, 48 women are raped every hour in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the country has been ranked as the second most dangerous to be a woman in the world. Gender-based violence in the region has become widespread and there has been a proliferation of non-governmental organisations and donor efforts to aid the plight of female victims. Much less attention is being paid, however, to male victims of rape. Like women, men are also targeted and suffer sexual violence.

Emaciated, 85-pound teenage boy found in burning Deerfield Beach home — When Broward Sheriff’s Office investigators found the emaciated 14-year-old boy, he weighed 85 pounds. He had also overdosed on cocaine, marijuana and a cocktail of other drugs. His father, Darin MacDannald, 47, was charged with cruelty toward a child and infliction of physical/mental injury. The Deerfield Beach man was being held on a $7,500 bond Thursday in Broward County jail.

A Dose of Stupid v.64

It happens every day. In fact, it is pretty hard to avoid it. There are some things that can only be understood with a slap on the forehead. Things so mind-boggling that one wonders how humans managed to evolve thumbs while being this mentally inept. Case in point:

Lynndie England thinks the Iraqi soldiers she tortured got the “better end of the deal”

In an interview for The Daily, Lynndie England showed zero remorse for torturing and humiliating several Iraqi soldiers. The act landed her in prison for eight years, and it appears that the time behind bars only made her bitter. In the interview she stated:

“Their lives are better. They got the better end of the deal,” England said. “They weren’t innocent. They’re trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It’s like saying sorry to the enemy.”

—-

“All the prisoners that were there were on that tier of high-priority. They were there for a reason. They had killed coalition forces or they were planning to,” England told The Daily over a hamburger at a Mexican restaurant near her home in Fort Ashby. “They had information about where insurgents were hiding.”

England seems to forget a tiny, yet important fact: we attacked them first. We invaded their country to “save” them (not really) from a dictator who we thought (not really) had weapons of mass destruction (which we never found because he did not have them).

Yes, they are trying to kill you because you are trying to kill them. You bombed their country, destroyed what little infrastructure they had, treated just about everyone as a potential combatant, caused billions of dollars in damage, and caused hundreds of thousands of injuries and deaths to the civilians.

You do not get to complain that the people you started a war against had the nerve to fight back. That is what happens when you star a war.

War’s invisible victims

In her article It’s not just women who get raped, Eve Fensome writes about the forgotten victims of wartime sexual violence: males. According to Fensome, the UN did not count sexual violence as a “weapon of war” until 2008. Yet the UN forgot to count male victims in those numbers. As Fensome states:

If you were inclined to wade through UN Security Resolutions pertaining to sexual violence during conflict, you will find the term: ‘gender-based violence’ more times than you could (or indeed would want to) shake a stick at. ‘Gender-based violence’ is one of those slippery, insidious and politically loaded terms, which for what it lacks in clarity, makes up for by being blessed with numerous definitions. It could mean: any violence enacted upon a person on account of their gender, but it has come to mean violence enacted upon women (and girls), which in turn has come to encompass all sexual violence.

Fensome notes that people justify this gendered language based on the assumption that the vast majority of victims are female. However, some of the actual numbers suggest otherwise: