This Saving Angel is highlighting some of the most inspirational quotes that we have read in various articles.
The quotes pose as reminders for us and our roles in the oppressive
cultures that we (un)knowningly
support. Cultures like that of Rape,
Violence against Women, Impunity, ‘Victim-blaming’ etc.
Quotes:
- "Wombs punctured with guns. Women raped and tortured in front of their
husbands and children. Rifles forced into vaginas. Pregnant women
beaten to induce miscarriages. Foetuses ripped from wombs. Women
kidnapped, blindfolded and beaten on their way to work or school. We saw
the scars, the pain and the humiliation. We heard accounts of gang
rapes, rape camps and mutilation. Of murder and sexual slavery. We saw
the scars of brutality so extreme that survival seemed for some a worse
fate than death"
- Rehn & Sirleaf, (2002). Women, War and Peace: The Independent
Experts’ Assessment on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and
Women’s Role in Peace Building. New York: United Nations Development
Fund for Women (UNIFEM): 9. Accessed from the World Wide Web:
http://147.96.1.15/info/ucmp/cont/descargas/documento7201.pdf
- “Gender and empathy: Men shouldn’t need to “imagine if it were your wife/daughter/mother”” - Maya
- “Women are tag-marked as shameless transgressors for marrying without
the consent of family, seeking divorce, asking for a share in ancestral
property or refusing to cover hair, face, or body. Violence against
women surges whenever the patriarchal status quo or the traditional mode
is challenged” - Ragini Nayak
- “A few months later I realized the nightmare wasn’t over. I had become
pregnant from the rape. I went into shock again […] I felt enormous
shame and guilt […] The rape and then the trauma of the subsequent
choices I made as a result of being raped haunted me for years. I found
with the rape that my body healed, but my thought process and inner core
were deeply damaged […] I was the one who carried the emotional and
psychological burden of being victimized with me. Not the predators who
did this to me - I carried it” - Renee Devesty
- “Either we could be complicit in a culture that permitted the
mistreatment and harassment of women, or we could hold ourselves, our
friends and our family members accountable for the misogyny. We had a
responsibility to unlearn” - Joel Anderson
- “Women hold up half the sky” - Chinese Proverb
Impunity Worldwide
For as long as patriarchy has been around, so too has the issue of
Impunity worldwide. Millions of women suffer at the hands of their
nation’s oppressive regimes because of the use of Impunity. Impunity has
set free millions of rapists, murderers and ‘would-be’ convicts, while
the victim suffers from the stigma and the loss of life - literally.
India
In India, women more often than ever resort to committing suicide when
faced with having to make that decision of impunity. They cannot
withstand the stigma that results from being a rape victim, nor can they
ever imagine being forced to marry their rapist. This is exactly what
happened to a teen who recently committed suicide after being gang raped
and pressured to marry one of her rapists. The victim’s sibling told
Newscasts that the local police officers were pressuring her sister to
either accept money or marry one of the rapists.
Moreover, recently there has been an increase of ‘bus gang-rapes’. Days
after the death of Jyoti Singh Pandey, another girl was gang-raped on a
bus by 7 men. In saying such, there has been an increase of
‘victim-blaming’ which is also an element of Impunity. Forcing the
victim to take the blame for the rapists actions, placing the element of
shame on the victim and forcing the victim to make a choice of either
protecting their rights or loosing everything they have (whatever little
they may have). So many victims because they fear for their lives and
the safety of their family turn to committing suicide - this is their
life of impunity.
Guatemala
For Guatemalan women, suffering the consequences of not assenting to the
terms of impunity has resulted in their family home being burnt to
ashes, the death of their siblings, jail time or even death. The
documentary ‘A Killer’s Paradise’ (2007) documents in detail the reality
that so many women live with on a daily basis. A reality much see in
the recent death of 2 innocent girls whose bodies were thrown into the
Guatemalan streets. On January 16th, 2013, two girls aged 6 and 11 were
strangled while holding their rosary beads; on the same day in another
part of Guatemala, 2 other women were shot and murdered.
In the documentary, the producers follow the life of a recent rape
victim who’s father filed charges against her rapist. After her filed
charges, the Guatemalan police confronted her with a decision - either
she marries her rapist (impunity) or she her home gets burnt down. She
refused to marry her rapist and no sooner than that, her house was burnt
down and her family lost everything. Since then she has been living in a
shack - 4 cement walls with a galvanize roof. This is their life - a
life of impunity
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