According to a very new law enacted in Afghanistan, it is legal to starve a wife who refuses sex. This is already a watered down version of the original bill that stipulates for a wife to have sex with her husband four days in a week. This law was signed just as Hamid Karzai was gunning for reelection. In Afghanistan, marital rape is legal.
In Congo, mass rape and mass genital mutilation are cultural standard practices. The soldiers of the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DCR) turn women into sexual slaves and rape baby girls.
At least 25,000 women were raped during the Bosnian war. Child marriage is practiced in several countries. Girls’ schools have been burned down in Pakistan. In some cases, acid was thrown in the faces of school-going girls in Afghanistan. Some Afghan schoolgirls have also experienced poisonous gas air attacks on them. Mass rape of women has become a weapon of war such as what happened in Darfur. ‘In Liberia’s brutal 14-year civil war, rape was used as freely as guns to devastate people’s lives.’ 40 percent of Liberians have experienced sexual violence.
Sexual terror is a reality in some parts of the world, in spite of concerted global efforts of international NGOs, concerned groups, civil society, various feminist movements, and the United Nations. But the feminist movement has not toppled the war on women, especially not against those who have elevated sexual torture to institutionalized policy and societal norm.
Sexual torture and terror should be part of diplomatic discussions. If the war on women is to be ended, the matter of women’s rights, which are actually basic human rights, should occupy as much space on diplomatic tables as matters of peace, security, nuclear disarmament, etc.
There might be some hope for expedited efforts now, especially that Hillary Clinton, a known women’s rights advocate, just visited the Congo and had a very frank discussion with Congolese President Joseph Kabila about sexual violence. This might be the start of the US’ foreign policy on protecting women’s rights.
