About a week ago, the Christian Science Monitor ran an article I wrote from Sierra Leone on a new law protecting women in war zones. The law–less a law than an international precedent which may, or may not, become influential–categorizes the crime of forced marriage as a crime against humanity, for the first time ever.
Forced marriage is pretty pervasive here. It happened en masse during the wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone; it still goes on in Uganda and Congo. It’s surely happening in other places that are less on our radars. All crimes are viscous, but this one is somehow especially cruel: it changes forever the status women have in their communities, making it impossible for them to try to ‘go back to normal’—the way the soldiers who kidnap them as wives get to do—after war.
I haven’t blogged it yet because there’s so many other things to say, in addition to what made it in the piece, but I still haven’t wrapped my head around it yet. So expect to see more on this.
Here’s the story:
it reminds me of the current story on the front burner here, not of girls awarded to soldiers of armies, but, to soldiers of a religious war… the soldiers of the flds army.
always, women are the loot given as reward… sex the bargaining chip.
world wide, culture wide, history wide.
gives you pause, doesn’t it?