Only a few days after the New York Times ran Nicholas Kristof’s piece on the courage of one young woman in Sierra Leone who refused to suffer in silence after being raped, President Obama authorized 100 U.S. troops to go into Uganda as advisors in the fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a terrorist group that has been on a path of death and destruction in Central Africa for two decades. To many, these two news items might only confirm the all-too-common perception that violence and lawlessness seems to be the intractable way of life in Africa.
However, the latter story has more to do with gender than one might glean from a casual following of the latest news coverage. Due to the mass occurrences of rape that accompany the LRA’s attacks, Kristof’s presentation of one young woman’s story in order to rally support for the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA) is all the more timely. The LRA is notorious for its use of rape as a weapon of war – David Axe of Wired recently wrote a story with the headline, “Obama Sends U.S. Troops to Battle African Rape Cult” – and would be one such international perpetrator of violence against women that the legislation was written to combat. Last year, the U.S. Congress came close making IVAWA law (both the Senate and the House discussed versions of the bill, which has been lauded by women’s rights NGOs), but fell short.
Read the whole article on Forbes, published 16 oct
Only a few days after the New York Times ran Nicholas Kristof’s piece on the courage of one young woman in Sierra Leone who refused to suffer in silence after being raped, President Obama authorized 100 U.S. troops to go into Uganda as advisors in the fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a terrorist group that has been on a path of death and destruction in Central Africa for two decades. To many, these two news items might only confirm the all-too-common perception that violence and lawlessness seems to be the intractable way of life in Africa.
However, the latter story has more to do with gender than one might glean from a casual following of the latest news coverage. Due to the mass occurrences of rape that accompany the LRA’s attacks, Kristof’s presentation of one young woman’s story in order to rally support for the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA) is all the more timely. The LRA is notorious for its use of rape as a weapon of war – David Axe of Wired recently wrote a story with the headline, “Obama Sends U.S. Troops to Battle African Rape Cult” – and would be one such international perpetrator of violence against women that the legislation was written to combat. Last year, the U.S. Congress came close making IVAWA law (both the Senate and the House discussed versions of the bill, which has been lauded by women’s rights NGOs), but fell short.
Read the whole article on Forbes, published 16 oct