Protecting Black Women From Rape has been organised by Afrosphere to publicise two horrendous cases of rape against Black women in the United States.

Ms. Megan Williams

Megan Williams thought she was going to a party. For more than a week, authorities say, the 20-year-old black woman was kept captive in a shed, tortured, beaten, forced to eat rat, dog and human feces, and raped by six white men and women who taunted her with racial slurs. “They just kept saying ‘This is what we do to niggers down here,’” Williams told The Associated Press in one of her most extensive interviews since the shocking case made national headlines last month.

In Dunbar Village Case

4 males aged between 14 and 18 have been charged as adults on a 14 count indictment

Hoping to steal money and jewelry, Avion Lawson, 14, said he and someone else wore masks when they entered the 35-year-old woman’s apartment that night, according to the documents. Once inside, Lawson said, he and his accomplice, whose name is blacked out on the report, encountered the woman in bed with three other masked males around her. Lawson told police he sexually assaulted her and stole two video games and a truck.

The victim returned home from her job delivering phone books about 9 p.m. the night of the attack, according to her statement to police. While fixing her son something to eat, a young male with braids knocked on her door to tell her the tires on her truck were flat. Once outside, she said, she saw a male with a large gun and two others armed with guns. They wore black clothing over their faces, she said, and ordered her back into the apartment, where they demanded money.

After being told there was no money, the attackers tore off the woman’s clothes and raped her until five others arrived, according to the documents. The new arrivals took turns having sex with her and then sodomized her. The mother was then ordered into a tub filled with vinegar and water where they used hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, nail polish remover and ammonia on her. At gunpoint, the assailants forced the mother and son to have sex.

Throughout the attack, the victims suffered beatings, including having a bowl and light bulbs smashed over their heads. The encounter was recorded on a cell phone camera, according to the mother.

Reading about these two horrific acts of violence against women, I am reminded of a piece I wrote after the rape, torture and murder of two South African lesbians this past July, Sigasa and Masooa and the millions of other Black lesbians, bi-sexual and heterosexual women who have been raped over the centuries. Raped by white men, by black men, by gangs, violated in the most horrific ways.

I have been thinking about the rapes and murders. Wondering about the safety of my friends. I do want to know the why and the who of rapes of women. I am sure much has been written on why men rape and who these men are. But I want to think this through for myself. When rape takes place every minute then I have to ask some more questions on why this is happening. People are not sleeping thinking about being raped. Thinking about their mothers, sisters, daughters and friends being raped. Who have been raped. Women are suffering from terrible anxiety thinking about these things. The pain of one rape goes beyond the victim or survivor and spreads to every other woman she knows. The knowledge that you were raped because of your sexuality, when that sexuality is viewed as being unnatural, doubles your anxiety. When everyone around you is continually saying you are sinful or ostracising you because of who you love – it fucks up your head. You are strong but at night you cry. You live in fear because every time you walk out of your house or compound the predator(s) maybe watching and waiting.

We are living in fear, in Darfur, in the DRC, in South Africa, the US, in Haiti, in Britain - everywhere we are living in fear of rape and hate. The hate, the misogyny It comes with attitudes and language as well as physical, emotional and sexual violence. It is not just men who need to take account of their brothers, fathers, sons and male relatives and friends. Often women are themselves complicit in these acts of violence, less often they are participants.

We all have choices every time silence is chosen over speaking one more woman is left unprotected against violence.

Tags:
Black Women
Rape

Gege Katana, a human rights defender for 25 years from the Democratic Republic of Congo has been awarded this year’s Front Line Defender Award in Dublin. Gégé Katana founded the “Solidarity Movement of Women Human Rights Activists based in Uvira in South Kivu province. She has been prevented from travelling, arrested and received death threats over the past 25 years of activism.

Gégé Katana, 42, is a leading human rights defender working in Uvira, eastern DRC. She is the president of SOFAD, an organisation that works through a grassroots network of 625 women to research and campaign against sexual violence, and provide counselling and help to rape survivors. SOFAD also educates local communities on women and children’s rights, and lobbies the government to deliver justice and reform discriminatory laws.

Gégé Katana has worked with several non-governmental organisations including; IDEA/Afrique - Institut pour le developpement et l’education des adultes. She is a network member of the Global Fund for Women and Coordinator for the Synergie des Femmes Defenseurs des Droits de le l’Homme du Sud-Kivu en RDC (SYFEDH).

The scale and horror of sexual violence against women and girls in Eastern DRC prompted Gégé Katana to work with SOFAD and the lack of existing structures for combating gross violations of human rights, especially perpetuated against women was a significant motivating factor in her fight for women’s rights and human rights. The principal violations of human rights in the region are, forced displacement, arbitrary arrests, torture, rape and pillage.

“For me, winning the award is a recognition of my work as a human rights defender and gives me the strength and encouragement to pursue my struggle in the area of human rights. I cannot fully express my joy in receiving this award, nor my gratitude towards Front Line for supporting and helping me in my work.”

Video: Her work with Women in the DRC

All the nominees for Human Rights Defenders at Risk: Akifa Aliyeva, Gégé Katana,Jackeline Rojas,Radhia Nasraoui,Riza Fanilag

Tags: Human Rights; DRC; Front Line; Gege Katana;

Ethan of My Heart’s in Accra has done an excellent job of “Unpacking the DRC Election Results” in which Joseph Kabila will run against former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba. He also has a link to an excellent mapping of the election results by the BBC. The announcement has led to violence between supporters of the two election finalists. On the one hand this was not supposed to happen especially with the 17,000 plus MONUC forces present. On the other hand violence was expected to break out at some point in an election where the political and the financial rewards are so high. If either Kabila or Bemba had won outright there still would have been violence so it is a no win situation. Meanwhile alliances are being built on both sides ready for the run off in just over 2 months on the 29th October. It is unfortuante that the country has to wait two more months to vote and then a further couple of weeks for the final election result. It is hard to see how the country can get through this period without continued fractional fighting and further bloodshed in what is already seeming like a divided country.
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The long awaited DRC elections are on Sunday. There is some good news, quite a bit of scepticism and still much cause for concern. The good news is that more militias have come forward to surrender themselves and their arms. What percentage this 20,000 represents is not clear as no one really knows how many militias there are - it is doubtful the militias themselves know their numbers. Many of the militias are child soldiers who are traumatised and in desperate need rehabilitation without which they remain vulnerable to further kidnappings by armed militias, traffickers looking for child labour to export or work in the mines.

Considering the high stakes involved, the presence of thousands of militias and number of political parties (33) involved in the elections the level of violence has been relatively low. Whether the 17,000 MONUC presence has been a deterrent is not clear but certainly all the factors are there for the violence to have been much worse. However it is very worrying that supporters of the UDPS party, led by Étienne Tshisekedi have held demonstrations calling for the elections to be boycotted due to pre-election irregularities. The Catholic church has also called for a boycott on the same basis. If Tshisekedi and other opposition leaders have no trust in the outcome of the elections it is difficult to see how this will be resolved in the post-election period when Joseph Kabila, predicted to win, takes control of the country and it’s natural resources.
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Despite the pre-election violence that has begun in the DRC, the world’s mining companies are heading for the country like packs of hungry wolves. But they are not the only ones chasing cobalt and copper. Tension is forming in Katanga and Kivu provinces between local miners who have been working the mines themselves and who want to keep out the big companies that are want to return under Joseph Kabilia’s privatisation programme “encouraged by the World Bank. Of the 70,000 miners in Katanga alone many are children who crawl in the small tunnels dug by men to collect the copper.

An angry crowd of men and children surrounds each new delegation as it arrives at the Ruashi mine in the southeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The miners are thin and their faces white with dust, but their voices are strong as they sing: “This land belonged to our ancestors, its copper belongs to us”.

Colette Braeckman of Le Monde Diplomatique writes an excellent article detailing the long history of mining and the shady world of dubuously legal mining contracts that favour the international companies in the DRC.

American Mineral Fields, the Australian company Russel Resources and Zimbabwe’s Ridgepointe Overseas funded Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s military campaign, and later the DRC’s political and administrative reconstruction. In return they obtained agreements for three Gecamines sites, to mining resources at Mongbwalu (1) in the northeastern province of Ituri, and to the diamond concessions in Kisangani.

Some of the new mining multinationals that will be challenging local miners are BHP Billiton (copper), Anglo Gold which despite dirty dealings with local militia, insists it will remain in the country, and Rio Tinto has said it “is turning to Africa for new resources. Others are Tenke Mining Corporation, Adastra Minerals and its suitor, First Quantum Minerals, Banro Corporation, and Katanga Minerals. The stakes are high as the sums of money to be made by the multinationals are huge with the risk of corruption amongst the newly elected government also high. The presence of militias and indigenous miners alongside multiantionals and the liklihood of a corrupt tyrannical goverment under the leadership of Joseph Kabila, does not bode well for the people of the DRC.

Links: Looting of Congo