His eldest son, Uday, is in charge of a secret police agency that keeps people on their best behavior so Baghdad is not a good place for prostitutes. Now and then the public gets to watch while hookers are killed in the town square. The woman of vice kneels down and her head is lopped off with a sword. I would guess the issue of distributing condoms to working girls is a moot point in Iraq.
2/4/03 10:51:38 PM    

A few days ago I made mention of a gang rape in Pakistan. Rape is an extremely powerful lever for changing the world. It turns out that wordwide horror over this series of events has not quite been noticed by some American media. I wonder why ABC, as of this day, has chosen to ignore this story? Competitors like MSN, FoxNews, CBS & CNN are covering the story.

Pakistan is an allie to the United States in the "war on terrorism". For a number of reasons, one of which must surely be the existing alliance, it should come as no surprise that worldwide mores would effect the developments of this case.

The governor of the Punjab Province, retired Lieutenant General Khalid Maqbool, paid a surprise visit to the village of Meerwala Saturday to meet with the 18-year-old rape victim, Mukhtaran Bibi, local officials said.

The good people of the government of Pakistan, for whatever number of reasons, will bring schools, roads, electricity, & police to the rural area of Pakistan where the rapes occurred. Apparently the little boy, the girl's brother, was also raped for his pluck at having an affair with a women out of his class & I assume his age range. At least that was the initial story. The culprits in this case have said that he, the little 11 year old boy, raped the 30 year old women from above his class. But a doctor has examined the boy. The report said the boy was a "minor and incapable to meet the sexual lust of any opposite sex".

Given this it seems doubtful the boy had any affair whatsoever. Perhaps a friendship, to be sure, but no matter either way 4 men raped an 11 eleven year old boy and an 18 year old woman and as a result a village gets connected to the grid. Rape can be used as a political tool by politians whether they actually do the deed or not.

People can be very dangerous when it comes to sex. I have been feeling recently, based on the comments I've heard, like I'm going to be attacked because I wear the wrong set of swim trunks. Sometimes it feels as though we are just a footstep away from being a society where the Taliban would feel right at home.
7/16/02 9:50:59 PM    

This is obscene. When your ruling body advocates gang rape for an eleven 11 year old girl daring to walk with someone of a different class you know your society has reached its end. Do these people not value their children in any way. Rape and sexual coercion are used as a social tool all over the world. I wonder if anyone has ever done a study on the cost of this behavior to societies. Ignoring the pieties of violence & victimhood and the emotional costs involved I wonder how much this costs in both hard currency and in lost opportunity. Surely noone would feel safe or productive in a place where their own daughters are used in this fashion. How many potential engineers could this society produce if it didn't prey on its own like this? How many judges? How many doctors and teachers? I wonder if this is even discussed?

In Myanmar soldiers are raping girls and women in an ethnic rebel stronghold near the Thai border. Elena Omel'chenko says in the book Gender, Generation and Identity in Contemporary Russia says "Young women are entering a brutally sexist world where a common practice in youth cultures is gang rape as a form of social control." (Actually I can't verify that is an actual quote. It may be a paraphrase.) This type of behavior is endemic to all cultures I'd wager.
7/5/02 8:00:52 PM