The Kaiser Network is carrying live coverage of the XIV International AIDS Conference which is being held in Barcelona Spain between the 7th of July and the 12th.

7/5/02:8:32:34 PM PST    comment

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 PST    comment