1/3 of Women in Military Raped, Almost Half Sexually Assaulted
Women in the US military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by a terrorist. (CNN, PBS has a video on the story here)
If this is how the US military treats its own women, who have rights and are from the same country, its not hard to imagine what the status of powerless Muslim women in Iraq and Afghanistan are being treated.
Suddenly, what’s happened at places like Abu Ghraib, Mahumdiyyah (Abeer Hamza), and Japan doesn’t seem all that unusual. If the army is covering up the rape of American women, it is most certainly doing so with regards to the rapes of non-American women who have no legal or political venues to expose the crimes of their oppressors.
May Allah 
(subhana wa ta’ala) raise up a leader from amongst us who will end this fitnah and unite our Ummah. Ameen.
Published August 2, 2008 . Filed under: Critical Democracy Studies, War on Terror
Posts
As-Salaamu ‘alaikum,
R.a.p.e figures in some quarters in the USA are notorious for exaggeration; by some estimates a quarter of female college students have been raped, for example. If the level of r.a.p.e really were as high as a third, it would be well-known and I don’t think you would get women joining the forces in any significant numbers. Perhaps sexual harassment is high, but then, women experience that in the workplace as well.
PS. I had to dot out words b/c your filter was rejecting them.
August 11, 2008 @ 7:35 pm
Wa alaikum assalam
Well, there have actually been several high profile ra.pe cases where the victims were not all American. I’ve highlighted some of the cases above.
In terms of the ra.pe statistics, the reason it came to light was because a veteran had accused another soldier of rap.ing her and she reported it to higher authorities and they sat on it and the soldier ended up killing her and the baby with whom she was pregnant with. So clearly, there are some major flaws with the system of reporting. There have been many proven cases of ra.pe by members of the US military against female soldiers and also by US contractors.
I also don’t know what evidence you have to suggest that the numbers are exaggerated. Assuming for the sake of argument that female college students exaggerated ra.pe statistics, it doesn’t logically necessitate that female veterans would lie about it.
In terms of why its not as well known, thats the entire problem, the military has been ignoring a lot of the complaints pertaining to ra.pe and sexual assaults. Just because its not reported in the military or by the mainstream media doesn’t mean its not true (although the mainstream media is picking up on the cases, see the sources above).
masalama
August 14, 2008 @ 3:31 am