Rape in Kuwait (2)
There seem to be some misconceptions running around about rape in Kuwait. One misconception is that Kuwaitis commit a lot of rape. If you read the newspapers, however, you will discover that a lot of the rapes committed are nationality on nationality, for example, one senior Phillipina lady will befriend an unhappy domestic worker, will “help” her get away, and the domestic finds herself abducted, gang raped and in sexual slavery. That’s one common story.
Domestics of all nationalities are abducted off the streets, taken to apartments or villas, raped repeatedly by two or more men, and then dropped off on the street (or dropped off a balcony). People don’t seem to be very concerned about domestic servants being people here, having the right NOT to be raped, it sort of seems like business as usual, no matter who is raped or doing the raping. I have yet to read of one single case being prosecuted or sentenced in the Kuwait newspapers, but maybe I missed a day or two.
Another common story is Indian/Bangladeshi/Pakistani on Indian/Bangladeshi/Pakistani, and that can be men abducting/raping men, or men abducting/raping women. Some of these women are also recruited into prostitution, and are found when the police raid the dens of iniquity, catching the men and men or men and women in “uncompromising” positions, or, even better – RED HANDED!
There is a whole catagory of abductions – Kuwaiti, Bedoun or other Gulf or Arab nationality where a man or woman, or men or women, is/are abducted and taken to camps in the desert and raped multiple times. Sometimes they are left naked by the side of the road. Sometimes their dead bodies are found, and occasionally enough clues to guess at the identity of the abductors/rapists.
Then there are the men that rape children. It can be within a family. It can be within a building. It can be within a neighborhood. Many times the child knows the rapist, and is told that if they say anything, the rapist will kill or harm the child’s parents. There was an epidemic of child rape in Hawali, and although the man arrested cries “I didn’t do it!” the fact is that the epidemic of rape in Hawali has stopped. That doesn’t mean that children aren’t being raped, it just means that the Hawali Monster seems to be off the streets of Hawali.
Objectively, if there can be said to be a “good” thing about rape in Kuwait, it is that so few of them are fatal.
What can, accurately, be said about Kuwait is that there seems to be a lot of rape. If you think I exaggerate, I challenge you to read the Kuwait papers every day for a month.
When there is a lot of rape, it means there is a social, legal and political climate that tolerates rape. It means that rape cases are not handled with a lot of attention to gathering evidence. It means that men and women are not encouraged to persue rape charges. It means that the police are not very interested in investigating accusations of rape. It means that the legal system is not very interested in prosecuting rape. It means that the rape victims are not valued highly enough to deserve not to be raped.
Rape happens everywhere. Rape happens in wars, rape happens on the streets. In most places, we are taught, rape isn’t about sex as much as it is about power. Here, in Kuwait, I am inclined to think it may be a little bit of both.
I’ve worked with rape victims in several different locations. Working with the victims gives you so much admiration for women, what they endure, what they survive, and their deeply ingrained sense of priorities and self. You’d think the experience would be devastating, but the women who have experienced rape and overcome it have been anything but devastated – many of them become truly awesome individuals, literally, awe-inspiring. They refuse to be victims. They carry on with their lives. They accomplish. They let their anger fuel and energize them to become incredibly accomplished individuals. It isn’t surprising – wealth and accomplishment also give you additional protection against it ever happening again.
There is another tragedy in Kuwait – male rapes. When men rape another men, like in prison, it is very much a power thing. Me big – you little. Me do what I want with you. Most of the victims I have met, or heard about are young teens. Being raped by a bigger, older male really skews their lives. They begin to question what it was about themself that got them raped, they question whether maybe they are gay and don’t know it, they ask, over and over – Why ME? Young men who were good at school start getting bad grades, they can’t concentrate, they often turn to drugs.
Being forced to have sex, whether you are man, woman, or child, is wrong. And doing nothing to stop this epidemic is also wrong. To look the other way is wrong. To say it isn’t happening is wrong. To become so used to it that your heart becomes calloused is just plain wrong.
I know most of the time my blog is a nice place to visit, and these entries make you uncomfortable. I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable. I myself am so uncomfortable that, as Martin Luther said (only he said it in German) “I cannot other. God help me.”
Invasion Kuwait – Jihan Rajab
I have one very ragged copy of Jihan Rajab’s Invasion Kuwait which she published in 1996. All my house guests have been given an opportunity to read it, and not one single one has been other than blown-away.
When you look at Kuwait today, there is no sign that the disasterous invasion took place. The invasion and occupation are barely a blip on the screen of modern history, to those who were not involved.
And yet – when you listen to those who went through it, there are tales of sheer heroism. If you get the conversation started, in a group, you can hear hair-raising tales, heartbreaking tales, told by the people who went through it.
I had to buy the book through Amazon.com because I looked all over Kuwait and couldn’t find it, not even at the Tarek Rajab museum. When I bought it, I bought it used, because there were no new copies available, but this morning when I went to include the book in the Warrior Women post, I found that you can now buy it new, and I decided it was worth a post of it’s own. It is well worth a read, and it makes Kuwait so much more alive when you pass sites mentioned in the book and remember what took place there in Rajab’s book.
I have read one other book detailing the horrorific experience in Kuwait, but that is all. Are there others? Are there books on the invasion, and the individual experiences, written in Arabic?
Back it up! #2 Khalid Al-Hajri
WOOOOOOO Hoooooooooooo Khalid Al-Hajri!
You WILL find this one in the Kuwait Times Online, by clicking right here.
Khalid Al-Hajri, representing The Green LIne Environmental Group, held a press conference and demonstrated how the Wafra Agricultural Area – and all of Kuwait – faces an environmental disaster due to irresponsible disposal of petroleum related wastage.
This takes a bucket full of courage, in a nation where so much wealth is produced by petroleum. And Khalid Al-Hajri didn’t just go on record giving an emotional speech, no. He had graphs and maps and photos – he had the FACTS to back up his assertions.
And bravo to the Kuwait Times for giving him page 3 coverage.
The truth is that I don’t understand the whole of the report. I understand that there are problems with oil products being illegally dumped in the al Wafra farm area and it could have a devastating impact on the farming there. And – I understand that their injecting the oil production by-products deep into the earth NEAR THE SAUDI – KUWAITI BORDER could cause EARTHQUAKES.
Hmmmmmm. . . . didn’t we just have an earthquake? And where was it? Oh . . . yeh! Near the Kuwaiti – Saudi border, wasn’t it?
And worst case of all, these by products pollute the underground aquifer.
I applaud people like Khalid Al-Hajri who care about their country enough to do their homework, and then to speak up in a responsible way to bring our attention to practices that can hurt Kuwait in the future.
The Wrong Kind of Attention
Yep. If I wanted people to notice me, I would buy a yellow – orange car. Statistically, they are the easiest to see, and the color people most notice. Think fire trucks (in many countries, not here) and taxis – yellow grabs the eye.
Maybe that’s not enough. Maybe we want to be really really really sure people see us. Aha! Let’s put “Terrorist” on the spare cover, in big letters!
It got my attention.
I am guessing it is some band or something.
I am also guessing that it could get a lot of the wrong kind of attention. Yeh, some people just don’t have any sense of humor. Go figure.
Royal Treatment
It’s back to Purgatory for me – the start of two full days travelling to get back to Kuwait. The day dawns cool, but the clouds are high and the roads are dry.
Seattle is undergoing a major infrastructure upgrade, and most of the lanes on the major interstate close tomorrow. Public announcements are on all the radio and tv stations about finding alternate routes, and today was the last day all lanes would be open. I was afraid traffic would be heavy, so I started early, but it was surprisingly light.
Turned in the rental car, got checked in, everything is cool so far. Go to stand in the security line and – as usual – I get sent to the “Royal treatment” line.
I am so used to it that I don’t even groan any more. I have my computer, my little plastic bag with face cream, mascara, etc. all in one bag, and I have little footies to put on when I have to take off my shoes. I am SO prepared.
What I am not prepared for is for them to tell me in an angry voice to take the liquid out of my purse. I say – as all guilty people do – “I don’t have any liquid in my purse!”- and they throw my purse at me and tell me to go through it and take out the liquid, and they give me a small plastic bag.
I go through my purse again – it has a lot of zips and pockets – no liquid. I put a very humble look on my face and hand it to her and say “there is no liquid!” and they yell at me “she’s going to take it!” and they run it through again. And then I have to wait in a small booth (again) for the full bag hand inspection for explosives and for the pat down check.
Those who know me will know why this is so funny. I am not dangerous looking.
They pat me down. They magic wand me. They tell me I can put my shoes back on as they wipe down my handbag and my carry on. Guess what – no liquid. They stamp my ticket, but . . .no apologies, no nothing. Just “you can go now.”
I’ve had this happen for five years now, almost every trip. It doesn’t matter whether I pay cash in person or pay by credit card online – I get the royal treatment.
On top of that, my plane is seriously delayed. They are bringing in another plane to substitute for it. I hope I will make my Kuwait connection – and I really really hope I have time between flights for a shower. I’ve also lost my KLM card somewhere in all these changing flights and confused reservations and they are being stinky about believing me, even though my frequent flyer status is on my ticket, on my boarding passes and in the computer. More royal treatment.
Comment Section Closed, Wooo Hoooo
I have had some problems with one particular spammer targeting one particular entry on my blog. Really nasty stuff, it offends me. I clear it out almost as quickly as they send it, but it is ANNOYING.
WordPress is so cool. I went into edit, and turned off “allow comments.” It allowed all the original comments, but has a cheery message now:
“Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time”
*Dancing at a stinging blow against spammers*
Washington State Ferries
The Washington State Ferries are part of the highway system – you drive your car on and off, and relax with a great cup of coffee as you cross the waters.
On the weekends, lines can back up and you might have to wait a couple hours for a ferry. There are coffee stands along the way to help pass the time.
And nice clean bathrooms, after you drink all that coffee!
There are ferries of all different sizes – this one has six rows of traffic on each of two levels going across to the Olympic Peninsula.
Those who watch Grey’s Anatomy will recall that Meredith almost died in a ferry boat accident. The reality is, thankfully, that the system is well maintained, and incidents are rare. Counter-terrorist teams patrol the ferry lines and suspicious cars are checked.
FBI Tries to Fight Zombie Hoards
The title got my attention. This is from BBC News and you can read the whole story here.
FBI tries to fight zombie hordes
The FBI is contacting more than one million PC owners who have had their computers hijacked by cyber criminals.
The initiative is part of an ongoing project to thwart the use of hijacked home computers, or zombies, as launch platforms for hi-tech crimes.
The FBI has found networks of zombie computers being used to spread spam, steal IDs and attack websites.
The agency said the zombies or bots were “a growing threat to national security”.
Signs of trouble
The FBI has been trying to tackle networks of zombies for some time as part of an initiative it has dubbed Operation Bot Roast.
This operation recently passed a significant milestone as it racked up more than one million individually identifiable computers known to be part of one bot net or another.
The law enforcement organisation said that part of the operation involved notifying people who owned PCs it knew were part of zombie or bot networks. In this way it said it expected to find more evidence of how they are being used by criminals.
“The majority of victims are not even aware that their computer has been compromised or their personal information exploited,” said James Finch, assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division.
Many people fall victim by opening an attachment on an e-mail message containing a virus or by visiting a booby-trapped webpage.
Many hi-tech criminals are now trying to subvert innocent webpages to act as proxies for their malicious programs.
Many bots are used to send out junk mail or spam
Once hijacked, PCs can be used to send out spam, spread spyware or as repositories for illegal content such as pirated movies or pornography.
Those in charge of botnets, called botherders, can have tens of thousands of machines under their control.
Operation Bot Roast has resulted in the arrest of three people known to have used bot nets for criminal ends.
Kuwait Machine Gun?
From yesterday’s Kuwait Times.
Three Shot at by Teenagers
Two Kuwaiti citizens and a bedoon man were transferred to Jahra hospital after three teenagers shot them using a machine gun and ran away. The victims stressed they did not know why the assailants, who were travelling in a Japanese car, shot at them. The case is under investigation.
My comment: My husband, when I told him about this story, says that most people don’t know the difference between a machine gun and an automatic weapon, which can fire a series of shots in rapid succession. Somehow, the distinction fails to reassure me. Teenagers – children – with automatic weapons?? Where are these weapons coming from? How did they get their hands on them?
There has been a big to-do over Muna Al-Fuzai’s tongue-in-cheek article about Kuwait and subsequent defense of what she said.
Guys: Stop talking and listen for a change. Yes, Kuwait is a wonderful place, she is not saying differently. She is Kuwaiti and she loves Kuwait. She has a right to say what she sees and hears, and she has taken a courageous and controversial stand. You don’t have to agree with her, and she still has a right to her opinion. Did you notice? Her column is OPINION.
You are also entitled to your opinion.
First – Take a deep breath. Ask your mother, your wife, your sister, your maid – how safe she feels taking a taxi alone at night – if that is even an option. Ask her if she is careful where she walks. Ask her about her experiences with the police. Ask her if she will go to any ATM, or only “safe” ones.
As I see it, Kuwait has a huge bachelor population, and few options for these bachelors. Women here know to travel in groups, to be watchful, and to be wary. There is a problem.
And it’s not women, it is also children. It’s unthinkable.
Couple this with weak regard for the law and weak enforcement of the law, and you will see that there is a problem.
And where did these kids get automatic weapons? ? ? These problems are all connected to weak law enforcement, lack of respect for the law and a sense of entitlement. Entitled to take an automatic and shoot people? ? Entitled to TAKE sex from someone smaller and weaker than you? ?
It’s not just lack of respect for the law, it’s the law of the jungle.
Al Qaeda Fed Up With Ground Zero Construction Delays
If I knew how to embed video replays in my blog, I wouldn’t have to make you click on Al Qaeda Fed Up with Ground Zero Construction Delay to watch a video interview with two critics of the Ground Zero construction so far, saying almost identical things, but with a twist, oh what a twist.
The video interview is hysterically funny. Give yourself a grin for the day. It’s from one of my favorite websites: The Onion.
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