Rape in art --- Goya[/caption]Gordon Matilla----Terrorizing one's enemy is a tactic often used in war, and one of those tactics is to target the women, as this can demoralize the opponent's community, often bringing shame to the victims and anger towards the perpetrators, increasing the fuel for retaliation. One of the countries now indicted by women's rights groups is Myanmar, as international agencies step up campaigns to end the practice.
Myanmar continues to have its internal struggles, struggles that have become more visible in these days since the country, once particularly secretive and thus hidden in many ways from the outside world, has stepped into the spotlight through government change. But the practice of terrorizing one's opponent in the ongoing civil strife continues unabated, which is why international aid agencies are calling attention to the violence against women, that is part of the practice of inciting hatreds among the disparate groups.
An organization called The Women's League of Burma, which is based in Thailand, maintains the military continues to use rape as a weapon of war and that more than 100 women and girls have been raped by the army since the 2010 election, according to the Catholic Online magazine.
But Myanmar is not the only country in recent history to be highlighted for using rape as a war weapon. During the Bosnian War rape was reported as widespread, used by the Bosnian Serb armed forces to terrorize the people. Estimates are that between 20,000 and 100,000 Bosniak women (Muslim ethnic women) were raped in the clashes between Christian and Muslim groups. In fact, it was determined that the women raped were overwhelmingly Bosniak.
Islamic countries tend to treat rape as a shame of women, urging them to remain silent, which can magnify the stress and hurt of the female victims. Indeed under Shariah Law women are treated not as victims but as guilty, with many dramatic examples of how young women are stoned to death after the rape incident is known. This occurred in the case of a young teenage girl in Somalia who was stoned to death by a mob of Islamic men. Somalia is a country where many extreme Islamic groups are said to reside. In some communities rape is used as a punishment against a male by another male in order to exact revenge upon the family. The real target of the violence, although of course the woman is the centerpiece of it, is the male, who is often the brother or father or another close relative of the female victim.
And if the woman fails to prove she has been raped---and the proof must be substantial and not just her word---she can be accused of false accusation and punished severely as a consequence. Yet according to Islamic scholars, punishing the woman who charges rape, if she is a chaste woman, is not grounds for her to be punished, but instead protected as outlined in this verse, quoted in one of the Islamic reference sources:
Almighty Allah says: (Quran 4:15) " If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, Take the evidence of four (reliable) witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them, or Allah ordain for them some (other) way." (Quran 24:4) "And those who launch a charge against chaste women, and produce not four witnesses (to support their allegations)- flog them with eighty stripes; and reject their evidence ever after: for such men are wicked transgressors;- (Quran 24:13) "Why did they not bring four witnesses to prove it? When they have not brought the witnesses, such men, in the sight of Allah, (stand forth) themselves as liars!"
The scholar goes on to reiterate that the chaste woman who is raped is a victim and is not required to produce four witnesses, as it clearly underlines "chaste women" as having protection.
Despite the explanation, however, the stories that get the headlines are often about the extremist groups practices, especially in areas of the world where there is conflict, such as in Myanmar. And the violence of rape, as shown by the experience in Bosnia, is a two-edged sword of revenge and retaliation, that both Christians and Muslims have practiced in order to terrorize and subjugate their enemies.
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