It has been a while since I posted and though time has passed and a new year has come, the need for heightened awareness of human rights issues is greater than ever. We all look to the new year as a fresh start and hope for new and good things. I hope then that we can look at this year as a fresh new start to heightened awareness of the human rights issues that continue without any consideration of the holidays or the new year, unfortunately.
Today my post is about women being victimized in armed conflict. Unfortunately, women become brutalized in situations of armed conflict, particularly currently in the DR Congo, Sudan, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. But these brutalities do not just happen during wartime; brutalities and crimes against women happen even in refugee camps where women have come to find refuge from the outside situation. This is atrocious. The very places that they have come to find shelter and safety are the places where they are being brutalized, sexually and physically. And then when they try to return to their homes, they're victimized.
Even after the war in Afghanistan, women are still being victimized - particularly those outside Kabul, and being denied their basic rights to participate in the rebuilding of their country. Women in Iraq continue to face sexual violence and abduction so they keep away from work and schools.
Take a look at the Women's Rights work by the Human Rights Watch organization, here.
