Virginity Testing: Women as Guardians of Virtue and Honor

Show me a culture that does not understand or teach consent and I’ll show you many cultures that absolve men of accountability, murder women in the name of honor, violate young girls, and exacerbate trauma. Across borders and state lines, cultures and languages, a common, shared experience of being a woman is violation of consent.  …

Soldiers & Survivors in the Military Injustice System

Every year, the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO) of the United States Department of Defense (DOD) publishes a report on sexual assault within the military. During my summer internship with the nonprofit Protect Our Defenders, I searched through the report for relevant statistics (including the statistic showing that while the estimated prevalence rate …

Rape Laws: Protection or Impunity?

Globally, there are gaps in the legal system that not only fail to give women the justice they deserve, but also to protect them from violence. Women around the world lack physical security largely due to the impunity enjoyed by those who perpetrate violence against them. According to the WomanStats Project’s 2014 scaling of women’s …

“The Chosen Ones”: Reflecting about Sexual Violence and Human Trafficking Through Movies

The first scene of the movie “The Chosen Ones” directed by David Pablos shows Ulises and Sofía, a young teenage couple, kissing. Don’t be fooled, however: this is not a love story. As the story progresses, we learn Ulises has been pushed by his family to lure young, beautiful women into the prostitution ring the …

Camptowns and Prostitution: Why Men Shouldn’t Need a Sexual Release

The mayor of Osaka, Japan threatened in December 2017 to cut ties with Osaka’s sister city of San Francisco, California. Why? Because of one statue depicting three comfort women.[1],[2] The term “comfort women” refers to the women—South Korean, Chinese, Filipino and others—enslaved and raped by the Japanese army around the time of second world war. …

Accountability for Rape

Several months ago, I was asked to update the WomanStats scale that compares reported rapes in countries across the globe (LRW-SCALE-4). Understanding that rapes are vastly underreported everywhere, I knew to take the numbers with a grain of salt. However, I realized that I had no idea of just how problematic the data on rape …

Rohingya Women: Victims, Survivors, and Fighters

The Rohingya, an ethnic and religious minority in Burma (also referred to as Myanmar), have become victims of government-sponsored genocide. Starting last August, the decades-long repression turned into what the U.N. has deemed as an ethnic cleansing. Burmese military are entering the Rakhine state, the region occupied by the Rohingya, setting fire to the local …

Silent Suffering

Most likely if someone raises the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), images of soldiers returning home from combat comes to mind. However, how often do we think of the other victims of PTSD? The silent victims? While it is true that soldiers often face PTSD and need to receive treatment, it is also true …

Data and Beauty Pageants

The Miss Peru contest begins with contestants giving their name, hometown and their bust, waist and hip measurements. This year, they still gave numbers, but instead of their measurements, all 23 contestants gave statistics about violence towards women in Peru. The rest of the evening, the contestants answered questions about how they would solve violence …

What We Can All Learn From the #metoo Movement

Me too. When I was in China a few years ago, I stood on a public bus one day with some other girl friends on our way into town. The bus was relatively empty, so there was a lot of space to spread out. One older man ignored that and decided to come stand close …