Andy Kawa Quotes

Pakistan follows a version of Islamic Law—Sharia—which provides that a man can be convicted of rape only if there are at least 4 male witnesses. Since it is virtually impossible to ever get 4 witnesses to a crime like that, there will never be a conviction. However, the complaining victim runs two additional dangers. First she is admitting to fornication and or adultery and can be jailed or even killed for that. Further, Pakistan males regard her as a prostitute and the police will also rape her very often.

At the time, the Congo was notorious for the huge number of rapes and the fact that rape was being used as a tool of intimidation by the government troops who the government claims are there to protect the public and also by the rebel forces who claim to be fighting for the people including the women they rape. In reality, the Congo is very rich in natural resources and the battles for control of the country are all really driven by the money to be made from the resources. The absurd denial by the ambassador has got to be one of the more hypocritical denials in diplomatic annals.

At the time. the Islamic government supported forces in Sudan systematically raped as many women as they could in order to intimidate the Christian rebels. At around the same time, a village council in Pakistan had ruled that a Pakistani woman should be gang raped as punishment to her family for the alleged transgressions of her brother. African rebels were also using the tactic as an intimidation tactic.

The Armed Services had then a terrible problem of sexual assault on female troops with an attitude on the part of many officers and commanders that would tolerate these assaults and not treat them seriously. The situation was so bad the the General repeated that he was not kidding about the major priority in that he realized a large number of senior officers would find it surprising the the Chief of Staff would make the issue the number one army priority.

Note that in pre-Muslim Arabia, a woman was not punished if she was raped as is currently done in some Muslim countries.

The Minister was commenting on a case where a 28 year old Punjab woman of low family status was sentenced by a Pakistani court to be gang raped in front of her father. The offence for which she was punished was that her younger brother age 11 had been found in the presence of a 20 year old daughter of a wealthy and high status family. The male members of the high status family beat and sodomized the young boy and then appealed to the tribal court for justice and defense of their family honor which the court granted by sentencing the daughter so the other family’s honor would be besmirched. The Pakistani national government, after outcries throughout the world, declared the punishment illegal. They named a school after the victim, Mukhtaran Bibi, and arrested the rapists. However the rapists were not charged with a capital crime according to Pakistan law and traditional Muslim law, Sharia.

This proverb which actually has the force of de facto law in much of the Arab world, while detested by many sophisticated Westerners and Americans in particular, was actually a custom in America for many years. Under the principle, a rapist is not a rapist if he marries the girl. A seducer is not a seducer. In the Bedouin culture there is no difference between the rapist and the seducer. The reason that the practice is so hateful is that it assumes that when a woman is raped or seduced the damage is to the woman’s male relatives—to their honor. Therefore, the “crime” can be remedied by marrying the girl and satisfying the male relative’s sense of honor. Then no harm has been done, except of course to the woman who often becomes the double victim, first of the rape or seduction and then of a forced marriage. In modern America the honor of the male relatives has no standing in law, yet even today some judges and prosecutors will go easy on a statutory rapist or worse if he marries the girl and the girls family goes along with the arrangement. The term “shotgun wedding” stems from a time when family members would force the alternative on seducers.

This statement is believed by many people who would blame the female victim of rape for the way she dressed. Rape is a heinous felony, and it is never excused by the way the victim dresses. Few who hold this view publicly will state it, but this public statement triggered a set of demonstrations throughout Canada which spread to the United States and Europe. See {623723}.