Tabooed Inside Kurdistan
Published first on Awat Newspaper - Sunday, May 1st, 2011.
Eman El Obeidi on CNN
Rape is one of the worst things that could happen to a person, especially to women within the Kurdish community. This is partly because of the fact that in Kurdish society, the value of women is reduced to their virginity before marriage. A family's honour is often associated with their daughter remaining chaste and pure until marriage. Consequently, speaking against rape becomes extremely hard, particularly if women are led to believe that it will dishonour their families, destroy all future marriage prospects, or even bring an end to their existing marriage due to the social perception of a rape victim as "second hand goods", impure or dirty.
Recently, the case of Eman El Obeidi was one that echoed throughout the Middle East. Eman is a Libyan postgraduate law student who was detained for two days by Muammar Gaddafi's troops during the current tension in Libya. She was gang-raped by a group of inhumane men; but, in defiance of cultural expectation set for women, she ran into a hotel in Tripoli full of foreign journalists, shouting through tears, her story became known to the world, and the ignominy surrounding rape became the centre of feminist discourse.
Cases similar to Eman El Obeidi are rare, not only in Libya, but throughout Middle East. Kurdistan keeps no official statistics of rape because this crime goes unreported due to social stigmatisation. When rape cases are reported, they are kept private in fear of retaliation from perpetrator's family or associates.
Maintaining honour and familial respect is very important to women in Kurdistan. Rape supposedly brings dishonour, shame, embarrassment, and humiliation. If women believe that rape renders them as "damaged goods," then it is no wonder that they don't find reporting this crime an appealing retreat towards justice, partially in fear of the consequences of social implications that follow after being identified as a victim of rape.
What perpetuates a culture in which rape is stigmatised might also be the legal system's approach to criminals convicted of rape, and their treatment of rape victims.
In more advanced legal systems, victims are given priority along with sensitivity. Unfortunately, in Kurdistan the fate of a rape victim is at the discretion of the judge's conviction of whether a medical investigation should even be conducted and thereby establish whether she is raped.
In order to take proper care of the victims of rape, society needs to tackle the stigma attached to rape. Public attitude towards rape must change. By collecting stories from rape victims, non-profit organisations are hoping to break the stigmatisation and taboo surrounding rape. Moreover, if these same organisations help rape victims recover from this traumatic ordeal, it will make their lives easier, and encourage them to come forward with their cases, as opposed to feeling humiliated or ashamed.
Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 05:35AM | Ruwayda Mustafah Rabar Share Article | in Feminism, Middle East, Women
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