Disturbing the Peace: UN Peacekeepers and Sexual Abuse

By Devon Bowers

Author’s Note: This article and series focuses on sexual abuse and assault, with some graphic descriptions of such acts. Reader discretion is advised.

The United Nations is an organization in which the main goal is to “maintain international peace and security” and “to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace”[1] as a means to those ends. However, what has cropped up time and again, most recently with a 2019 New York Times article[2] focusing on UN peacekeepers in Haiti, is sexual abuse. It’s something that has not just plagued the organization for decades, but has utterly shattered, destroyed the lives of poor women around the world where they lay forgotten, often not seeing justice meted out to the ones who harmed them.

This problem, along with analyzing past and present plans to fight against this scourge, should be examined along with possible solutions. The purpose is not to ‘bash the UN’ in particular, but rather to study the systemic problems within UN peacekeeping and how it can be fixed or at least put on such a path.

Cambodia

In 1991, the UN formed the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) with the goal of “[taking] control of [Cambodia’ government] and [setting] up and run national elections” and to “help bring about a ceasefire between the various warring factions, disarm their forces and repatriate thousands of refugees languishing in camps on the Thai border.”[3] The mission seemed simple and yet problems occurred.

During this time period, there was a large resurgence of prostitution in Cambodia that was fueled by the economy but also the appearance of UN peacekeepers, which greatly increased the numbers from 10,000 in 1990 to 20,000 in 1993 when the UN exited the country.[4]

There were also allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers. Raoul M. Jennar, then-director of the European Far Eastern Research Center in Belgium, reported that “in the Preah Vihear hospital, there was for a time a majority of injured people who were young kids, the victims of sexual abuse by UN soldiers.” The situation was never handled, though women did come forth with rape and sexual abuse allegations, they were often days or weeks after the fact and so fact-finding and gathering evidence was a struggle.[5]

Besides the time lapse, such activity was openly supported by the chief of UNTAC, Yasushi Akashi, who argued that the peacekeepers “have a right to drink, enjoy themselves, and chase ‘young, beautiful beings of the opposite sex.’” This was in direct opposition to over 100 Cambodians and Westerners who alleged that sexual harassment of women occurred with disturbing frequency in any and all settings.[6]

It was this lax, uncaring, and cold attitude towards prostitution and sexual abuse that would set the tone for the UN’s peacekeeping missions.

Bosnia/Kosovo

In 1992, the United Nations established a peacekeeping force as to “provide security for the flows of humanitarian aid that were flowing into Bosnia from the international community.”[7] Approximately 40,000 UN personnel from a variety of nations were sent to aid in this goal.

Again, sexual abuse reared its ugly head. The Washington Post reported in 1993 that some UN peacekeepers, in visiting a Serb-run brothel, “took sexual advantage of Muslim and Croat women forced into prostitution, according to Muslim witnesses and the local Serb commander.” [8] The spokesman for UN forces in Sarajevo, LTC Bill Aikman, argued that such talk was nothing but “disinformation,” further stating that he didn’t “think U.N. troops could have done that.”

However, this was in direct conflict with eyewitnesses who, when being interviewed by Newsday, stated that in the summer and fall of 1992, they say on numerous occasions “saw young Muslim or Croat women being forced into U.N. armored personnel carriers or civilian cars that followed the U.N. vehicles to an unknown destination.”[9] Apparently the situation was never formally investigated by the UN, with an informal inquiry being dismissed “because ‘there was no grounds for pursuing it.”[10] Such logic is rather strange, deciding that there should be no further investigation because there isn’t any ‘real basis’ to do so, despite there not having been any formal inquiries into the matter.

Some years later, the US House of Representatives launched a formal investigation into the entire situation of prostitution and sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers and the full extent of the corruption of the UN was revealed.

The UN’s International Police Task Force was regularly involved at such aforementioned brothels. A raid of three nightclubs was done in November 2000, which found a total of six IPTF monitors in the clubs and it was revealed, according to verbatim statements from five of the women rescued from these brothels that IPTF monitors had been among the clients of these captured women.[11] When discussing the matter, UN officials contradicted themselves by denying allegations that their forces were involved in sex trafficking but “admitted that members of the force were found to have been involved in the use of young girls' services and that sometimes the children were unwilling participants.”[12]

The situation worsened due the fact that there was an active cover-up by the UN of such activities by the IPTF.

David Lamb, a human rights investigator for the UN, tore back of the curtain on the UN’s operations in Bosnia, directly linking it to sexual abuse. He even went so far as to say that:

U.N. peacekeepers' participation in the sex slave trade in Bosnia is a significant, widespread problem, resulting from a combination of factors associated with the U.N. peacekeeping operation and conditions in general in the Balkans. More precisely, the sex slave trade in Bosnia largely exists because of the U.N. peacekeeping operation. Without the peacekeeping presence, there would have been little or no forced prostitution in Bosnia. [13](emphasis added)

The Bosnian prostitution industry was organized in such a manner that there was no difference between victims of sex trafficking or women who had been forced into prostitution, creating a situation where anyone who engaged with prostitutes aided the sex slave trade.

The United Nations, on an organizational level, was completely complicit in the sex slave trade, with Lamb noting that he and others “experienced an astonishing cover-up attempt that seemed to extend to the highest levels of the U.N. headquarters.” Investigators would not only be rebuffed by those they were investigating, but the UN would launch “formal investigations against the investigators while giving no support to the original investigation, a scenario which was not new to the U.N. Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”[14] (emphasis added) So rather than punish the people who were committing crimes, the UN found it easier to harass and intimidate the investigators.

Lamb’s testimony bolstered previous claims. In December 2001, it was reported that the UN “quashed an investigation earlier this year into whether U.N. police were directly involved in the enslavement of Eastern European women in Bosnian brothels, according to U.N. officials and internal documents.”[15] During this time, Lamb noted that “his preliminary inquiry found more than enough evidence to justify a full-scale criminal investigation,” however it was killed by higher-ups. The UN even argued that there wasn’t enough evidence to point to systemic police involvement, in spite of the previous November 2000 raid.

Such activities weren’t just occurring on Bosnia, but also in neighboring Kosovo. Amnesty International reported within months of UN soldiers arriving in 1999 to aid in the aftermath of the Bosnia-Kosovo war, brothels sprung up and Kosovo “soon became a major destination country for women trafficked into forced prostitution.”[16] The situation persisted over a decade later, with UN forces being blamed for the growth of the sex slave industry in which many under-age girls were viciously tortured, raped, and abused.[17]

The biggest hurdle towards obtaining justice for the women and children who had been abused was that issue of legal immunity. Foreigners that were part of the UN mission, whether as a military/police force or a civilians, had near-absolute legal immunity. Specifically, Article 6 of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the U.N.” provides immunity from personal arrest or detention and from seizure of personal baggage, and in respect to words spoken or written and acts done by them in the course of the performance of their mission, immunity from legal process of every kind.”[18] Thus, the perpetrators of so much horror were never able to be brought to justice.

This only compounded the situation for the victims as not only was there a cover up by the UN, but the legal immunity created a situation in which they would never get to take their abusers to court.

Mozambique

Due to an ongoing civil war, which displaced over six million Mozambicans, the UN was called in an attempt to create a situation where both sides, the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique as the legitimate government and the rebels known as the Mozambican National Resistance, could come to talks.[19]

Similar to Cambodia and Bosnia, the very presence of the peacekeepers was argued to have led to an increase in prostitution and while there were investigations which resulted in some soldiers being expelled from the country, not a single one of them was actually prosecuted.[20]

These arguments were later confirmed when then-UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali had a formal inquiry conducted into peacekeepers involvement in child prostitution which found that “after the signing of the peace treaty in 1992, soldiers of the United Nations operation in Mozambique recruited girls aged 12 to 18 years into prostitution”[21] as well as the linkage between the arrival of peacekeepers and growth in child prostitution.

The year UN forces left, 1994, it came out that Italian soldiers were engaging in sexual misconduct with child prostitutes, as young as twelve to fourteen years old.[22] This incident was simply the one which was put on blast. International NGO Save The Children conducted an investigation into the matter of Italian soldiers being involved in sexual abuse.

The report explained that suspicions were raised and questions asked when the Italian soldiers engaged in commercial sex, but the matter became even more serious “when the soldiers started to make a clear request for sex with minors and recruited street children for all kind of services: domestic work (at a marginal fee), shopping, procuring illegal goods for trade and as mediators (pimps) for commercial sex,”[23] with the situation evolving to the point where the Italians had one of their liaison officers act as a mediator between the soldiers and the pimps/girls.

It goes on to note the disposition of soldiers, prices paid, and punishments for speaking out, which should be quoted at some length.

Most girls in the trade were aged between 13 and 18 years. Private conversations with the soldiers indicated that this was because of `more fun and excitement' and due to the fear of AIDS. Rates for sex differed. Generally, the price was 1.00 US Dollar for sex with a condom and $ 1.10 without. Some soldiers started a liaison with girls, and arranged a flat, room or other venue for them for regular encounters. […] The military doctor of the Italian Contingent Albatroz who served in Chimoio from October 1993 till early 1994, got reprimanded by the (Italian) Regional ONUMOZ Commander Mazzaroli when he reported in writing on the developments. In fact, the doctor was to serve till May 1994 in Chimoio and it is believed that he was repatriated to Italy at an earlier stage due to his critical attitude.[24] (emphasis added)

By late 1993, the Italians became so comfortable and lax that the local staff of NGO Redd Barna (presently known in Mozambique as Save The Children), the Norwegian branch of the International Save the Children Alliance, noticed them having sex with minors in uniform, in and on UN vehicles in the city of Chimoio, with houses even being rented for parties and sex.[25]

In response to this, on September 24, 1993 the head of the Mozambique branch of Redd Barna contacted the head of the main organization to discuss the situation. After visiting Chimoio to get first-hand knowledge of the activities of Italian soldiers, the Secretary-General of Redd Barna joined forces with elements of the International Save the Children Alliance resulting in, most importantly, a letter being written to head of UN forces in Mozambique regarding the situation.

This letter was released by the Children Alliance in December 1993, which the very next month, January 1994, was quoted in an independent Mozambique newspaper, specifically that the letter had been faxed from a high official in the headquarters UN Mozambique to the newspaper. The anonymous official even told Redd Barna that this was done because senior UN staff were “making all possible attempts” to hide and cover up the incidents.

This article was subsequently picked up by various outlets including Associated Press, CNN, NBC, and Reuters. In the immediate aftermath, Italian soldiers were confined to their respective bases. On January 26, 1994, the UN Mozambique contingency issued a statement in which they said, in part, that because “no concrete evidence or information was supplied by the initiators of this accusation, it has not been possible to complete the investigation.”[26]

It should be noted here that the language used is far from neutral, by referring to Redd Barna as “initiators of this accusation” it creates a tone where the NGO is seen as spreading rumors and hearsay. It also leads to the question of how they can’t complete an investigation unless concrete evidence has been supplied. One would think that their investigators, given the serious nature of the situation, would actively be looking for such evidence.

An investigative commission was formed by UN Mozambique and actively utilized Redd Barna to aid in its investigation. This, coupled with them having been the main source, along with the Save the Children Alliance, of the situation going public, painted a target on the organization’s back.  This resulted in Italian soldiers intimidating Redd Barna workers, threatening phone calls, telephone lines and the radio network being tapped when transferring fax messages, and feeding disinformation to journalists.

There was a reveal of a civilian-military divide in that on the week of February 18, 1994, the departing UN commander, Lélio Gonçalves, gave interviews where  he actively denied that UN peacekeepers were engaging in “sexual abuse of minors and sneered about [the International Save The Children Alliance’s] and Redd Barna's concern.” It should be noted that such statements were made “while his superior, [the special representative of the UN Secretary-General, Mr A.Ajello], had already confirmed the involvement of [UN] personnel.”[27] In addition, more and more UN staff approached the organization to provide information, yet were often despised and harassed by colleagues and superiors.

Still, after all of that, nothing was done. The actors just moved deeper into the darkness. After the publication of the investigative report, the Italian soldiers simply continued to engage in their sick practices in more hidden and remote locations and senior officers would intimate girls, forcing them to sign statements saying that the Italians weren’t engaging in any wrongdoing.[28]

Somalia and Haiti

The UN mission in Somalia, only lasting from 1992 to 1995, revealed that even when soldiers were caught in the wrong, their respective nation’s militaries wouldn’t mete out full justice.

Belgian peacekeepers accused of torturing Somali children, Italians, of raping Somali women. The Italian situation was so bad that two generals resigned as evidence of torture mounted and a day after photo evidence of an Italian soldier raping a Somali woman were published.[29]

In 1993, a Belgian paratrooper “allegedly procured a teenage Somali girl as a birthday present to a paratrooper. She was reportedly forced to perform a strip show at a birthday party and to have sexual relations with two Belgian paratroopers.”[30] A military court in 1998 sentenced that paratrooper to one year imprisonment (six months were suspended), a fine, and discharged them from the army. Meanwhile, even though the Italian government conducted a commission which “found credible evidence of a number of instances of gang-rape, sexual assault, and theft with violence,”[31] nothing was done to actually punish those troops.

In Haiti, months after international forces arrived in 1994, a number of women’s organizations petitioned the Justice Ministry to investigate the foreign soldiers as it was public information that “several cases of abuse of women and girls by soldiers in several towns throughout the country” had taken place. A former UN staff member even confided that observers had told their superiors in 1995 in Port-au-Prince of “allegations of sexual abuse committed by French and [Caribbean] UN ‘peacekeepers,’ only to be promptly ordered to desist from exploring the claims any further.”[32]

So on one instance we see just what happens when military personnel are subjected to their justice system, in which a slap on the wrist of sorts occurs and on the other we see still the UN covering up and stonewalling investigations into abuse.

East Timor

In 1999, international forces were deployed to East Timor to oversee its transition to becoming a fully independent country and to deal with the Indonesian intervention which consisted of backing guerrilla groups.[33]

Three years into the mission, it was reported at least two soldiers from Jordan had been accused of sexually assaulting an unknown number of boys. When asked if any investigations regarding these allegations had been conducted, the senior UN military observer, LTC Paul Roney, stated that he was unable to answer the question.[34]

The Jordanian peacekeepers were a major problem as “[interviews] by UN investigators [made claims of] Jordanian involvement in several alleged rapes of boys and women.”[35] This was known by the UN administration in East Timor itself, with the administrator Sergio Vieira de Mello, doing his best to keep the matter quiet.

An incident paralleling Bosnia took place in 2003. A UN police force raided an illegal brothel and found 23 Thai women who had been trafficked into the country, some even being underage, along with six UN police officers. The UN made the incredibly weak argument that the officers were just getting massages and didn’t know it was an illegal brothel.

Specifically, the UN’s Acting Deputy Operations Commissioner, Alan King, stated that the officers came “from a country where massage is quite a legitimate business and in many cases here in East Timor massage parlors exist and they are quite legitimate” and there was no indication “that they went there for anything other than a legitimate purpose.”[36]

Just like so many of the other cases, not a single person faced justice. Daily Australian outlet The Age reported in 2006 that “Sukehiro Hasegawa, the top UN official in East Timor, has acknowledged for the first time that the UN system failed to bring anyone to justice for crimes that included sex abuse of children and bestiality.”[37] Hasegawa announced that a ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards sexual abuse by any and all UN forces would be put into motion immediately.

The abuse of women in East Timor had long lasting impacts. There were approximately 20 cases of children who had been fathered by peacekeepers, however, no national record exists to get a better grasp of the situation.[38] Soldiers had made promises to marry the women, but would simply return to their home countries. The women and children were left behind to deal with being shunned by their community.

In 2003, the UN put out a bulletin putting the entire entity on notice that sexual abuse would not be tolerated, including that exchanging money for sexual favors “or other forms of humiliating, degrading or exploitative behavior, is prohibited.”[39] It established that the head of the mission in question would be responsible for fostering an environment in which such activities would be discouraged and prevented, ensuring each staff member would receive a copy of the bulletin to ensure that there is no excuse of someone not knowing the rules, and that a system would be established to report on sexual abuse cases. Still, this would have no serious effect on sexual abuse.

Sierra Leone

To deal with rebel elements in Sierra Leone and aid in the creation of a unity government comprised of the rebels and legitimate government, forces were sent to the country in 1999.[40]

The entire situation amounted to a horror show for the women of Sierra Leone. The Telegraph made known a report from Human Rights Watch.

But it found evidence of sexual atrocities being committed by troops from the regional intervention force, Ecomog, and the UN peacekeeping mission.

Women were used by all sides as chattels, kidnapped from their homes often in rural areas and forced to act as sex slaves for the troops as well as domestic maids responsible for cooking and household chores.

"To date there has been no accountability for the thousands of crimes of sexual violence or other appalling human rights abuses committed during the war in Sierra Leone," the report said.[41]

There was no reprieve for women here, the very people that were supposed to protected them were also the ones raping and abusing the

That same report revealed a number of crimes done by international forces. In April 2002, “witnesses saw a woman apparently being raped by two Ukrainian peacekeepers near the eastern town of Joru. There was no formal investigation into the matter.” (emphasis added) [42] In June, an officer from Bangladesh was accused of sexually assaulting a 14 year old boy, but a formal investigation found results to be inconclusive and the officer was soon sent back to his home country.

During March 2002, UN spokesperson Margaret A. Novicki, stated that the mission in Sierra Leone was going about conducting an ongoing training program for military personnel which focused on women’s rights and the zero tolerance policy for sexual exploitation and abuse and that the military command was visiting sector and contingent commanders to emphasize the need to police soldiers’ conduct.[43] The previous month, however, the a probe from the UN Human Right Council and the UK arm of the organization Save The Children revealed just how much the conduct of peacekeeping forces had deteriorated.

The joint investigation found a major disconnect between what was being said and what was going on the ground. A UN officer stated that “Every soldier, officer has been read and shown the code of conduct; no one can plead ignorance.”[44] Thus, while knowing the code of conduct, peacekeepers still engaged in abuse by exchanging money and food with children for sexual services, paying between $5 and $300 USD. Witnesses “spoke of teenage girls being asked to strip naked, bath and pose in certain positions while the peacekeepers took pictures, watched and laughed. Some are alleged to have had sex with the girls without using condoms.”[45]

There were several incidents of peacekeepers going to extremes in that they would meet with the child’s parents, feigning good intentions, but would leave abruptly, give the parents money to take care of the girl, or even shower the girl with gifts. The victims, on all levels, were the girls. While they were being abused by the peacekeepers, the community would respond by parading and publically shaming the girls in town.[46]

There was a separate inquiry conducted by the UN in late 2002 where it came to light that “there was no encouragement for staff or other persons to report ethical issues to management, nor for that matter is there a particular office or person with whom this type of problem can be discussed,”[47] but there were slight improvements such as the formation of a Personal Conduct Committee to examine cases of misconduct for UN workers, both military and civilian. Yet, it was known that sexual abuse cases were underreported. The Office of Internal Oversight Services found a single allegation of such abuse, but with over 17,000 soldiers, it shows that there are serious deficiencies with the reporting system rather than a lack of cases.[48]

A Human Rights Watch report documented several cases of rape by peacekeeping troops.

A Sergeant Ballah, from Guinea, was alleged to have engaged in the rape of a twelve year old girl according to the Sierra Leone police. The victim was raped in March 2001 “when she asked for Sgt. Ballah’s assistance in securing a ride to Freetown at the checkpoint that he was manning”[49] and even though Ballah went to court, he was simply sent back to Guinea. In a separate case, a Bangladeshi peacekeeper allegedly raped a fourteen year old boy (the rape had ben medically confirmed) and the police began to conduct an investigation, “until the UNAMSIL provost marshal took it over. The provost marshal concluded that there was no conclusive evidence to link the crime to the perpetrator.”[50] The inquiry was conducted haphazardly, with members of the Bangladeshi contingent speaking with the victim, despite the fact that they shouldn’t have been able to, nor did the UN mission even issue the victim or his family an apology, much less provide compensation or note the outcome of the investigation. This lines up with the summary that there was “reluctance on the part of UNAMSIL to investigate and take disciplinary measures against the perpetrators.”[51] Despite setting up a code of conduct and reinforcing a zero tolerance policy, we see that such acts were half-hearted measures given incorrect investigation methods and flat out interference in cases.

The UN even noted that charges against its own personnel and humanitarian workers working at UN camps, such as forcing women and children to provide sexual favors for food, medicine, and relief supplies, were investigated by the Office of Internal Oversight Services but dropped on the grounds that there wasn’t enough evidence.[52] It seems that the OIOS acts as many internal investigatory groups: covering up incidents and protecting criminals.

Congo

Peacekeepers were sent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to aid in the implementation of a ceasefire between several warring factions starting in 1999.[53]

In mid-2002, Human Rights Watch published the report The War within the War: Sexual Violence against Women and Girls in Eastern Congo, where several acts of sexual assault were recorded. One such incident occurred in December 2001, when a Congolese woman dropped off an eleven year old girl to a Moroccan soldier, who proceeded to sexually assault the girl, but was kept at his post.[54] Though the zero tolerance policy had been in effect and there was an increase in gender awareness training and even a gender advisor, the mission still lacked any training strictly revolving around the sexual violence.

During July 2004 the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services began to investigate a number of accusations, ranging from a child prostitution ring being ran out of a UN airport to Nepalese soldiers raping minors and even allegations of a Tunisian officer soliciting sex from minors.[55] Most of the allegations revolved around the town of Bunia.

The UN seems to have ignored the situation until it reached a critical mass as The Independent obtained documents which showed that in August 2003, the child-protection office sent a memo to the UN’s Congo headquarters “detailing their fears about the allegations of sexual exploitation by [UN] forces. No action was taken.” Children were put at risk as despite allegations of Moroccan troops engaging in “child pornography, organized sex shows and the rape of babies,” they were still sent to Bunia where in 2004 it was found that “19 out of 50 cases of sexual violence against minors in Bunia were carried out by [Moroccan] troops.”[56] By transferring the Moroccan’s despite such extreme allegations, it could be argued that the UN on some level played a role in these sexual violence cases having occurred.

Horrors against the most vulnerable of Congolese society continued unabated. The New York Times reported in December 2004 on a 12-year-old girl, Helen, and a 13-year-old girl, Solange, both of whom were raped by UN peacekeepers who lured the girls in using food.[57]

In January 2005, the UN conducted an investigation into the matter, finding that “Congolese women and girls confirmed that sexual contact with peacekeepers occurred with regularity, usually in exchange for food or small sums of money.”[58] Unfortunately, the vast majority of allegations were unable to be substantiated. The Office of Internal Oversight Services complied a total of 20 cases and was able to corroborate only seven cases, as in remaining cases the victims and witnesses weren’t able to positively identify perpetrators.

Shockingly, while this investigation was going on, peacekeepers were still engaging in sexual acts, “evidenced by the presence of freshly used condoms near military camps and guard posts and by the additional allegations of recent cases of solicitations brought to the attention of the OIOS team during the last days of the investigation.”[59]

Out of the report came several recommendations, among them were: to create and implement a prevention program, “establish a rapid-response detection program, utilizing personnel experienced in such cases,” ensuring that UN administrators and officers can demonstrate that current rules and regulations aimed at preventing sexual abuse/exploitation are being enforced, and creating a program to “provide regular briefings for troops on their responsibilities to the local population and on prohibited behaviors”[60] so that everyone, from peacekeepers on up, would be on the same page.

Due to this report, a sexual abuse focal-point element was created for all UN agencies in the Congo, a website was established to educate staff on exactly what constituted sexual abuse/exploitation, and a strict curfew was put in place. In March 2005, the UN Security Council issued a resolution focusing on the Congo, which in part they asked the Secretary General to ensure compliance to the zero tolerance policy on sexual abuse, that perpetrators be investigated and punished.[61]

The UN began looking into the alleged child prostitution ring in August 2006. While many of the patrons were Congolese soldiers, early testimonies from victims revealed that ring leaders became interested in the presence of UN forces and the money they had as a catalyst for creating the ring.[62]

There were further child prostitution ring allegations surround a contingency from India two years later, but the soldiers were found innocent by Indian courts.[63] In another instance of abuse by Indian soldiers, there were allegations that they had fathered nearly 12 children after DNA tests were conducted and showed the children having distinct Indian features. While one soldiers was punished as it was found that his DNA sample matched with one of the children born, others only had administrative action recommended and others still were given a clean slate.[64]

Despite sexual abuse allegations having been on the decline[65], the situation seemed to continue to deteriorate as The Globe and Mail reported that in February 2011, two teenaged orphans were attacked with two Congolese soldiers beating one of the girls, while the other was gang raped and impregnated.[66] The UN soldiers were still out in the field even after the incident.[67]

Overall, there was a complete lack of punishment for soldiers that engaged in abuse and exploitation. The Independent reported in 2007 that nearly 200 peacekeepers had been disciplined in sexual abuse cases since 2004, but not a single one had been prosecuted. In fact, of the 319 people that had been investigated in the 2004-2007 time frame for sexual misconduct, 180 had been either dismissed or sent back to their home countries.[68]

Just for the missions launched in the 1990s, there were cover ups, lies, and even an outright acceptance of blue helmets engaging in abuse. Unfortunately, for the missions that started up in the 2000s, the women and girls of a myriad of nations would be subject to abuse, no more so than in Haiti. 

Notes

[1] United Nations, Chapter 1: Purposes and Principles, https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-i/index.html

[2] Elian Peltier, “U.N. Peacekeepers in Haiti Said to Have Fathered Hundreds of Children,” New York Times, December 18, 2019 (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/world/americas/haiti-un-peacekeepers.html)

[3] Kevin Ponniah, “In 1993, the UN tried to bring democracy to Cambodia. Is that dream dead?,” BBC News, July 28, 2018 (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44966916)

[4] Donna M. Hughes, “Welcome to the Rape Camp: Sexual Exploitation and the Internet in Cambodia,” Journal of Sexual Aggression 6 (Winter 2000), pg 4

[5] Sandra Whitworth, “Gender, Race and the Politics of Peacekeeping,” in Edward Moxon-Browne, editor, A Future in Peacekeeping? (New York, New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1998), pg 179

[6] Anne Orford, “The Politics of Collective Security,” Michigan Journal of International Law 17:2 (1996), pgs 378-379

[7] Globalization 101, Peacekeeping in Bosnia, http://www.globalization101.org/peacekeeping-in-bosnia/

[8] Roy Gutman, “U.N. Forces Accused of Using Serb-run Brothel,” Washington Post, November 2, 1993 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/11/02/un-forces-accused-of-using-serb-run-brothel/78414de2-36d0-41c0-9081-c3a5ee513078/)

[9] Ibid

[10] Susan Dewey, Hollow Bodies: Institutional Responses to Sex Trafficking in Armenia, Bosnia, and India (West Harford, CT: Kumarian Press, 2008), pg 101

[11] U.S. Congress, House, Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Relations and Human Rights, The U.N. and the Sex Slave Trade in Bosnia: Isolated Case or Larger Problem in UN System (Washington D.C.: Subcommittee on International Relations and Human Rights, House Committee On International Relations, 2002) (http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa78948.000/hfa78948_0f.htm), pg 47

[12] Ibid, pg 8

[13] Ibid, pg 66

[14] Ibid, pg 68

[15] Colum Lynch, “U.N. Halted Probe of Officers' Alleged Role in Sex Trafficking,” Washington Post, December 27, 2001 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/12/27/un-halted-probe-of-officers-alleged-role-in-sex-trafficking/2e2465f3-32b4-42ff-a8df-7a8108e4b9ee/)

[16] Amnesty International, Kosovo (Serbia & Montenegro) “So does that mean I have rights?” https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/96000/eur700102004en.pdf (May 6, 2004), pg 7

[17] Ian Traynor, “Westerner troops fuelling Kosovo sex trade,” Irish Times, May 7, 2004 (https://www.irishtimes.com/news/westerner-troops-fuelling-kosovo-sex-trade-1.1139448)

[18]Human Rights Watch, Hope Betrayed: Trafficking of Women and Girls to Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina for Forced Prostitution, https://www.hrw.org/report/2002/11/26/hopes-betrayed/trafficking-women-and-girls-post-conflict-bosnia-and-herzegovina (November 26, 2002), pg 46

[19] William Gehrke, “The Mozambique Crisis: A Case for United Nations Military Intervention,” Cornell International Law Journal 24:1 (1991), pg 135

[20] A.B., Fetherson, UN Peacekeepers and Cultures of Violence, Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine, https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/un-peacekeepers-and-cultures-violence (May 1995)

[21] United Nations, General Assembly, Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Children, A/51/306, August 26, 1996 (https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3b00f2d30.pdf), pg 31

[22] Stanley Meisler, “Prostitution Report Accuses U.N. Troops in Mozambique,” Los Angeles Times, February 26, 1994 (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-02-26-mn-27378-story.html)

[23] Ernst Schade, Report On Experiences With Regards to the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces in Mozambique, November 20, 1995, pg 13

[24] Ibid

[25] Ibid, pg 14

[26] Ibid, pg 17

[27] Ibid, pg 20

[28] Ibid, pg 21

[29] Raf Casert, “In Italy, Belgium and Italy, Somalia peacekeeping scandals growing,” Associated Press, June 24, 1997 (https://apnews.com/deea729ccf6dfe142799ed245261b675)

[30] Ingrid Westendorp, M. W. Wolleswinkel, Ria Wolleswinkel, eds., Violence In The Domestic Sphere (Holmes Beach, FL: Gaunt Inc), 2005, pg 15

[31] Ibid

[32] Ibid

[33] Government of Canada, International Force in East Timor (INTERFET), https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/military-history/history-heritage/past-operations/asia-pacific/toucan.html

[34] Ginny Stein, Allegations against Jordanian peacekeepers, Australian Broadcasting Company, https://www.abc.net.au/am/stories/s317953.htm (June 25, 2001)

[35] Mark Dodd, “Hushed Rape of Timor,” The Weekend Australian, March 26, 2005 (https://web.archive.org/web/20050328014753/https://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12655192%5E2703,00.html)

[36] Nick McKenzie, Claim UN officers customers in East Timor sex slave brothels, Australian Broadcasting Company, https://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2003/s898377.htm (July 9, 2003)

[37] Lindsay Murdoch, “UN acts to stamp out sex abuse by staff in East Timor,” The Age, August 30, 2006 (https://www.theage.com.au/world/un-acts-to-stamp-out-sex-abuse-by-staff-in-east-timor-20060830-ge3114.html)

[38] Sofi Ospina, A Review and Evaluation of Gender-Related Activities of UN Peacekeeping Operations and their Impact on Gender Relations in Timor Leste. PeaceWomen, http://peacewomen.org/sites/default/files/dpko_timorlesteevaluation_2006_0.pdf (July 11, 2006), pg 44

[39] United Nations, Secretary-General’s Bulletin, Special measures for protection from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, ST/SGB/2003/13, October 9, 2003 (https://undocs.org/ST/SGB/2003/13), pg 2

[40] World Peace Foundation, United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone Brief, https://sites.tufts.edu/wpf/files/2017/07/Sierra-Leone-brief.pdf

[41] Tim Butcher, “UN troops accused of 'systematic' rape in Sierra Leone,” The Telegraph, January 17, 2003 (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/sierraleone/1419168/UN-troops-accused-of-systematic-rape-in-Sierra-Leone.html)

[42] Human Rights Watch, World Report 2003, https://www.hrw.org/legacy/wr2k3/pdf/sierraleone.pdf, pg 70

[43] Global Policy Forum, UN Takes Action Against Peacekeepers’ Misconduct, https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/203/39393.html (March 18, 2002)

[44] United Nations Human Rights Council, Save The Children-United Kingdom, Sexual Violence & Exploitation: The Experience of Refugee Children in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, https://www.unhcr.org/en-au/3c7cf89a4.pdf (February 2002), pg 6

[45] Ibid

[46] Ibid, pg 7

[47] United Nations, General Assembly, Investigation into sexual exploitation of refugees by aid workers in West Africa, A/57/465, October 11, 2002 (https://undocs.org/en/A/57/465), pg 16

[48] Ibid

[49] Human Rights Watch, “We’ll Kill You If You Cry: Sexual Violence in the Sierra Leone Conflict, https://www.hrw.org/report/2003/01/16/well-kill-you-if-you-cry/sexual-violence-sierra-leone-conflict (January 2003), pg 48

[50] Ibid, pg 49

[51] Ibid, pg 4

[52] Michael Fleshman, Tough UN Line on Peacekeeper Abuses, United Nations, https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2005/tough-un-line-peacekeeper-abuses (April 2005)

[53] United Nations, United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, https://peacekeeping.un.org/mission/past/monuc/

[54] Human Rights Watch, The War within the War: Sexual Violence against Women and Girls in Eastern Congo, https://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/drc/Congo0602.pdf (June 2002), pg 95

[55] Children & Armed Conflict: Impact, Protection, and Rehabilitation Research Project, Abuse by UN Troops In D.R.C. May Go Unpunished, Report Says, http://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/childrenandwar/news_abuse_by_un_troops.php (July 12, 2004)

[56] Kate Holt, Sarah Hughes, “Will Congo's women ever have justice?” The Independent, July 12, 2004 (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/will-congos-women-ever-have-justice-46938.html)

[57] Marc Lacey, In Congo War, Even Peacekeepers Add to Horror,” New York Times, December 18, 2004 (https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/18/world/africa/in-congo-war-even-peacekeepers-add-to-horror.html)

[58] United Nations, General Assembly, Investigation by the Office of Internal Oversight Services into allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse in the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, A/59/661, January 5, 2005 (https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/SE%20A%2059%20661.pdf), pg 1

[59] Ibid, pg 11

[60] Ibid, pgs 12-13

[61] Susan A. Notar, “Peacekeepers as Perpetrators: Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Women and Children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Journal of Gender, Social Policy, and the Law 14:2 (2006), pg 420

[62] United Nations News, UN investigates allegations of child prostitution involving peacekeepers in DR Congo, https://news.un.org/en/story/2006/08/189322-un-investigates-allegations-child-prostitution-involving-peacekeepers-dr-congo (August 17, 2006)

[63] Kwame Akonor, UN Peacekeeping in Africa: A Critical Examination and Recommendations for Improvements (New York, NY: Springer, 2017), pg 39

[64] Gautam Datt, “Indian army's shame: Indictment of 4 Indian peacekeepers for 'sexual misconduct' on a UN posting in Congo dents the army's honor,” India Today, November 5, 2012 (https://www.indiatoday.in/india/north/story/indian-army-shamed-action-against-jawan-for-fathering-child-congo-india-today-122447-2012-11-25)

[65] UN News, Sexual abuse allegations decline against UN peacekeepers in DR Congo and Liberia, https://news.un.org/en/story/2011/07/382842-sexual-abuse-allegations-decline-against-un-peacekeepers-dr-congo-and-liberia, July 27, 2011

[66] Gerald Caplan, “Peacekeepers gone wild: How much more abuse will the UN ignore in Congo?” The Globe and Mail, August 3, 2012 (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/peacekeepers-gone-wild-how-much-more-abuse-will-the-un-ignore-in-congo/article4462151/

[67] Matthew Russell Lee, On UN Report of Peacekeeper Rape in Congo, Ladsous' DPKO Says Nothing, Inner City Press, http://www.innercitypress.com/ladsous1congorape080712.html (August 7, 2012)

[68] Ruth Elkins, Francis Elliot, “UN Shame Over Sex Scandal,” The Independent, January 7, 2007 (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/un-shame-over-sex-scandal-431121.html)

"How Much Do You Cost?": A Story of Sexual Neo-Colonialism

By Sonasha Braxton

I'll start at the beginning. Here is who I am…I am an African-American woman. I am 32 years old. I was born in the United States. My parents are from the United States. My parents' parents are from the United States and so on. Many of my ancestors were already here…Some of my ancestors were brought here in chains, and sold on auction blocks. I consider myself African by nature, American by nurture.

Once upon a time when I was 21 years old, I was a student at United States International University in Nairobi, Kenya. It was my first time in Africa. I had been there about for about two months, when I was out at a bar with my friends, very close to the campus. My friends and I were all college students, and dressed accordingly so. I walked myself to the bar and took 200ksh out of my pocket to buy my myself a beer. Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around. It was a Caucasian male in his late 40s with scraggly hair. This man was slightly out of place in a college bar, but not an unfamiliar sight in the Nairobi nightlife. The music was blaring. I couldn't hear him well, but he seemed to be pointing to another corner of the bar and making motions towards the beer I had already ordered. I side-eyed him and shook my head. Whatever it was I wasn't interested. I had what I came for. He tapped me on the shoulder again and motioned for me to bring my ear closer to his lips so he could tell me something without yelling. I sighed and conceded, bending down slightly. "My friend would like to buy you a drink," he said. I, beer already in hand, raised my beer and pointed to it. "I'm okay! I just bought myself a drink, but thanks!" I sashayed away back to my friends, and started dancing.

Scene 2. I was thirsty again. I walked back to the bar. The same 40-something white man with the scraggly hair was there. This time he stood up directly in front of the space I thought I would be able to squeeze into the bar. "My friend wants to buy you a drink! He wants to meet you!" he yelled, again pointing over to some dark corner. At this point somewhat curious, and one Tusker in, I replied "why can't your friend talk to me himself?". "He's shy," he responded. Amused that we had reverted to middle school interactions, and half expecting him to deliver a paper which said "will you go out with me" with "yes", "no" and "maybe" as boxes to check, I became curious. I thought, maybe his friend is a cute 20-something Kenyan banker, a gorgeous 30-year old Ugandan lawyer… I thought, who knows. "He's right over here" he insisted. I said "ok" and followed him just a few steps away from the bar, to a high top in the corner. The friend was an unattractive 50-something Caucasian- American. He greeted me, shook my hand, asked my name, and where I was from. I answered, recoiled my hand, said "nice to meet you, but I'm going to go back to my friends". He motioned for me to join them. I shook my head and hustled back to the table where my friends were.

Scene 3. Last drink. Same man. Same spot. Same question. Same refusal. Followed by the question, the first of many of the same design, with different accents, languages and configurations, that I would hear often while living in Kenya, "my friend wants to know how much". I said, "how much what?", totally confused. "My friend wants to know how much it would cost for him to sleep with you?". What happened next, is somewhat of a blur. I know that a fury engulfed me. I remember walking outside. I felt like I was suffocating. I remember coming back. I remember using a lot of expletives. But what I will never forget is how the situation was resolved. I was asked to leave the club… I was told I was making too much noise. I was disturbing business. This was not the last time something like this would transpire. It would go on to happen in Djibouti, and in Ethiopia, and in Ivory Coast. I Black woman, minding my own business, sexually propositioned by he, White man with a few dollars in his pocket, was at fault for disrupting a totally unacceptable and disrespectful attempted "transaction".

Since this first occurrence back in my 20s, I have learned to contain myself somewhat better, to learn to listen for the response to the question I now pose genuinely curious, "what makes you think you can buy me?". I have heard everything from "oh I'm sorry…I thought you were from (insert country here)" to "everything can be bought"; everything equally as insulting. All that these answers have amounted to is this, "as a Black woman, your body is a commodity, that I as a White man, have the right to purchase it/you". While this is a personal narrative, I do not share this burden alone. It becomes important as it makes the case of what I will call "sexual neo-colonialism", a legacy of the exploitation of the bodies of women of color. If we understand neo-colonialism, as the last stage of imperialism, as did Kwame Nkrumah, as its most dangerous stage; as a stage in which sovereignty is only a façade and that power is used for "exploitation rather than development", than we must too understand neo-colonialism as the most dangerous stage not just for the "developing state" but for its people, particularly its women. The African female whether in diaspora or continental stands to lose her sovereignty, and too be exploited, rather than space intentionally made for her to develop herself the way she sees fit.

Colonialism left in its wake the destruction of pre-colonial political, social and economic systems in which women ranked highly, and replaced them first with "native authorities" exclusive of women followed by clientele-patronage systems, which too excluded women. Women often lost tremendous power during the colonial period as well as economic autonomy. This resulted from women's exclusion from the global marketplace and new reliance of women's unpaid labor. Customary laws developed under colonialism and inherited from Europe, disadvantaged women favoring men. They accorded particular rights to men, such as the right to testify in trials, that were closed to women. Women were removed from power as heads of associations often with the final say over market or agricultural disputes, and replaced with men[1]. Simply colonial rule restructured family, sex, gender and sexuality by creating legal mechanisms to control women's positions in society, positions in their families, and expressions of their sexuality, for the sake of White Western capital.

The trickle-down effect of the disempowerment of the African woman has also emboldened the White hetero male to assume his place in the hierarchy of African affairs is one of superiority, and one in which any Black woman continues to be for sale. This is further reinforced often by the colonial mentality, the internalized colonialism of many members of African society, which favors and in fact protects unfettered white male hetero sexuality and promotes its unbridled exploits. It is this internalized colonialism, in actuality, the reaction of those around her, that asks the Black woman either to suppress her reaction to verbal sexual violence totally, or to react within the confines of what white hetero-males have sanctioned as polite gender normativity; to smile and say "no thank you", to gently brush away prodding hands, to repeat "no" quietly, avert our eyes, and meekly insist that we decline such advances. This internalized colonialism of its witnesses says she is "overreacting", when she yells, pushes away, tells, or even says no firmly. It says that "well, most other women would have said yes".

Someone will say that this will stop when African women stop having relationships with such men. Someone will say that when these women, who may find poverty less miserable than sex with the occasional dream peddling foreigner, simply say no, then all African women will stop being objectified. To which I would respond that until the system that has systematically underdeveloped not only Africa but the entire Global South, a system which has destroyed indigenous spirituality and replaced it with a White savior both hanging in the homes of its believers and walking the streets as sex tourists, is dismantled, then Black women, Brown Women, all women of color, will continue to be harmed by it.

This returns me to my story. The man in question was an American. There was no question of impoverished conditions. I clearly stated that I too was American, but this did not prevent the proposition, nor has it on multiple occasions. I, due to the intersectionality of my race and gender, was considered a commodity, buyable, and expendable. I am not the only woman of color who has had such an experience. I often exchange stories with my expat women of color friends, who have often witnessed and experienced the same. The globally internalized white hetero male superiority complex and systemic inherited exploitative North-South relations that support the continued effort to colonize, conquer and commodify the woman of color's body, as an economic enterprise, must necessarily change, and sexual neo-colonialism, must be destroyed and at last put to rest….

So I will finish at the beginning. I am an African-American woman. I am 32 years old. I was born in the United States. My parents are from the United States. My parents' parents are from the United States and so on. Many of my ancestors were already here. Some of my ancestors were brought here in chains, and sold on auction blocks. But, "How much do I cost?"…I am priceless. We are priceless. Not even on the auction block were my ancestors' souls for sale.

To Live Among Broken Men: Theorizing Rape and Incest

By Danny Shaw

On April 9th, Ronald Savage rocked the hip hop world with his testimony about the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of Zulu Nation founder, Africa Bambaataa. Initially, the Zulu Nation dismissed the allegations "as nothing more than a continuation of the decades long HIP HOP COINTELPRO campaign to discredit and destroy the Universal Zulu Nation." However, as more survivors of Bambaataa's abuse emerged, the momentum shifted. It was clear that Bambaataa had abused children, other leaders had covered up for him and that a thorough investigation and process of healing was necessary.

While many people are understandably shocked that sexual abuse could penetrate the inner-most circles of pioneering Zulu Nation, this is also an opportunity for our communities to reflect on just how commonplace sexual abuse, incest, pedophilia and rape is.

The May 21st gang-rape of a 16-year-old girl in Brazil by 33 men and Brock Turner's rape of a 23-year old woman behind a dumpster at Stanford University are the latest high-profile examples of the everyday terror exercised against women.

Ronald Savage's story, my family's story, my story and so many other stories of survival highlight the need for a Marxist historical interpretation of sexual violence & incest. Marxism-the painstaking, socio-economic investigative method-does away with the vacuous theory that sick, depraved abusers are merely an aberration of the human spirit. The wide prevalence of sexual violence speaks volumes about the criminal, decadent nature of capitalism. There is a specific system that engenders the widespread abuse of women and children. The facts speak for themselves-one in four girls will be sexually abused before they turn 18 years old and one in five women will be raped at some point in their lives.[1] 40-60% of Black women are abused before they reach 18 . 3% of men report they were raped.

A political orientation towards sexual violence and trauma reveals that it is the product of a specific, temporal confluence of factors. The dialectical materialist method, a profound examination of the deep-seated causes of a social phenomenon, explains why sexual violence and incest are both widely prevalent and inevitable under capitalism.

This article will examine the connections between poverty, patriarchy, rape and incest both in my own life and family and in the writing of organic intellectuals and community leaders who have honestly grappled with this urgent issue.

My story

I am a survivor of sexual abuse. Two different AAU basketball coaches, Jim Tavares and Jack McMahon, whose teams I played on, were known pedophiles. A 1999 Sports Illustrated article , "Every Parent's Nightmare," outlined the sexual abuse that hundreds of us survived at the hands of Jim Tavares.

Tavares preyed upon me and other young boys who came from poor homes where there was only one parent trying to make ends meet. He gained access to our homes by giving us money and taking us on trips across the U.S. to play in national Junior Olympic AAU championships. If I had a father or a family with money, I would not have been an easy prey.

Just as the marksman knows how to hunt and snipe, the molester knows how to prey on children and attack.

There is no need for me to repeat the details as the article outlines Tavares' pattern of abuse. Predictably, the authors, William Nack and Don Yaeger treat Taveres and the other coaches as society's outliers, extremely demented individuals who went astray. This article argues a different perspective-that rape and incest are inevitable and predictable products of a specific social system that we have the power to unmask, confront and overcome.

Theorizing rape and incest

I was raised by woman warriors. Many of the women in my family survived horrific episodes of rape, incest and sexual terrorism which I have written on elsewhere. From my earliest memories, I felt the pain and trauma of my mother, my sisters, aunts, grandmother and other women in my family seethe through my own being. Why did my loved ones and I endure degrading, sadistic abuse? Their scars and my own have been formative in my story. With no strong male role models, I was mentored by the pain and survival of women. All of the suffering they experienced and survived made me question from an early age the source of so much horror.

Sexual violence is bigger than African Bambaataa, the priests convicted of child molestation within the Catholic church and the sexual violence that occurred within my own family. Sexual violence is an endemic, society-wide phenomenon that we must tackle and resist with a broad, revolutionary approach if we want to spare our children from the trauma so many of us survived.

My family of mixed Irish, Scottish, English and Finish roots was not unique in terms of the intensity of what we survived. As I discovered through my travels to other continents, hearts, islands and memories, there are survivors of rape and incest spread across the world. The U.S. has the thirteenth highest rate of rape in the world.[2] My family, then, was not an exception, but rather the very incarnation of larger social forces at work.

A critical view of rape and incest challenges the widespread view that men intrinsically act like "pigs" and "dogs." No one can dispute that many of us men act like pigs and dogs, but what explains the pigicization or dogification of male behavior?

Feminist sociologist Maria Mies explains that "human sex and sexuality have never been purely crude biological affairs. 'Human nature' has always been social and historical. Sex is as much a cultural and historical category as gender is" (Patriarchy and Accumulation 23). In more proletarian terms, men are not born as piglets but are rather pigified-or groomed to be pigs-over time. The inverse is also true; we can fight to undo patriarchal socialization and create a safer, healthier world to raise our children in. It is this political orientation towards sexual trauma that guides our work as revolutionaries. We fight for another world not just because of the pain of the present but because of the infinite promise of the future.

Scarred children

The social scientist seeks to unearth the nature of the childhood that the rapist / molester experienced. A baby is not born a rapist or a sadist. The mainstream media's dominant perspective that rapists are biologically-flawed, unredeemable sociopaths projects a pessimistic view of humanity. While there may be individual examples of perpetrators who were biologically or mentally engineered towards violence, this is a rare exception and not the rule.

According to Family Violence Interventions for the Justice System, men who witnessed their fathers' violence are 10 times more likely to engage in spouse abuse in later adulthood than boys from non-violent homes.[3]

Men who commit brutal violations of children's inner-sanctity most often experienced this violence themselves as children. They internalized their own skewed view of themselves and the world. They never knew what it meant to be complete, integral, loved or healthy. Broken from an early age, if not in the period of gestation, they learned to reproduce the insidiousness. Buried in their own self-torment and self-hatred, they struck out against what was most precious and vulnerable around them, children and women. Deprivation begat deprivation.

A system of patriarchy shapes the behavior of the rapist who shows an utter disregard for the humanity of women. The potent combination of poverty and patriarchy mold the acting out of the self-depreciation in a particular way. Having never known inner peace, the impoverished and unhealthy psyche annihilates the peace closest to it. Only a thorough exploration of the violator's childhood and formative years can begin to connect the missing dots.

Broken men

In addition to being criminal and perverse, sexual violence against children, women and men is a self-effacing behavior. To subject a defenseless child or woman to sexual abuse is the work of a broken man. The question before us is what overarching forces convert so many men into vile, demented creatures, who carry contempt for life itself in their fractured hearts?

Black Panther Soledad Prison Field Marshal, George Jackson asserted before white supremacy: "You will never count me among the broken men!"

A 25-year-old sociologist-with a PhD earned in the streets of LA and the prison cells of San Quentin-Jackson theorized about the outward reflexes of the broken man. Informed by a keen understanding of the wanton ruthlessness that surrounded him in America's internal colonies (ghettos) and prisons, Jackson refused to become ensnared in the trap that pitted Black on Black, man against woman, and oppressed against oppressed.

In Soledad Brother, Jackson charted the source of the broken reflexes-petty fights, alcoholism, rape and murder. From solitary confinement, within an 8-by-12 foot prison cell, Jackson sought to dominate the insidiousness so that it did not dominate him.

Like another great anti-colonial thinker, Frantz Fanon, who was writing in the same time period in Algeria, Jackson observed how his contemporaries acted out their trauma in reactionary ways because of their conditioning and precisely because they were deprived of a penetrating, revolutionary understanding of social reality.

The political economy of rape, Part I: The abuser

It is only in the social laboratory of intense class exploitation and misogyny that so many rapists can be called into existence. My analysis is not an attempt to justify Bambaataa's abuse nor apologize for the rapist but rather an effort to explore the malignant social forces that call so many rapists into existence.

In such a profoundly patriarchal society, different social-psychological forces act on men and women's psyches. Men are expected to be protectors and breadwinners. But what happens when their whole world-and with it their entire self-image-has been obliterated by material reality?

Too many men-conditioned by misogyny and deprived of employment and dignity-are broken men. In their deranged psyches, formed in the crucible of a materialist and patriarchal society, they seek to assert and insert themselves in twisted ways as "men" in a society that rejected and emasculated them. The inability to live up to their socially contrived ideals renders them depressed and broken.

Women in oppressed communities are hit the hardest by rape. Some 34.1% of Native American women have been raped. The next highest percentage was among mixed race women, 24.4% of whom reported being raped.[4] Incapable at this historical juncture of articulating their social rage in a revolutionary direction, the oppressed misdirect their fury in reactionary ways.

Rape is about power. Rape is one demented form of misdirected vengeance in which the oppressed assert power when they have lost control over their surroundings. Soldiers, under stress of battle, also often become ruthless perpetrators of rape, or gang rape, while pillaging the wealth of the conquered.[5] Alcohol and drugs-the traditional opiates of the oppressed-further distort reality, ensuring the stunting of proactive, revolutionary sentiments.

The origin of patriarchy

Two questions now confront us: what is the nature of the dog-eat-dog, patriarchal rat race that defines everyday working-class survival and how did we arrive at this point?

Bourgeois science argues that sexism and racism are inevitable. Because they see these learned behaviors as a product of man's nature, they seek to convince everyone that these systems of domination have always existed.

History proves otherwise, debunking the prevailing ideas of the historical defeatists.

Friedrich Engel's The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State documents the existence of matriarchal societies for thousands of years. Thoroughly researching what he calls "primitive communist societies," Engels shows that for the bulk of the human timeline, women were in positions of power in the family and community.

One prominent example was in the Taíno culture of Quisqueya, what is today Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The warrioress and cacica (chief), Anacaona, went off to battle and led resistance against the Spanish invaders, with her partner, Caonabo, taking charge of the home and raising the children. In 1503, upon capture she was publicly executed because she refused clemency in exchange for being the concubine of one of her captors. The Spanish colonizers were determined to eradicate the leaders of any resistance to their double enslavement of Native and African women.

Marxists pinpoint the emergence of private property, surplus and profits-or class society-as the origin of patriarchy. The origins of rape, incest and violence against women are the result of what Engels called the "world historic defeat" of women. With the development of private property and "the right" to inheritance, the son was elevated above the daughter as the heir to the estate. Just as the enslaved of the colonized countries existed as chattel property for the colonizers, women too were converted into their property; the masters and lords could do as they wanted with "their" women.

Under feudalism, the lord's "droit de seigneur" empowered him to take a "serf's wife" into his bed before she married and slept with her husband for the first time. In other words, the lord was allowed to rape the daughters and mothers of the exploited class because they were his property. This "droit" or "right" also entitled the lord of the estate to prey on peasant girls and to violate their virginity whenever he chose. This was often ceremoniously witnessed by male members of the court who were powerless to intervene.[6]

Social systems theory

Every social system merits its own analysis but feudalism, slavery and capitalism share these predominate features: 1) the sanctity of private property 2) the prioritization of profits over human dignity and 3) the relegation of women to a position of the slave's slave in the productive process.

Where does patriarchy fit into this exploitive economic base?

Maria Mies' Patriarchy and Accumulation tracks how for centuries women's unpaid, invisible work enabled the massive theft of the surplus labor of the wage earner. The productive process rested on the exploitation of the workers' labor which was not possible without the wife's behind-the-scenes toil. The woman then was the serf's serf, the slave's slave and the wage laborer's laborer.

To dig up the historical roots of the monstrous epidemic of rape and incest in the U.S. context requires a profound historical reckoning with one of its original sins-slavery.

The legacy of slavery

Through the dehumanization of Blackness, the slavocracy justified infinite predations upon the bodies of Black women and Black men.

The entire slave quarters were at the disposal of the slave traders and masters. The Portuguese slavers built their castles with a master bedroom that had two doors leading to two corridors. One corridor led to the slave quarters, where there was an army of slaves at the master's sexual disposal. The other corridor led to confession, where the slavers asked their priests and their gods for forgiveness for their acts, before committing the next round of transgressions.

W.E.B. Du Bois' masterpiece Black Reconstruction in Americacaptured the white Southerners' attitude toward the Black man and woman. In order to capture the dehumanization process, Du Bois cited a visiting German sociologist, Carl Schurz, who was hired by President Andrew Johnson to study the South: "Men who are honorable in their dealings with their white neighbors, will cheat a Negro without feeling a single twinge of their honor. To kill a Negro, they do not deem murder; to debauch a Negro woman, they do not think fornication; to take the property away from a Negro, they do not consider robbery."[7] In his gripping sociological portrait of the antebellum South, Du Bois breached theunbreachable and spoke the unspeakable: "Southerners who had suckled food from black breasts vied with each other in fornication with Black women, and even in beastly incest. They took the name of their fathers in vain to seduce their own sisters. Nothing-nothing that Black folk did or said or thought or sang was sacred" (p.125).

The very essence of slavery was the breaking of the Black mind, body and soul.

A culture of white rape of Black women-hiding behind its antithesis, the publicly-flaunted, genteel South and morally-robust Bible Belt-has traversed centuries. The myth of the "Black rapist" was used to mask the identity of America's original rapists-a wealthy class of roughly 60,000 white slave owners. The myth of the Black rapist served to deflect focus away from the slave master's abuse of Black and white women and funnel mass discontent into "populist" campaigns, such as lynching and state executions. Society was mobilized in pursuit of "the boogey man" while the true "boogey-man" held the noose.

Describing the typical slave master, Du Bois wrote: "Sexually they were lawless, protecting elaborately and flattering the virginity of a small class of women of their social clan, and keeping at command millions of poor women of the two laboring groups [Black and white] of the South" (p. 35).

Lawrence Konner's remaking of Alex Haley's Roots in June 2016 served as a vivid reminder that the slave owning class used rape as a weapon against the Black family.

Slavery birthed patterns of rape and incest that our society has yet to heal from.

Rape and brokenness in Beloved

Toni Morrison's Beloved is a gripping account of the twin terrors of sexual violence and slavery.[8] A cursory examination of the central characters of Beloved reveals the wanton, white supremacist terror unleashed on Black America.

Halle and Paul D represent generations of Black men pinned down and broken by slavery. Sexual violence against Black men, women and children was one of slavery's preferred weapons "to break" their slaves.

Halle was Sethe's partner and father of her children. After witnessing a gang of white men rape his wife, Sethe, and then drink her breast milk, Halle went crazy. Feeling powerless, he disappeared for ever from the family unit because what "he saw go on in that barn that day broke him like a twig" (68).

Paul D, Sethe's friend, confidante and a fellow slave, alludes to a rape he suffered on the Sweet Home plantation: "Saying more might push them [Sethe and Paul D] both to a place they couldn't get back from. He [Paul D] would keep the rest where it belonged: in that tobacco tin buried in his chest where a red heart used to be. Its lids rusted shut. He would not pry it loose now in front of this sweet sturdy woman, for if she got a whiff of the contents it would shame him" (73).

The scars from the whip, tattooed onto Sethe's back, form a chokecherry tree, symbolizing the slave experience. The barefoot, poor white woman Amy who helps Sethe deliver her fourth child, Denver, describes the scar: "A trunk-it's red and split wide open, full of sap, and this here's the parting for the branches. You got plenty of branches. Leaves, too, look like, and dern [darn] if these ain't blossoms. Tiny little cherry blossoms, just as white. Your back got a whole tree on it. In bloom" (79). According to Morrison's' poignant metaphor, "the fire on her back" is the Black nation, which despite the indescribable abuse, is strong and full of life, giving birth to future generations who will carry the scars but resolutely confront the slave master's terror.

Slavery and rape pushed Morrison's characters to extremes. When the slavecatchers came to abduct Sethe's four children and sell them out of state, Sethe resisted the only way she could. As she breastfed her youngest daughter, Denver, she simultaneously beat her other daughter, Beloved, to death, to save her from the horrors of slavery. Her two young boys and Denver were soaked in their sister's blood and only survived the grueling scene because of the intervention of another slave.

Toni Morrison recreated these tormenting images in order to bring slavery alive for the reader. Without understanding this original sin, little else can be understood in the American narrative.

Historical trauma

Dr. Joy Degruy Leary explored the effects of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome on generations of African Americans.[9] The slave system was a breeding ground for incest within the slave quarters, as well. Upsetting the traditions and stability of the family, slavery disempowered the husband figure and humiliated the father figure. Slavery was crafted to make the oppressed internalize a sense of shame and humiliation.

Men, women and children were packed into barns and stables unfit for human existence. In his autobiography, Frederick Douglas described the barbarism he was born into in Baltimore, Maryland.[10] Deprived of space and privacy and unable to clothe their children, the masters packed multiple families into shacks, without mattresses, blankets or adequate clothing. Slavery was a vortex of bestiality that spiraled out of control destroying human connections.[11]

Unable to stand down the oppressor, the emasculated slave-the trapped lion-projected his hatred towards those at home.[12] Sexual transgressions were the reincarnated transgressions of the master, once again unleashed on the double victims, Black women and children.

This historical trauma-set in motion-by a four-century long reign of terror reappears in families today. The conventional wisdom and oft-repeated, racist claim that "slavery occurred so long ago and Black people should just get over it" is designed to disconnect the terror of the past with the terror of the present. Sethe, Baby Suggs, Beloved and Toni Morrison's other characters remind us that the legacy of slavery lives within, and part of that legacy is sexual trauma.

History offers context for the harrowing fact that 40-60% of Black women are sexually abused before they are 18 . Failure to spiritually and consciously come to terms with the historical trauma damns the present fighters to wallow, unconsciously or semi-consciously, in the past. This is an apt metaphor for the survivor of sexual violence, whose only way out of the trauma, is through it.

From chattel slavery to wage slavery

The enslavement of Africans in the Americas was one branch of the patriarchal system Engels denounced and the most vicious reenactment of boss-worker relations which played out in other social systems. Slavery was America's original sin, upon which the descendant systems of exploitation were based.

The heir to slavery, capitalism-through its disempowerment of women-continues to be a breeding ground of sexual violence.

The following formula synthesizes the reproduction of the class system and the cycle it sets in motion. An exploitative economic base (i.e. serfdom, slavery, industrial and extractive capitalism) gives birth to internalized discord, self-hatred and a distorted sense of identity among the exploited, leading to the acute need to numb and escape (i.e. alcoholism) which is intertwined with violence projected outward and acted out at home, resulting in the victimization of the next generation, which grows up damned by both the exploitative economic base and a demoralizing family environment.

This exploitative economic base and internalized oppression again sets in motion a cycle that repeats itself with individualized symptoms that are reflective of the same disease.

The political economy of rape, Part II: The abused

The disempowerment of women is both economic and psychological and transcends national borders. Rape has a specific economic, not geographic, terrain. Not unique to the U.S., the dominant economic model-patriarchal capitalism-produces dependency.

Because housework is not compensated, the mother figure finds herself trapped.

Deprived of an empowering education, self-esteem and social and economic rights, many oppressed women cannot see beyond their immediate environs. The coterminous forces of women's oppression feed off one another, trapping women and children within the male-dominated, misogynist household.

Testimony

The testimonies and writing of organic intellectuals struggling against patriarchy and capitalism highlight the fact that the political economy of rape traverses national boundaries.

A scene from Germinal, Émile Zola's epic novel, captures the power dynamics within the miner's home. Half-starved and still sullen from the coal mines, the protagonist, Maheu arrived from the bowels of the earth demanding his dinner and sex. Showing total disregard for his wife, Maneude's humanity, he bends her over, raping her in front of the children, as they prepare to bathe in a basin. This scene from a French mining family's home was a snapshot of the twin evils of capitalism and patriarchy that have acted upon women for centuries.

In Don't Be Afraid Gringo, Elvira Alvarado described the typical social existence of the Honduran campesina (peasant woman). In her testimony, Elvira provides poignant snapshots of the cruel social terrain where patriarchy and economic disempowerment produce violence against women and children. Like the French miner a century before, the banana plantation worker existed to produce surplus value for transnational business. The housewife in the plantation worker family produced the conditions necessary for the exploitation of the wage laborer. She was doubly exploited. For both the boss and the sub-oppressor, for 365 days a year, it was open season on women like Elvira Alvarado.

Describing her everyday routine, Alvarado explained that she worked the land and attended to her husband and eight children: "Even when we go to sleep, we don't get to rest. If the babies wake up crying, we have to go take care of them-give them the breast if they're still breast-feeding, give them medicine if they're sick. And if our husbands want to make love, if they get the urge, then it's back to work again. The next morning, we're up before the sun, while our husbands are still sleeping" (p. 52). Robbed of autonomy in both spheres of her life, Alvarado existed to produce for the oppressor and sub-oppressor.

Enraged by his powerlessness, Elivira's husband subconsciously recreated his exploitation lower down on the social hierarchy where his violence had no repercussions. The state's monopoly of violence ensured that his humiliation had no positive, externalized revolutionary social outlet. Meanwhile, he was socially sanctioned to drink himself into oblivion and lash out at home. Family was the private domain where the exploiteds' pent-up anger crystalized. Having learned well from his boss, he recreated the violence onto his wife and children, the only social figures disempowered enough to tolerate the wanton abuse.

What the husband considered sex or "his marital right," constitutes rape for many women like Elvira Alvarado. Her words deliver the point home: "I've heard that there are men and women who make love in all different ways, but we campesinos don't know anything about these different positions. We do it the same all the time-the man gets on the woman and goes up and down, up and down and that's it. Sometimes the woman feels pleasure and sometimes she doesn't. We don't have any privacy either, because our houses are usually one big room so we have to wait until everyone is asleep and then do it very quietly. We just push down our underpants and pull them back up again" (47). For the Honduran housewife, sex, like cooking and cleaning, was a chore or an obligation. Stripped of her self-determination, both the home and the wider society were a forcing house of male domination.

'Stay in your place'

Employing the same literary genre as Elvira Alvarado, the Bolivian mining activist, Domitila Barrios de Chúngara, wrote Let me Speak! The Testimony of Domitila A Woman of the Bolivian Mines.[13]

Her autobiography deepens our understanding of patriarchy as a weapon to divide the miners. The misnamed "barzolas" were working class women employed by the mining bosses as reactionary shock troops to attack and humiliate the miners' wives.[14] When the Housewife Committee refused to stay quiet and confined in their homes and came into the streets to protest, the "barzola" shock troops threw tomatoes at them, accused them of sleeping around and physically attacked them.

The disempowerment of the Housewives' Committee was the disempowerment of the working class. Preoccupied with secondary contradictions, the exploited protagonists-the miners-lost sight of the primary contradiction between labor and capital. Blind before the oppressor's strategy to keep them in their confinement, they prevented the fruition of class unity. The divide and conquer strategy sought to confine women to the home, "shame" them and stunt their ability to make world-historic change.

"Women hold up half the sky" but when they are held back, the entire working class is confined to a social inferno. Capitalism and patriarchy have a codependent relationship; they feed off one another. The crushing of one hierarchical system necessitates the overthrow of its twin.

Women's liberation is humanity's liberation.

The role of class

Centuries of state-sanctioned and state-enforced rape established a legacy that continues to play out today.

Angela Davis' Women, Race and Class looks at the triple burden Black women confronted the span of American history.[15] Davis examined the rampant sexual abuse committed by white male employers within the home against Black women forced by poverty into domestic labor. How many bosses, supervisors, sex tourists and other men in high positions still believe they have unfettered access to Black and Brown women's bodies?

There is also sexual abuse in other layers of class society. Daughters and sons of rich families have survived sexual trauma. The widespread occurrence across class divides illustrates the omnipotence of sexism under capitalism. A rich woman may also find herself psychologically stuck. In contrast to a working-class woman, she may possess the economic resources to flee but may face the judgement of her family who will threaten to "cut her off" if she dares to forge her own independence. Raised to be pretty and thin, some upper class women may not possess the skills to move on. Patriarchy is pervasive and even privileged women-who from an outside perspective appear to have it all-struggle within their gilded cages.

A culture of impunity

In addition to raising the rapist, capitalism offers the rapist free reign.

The story of the anonymous young woman who was drugged and raped behind a dumpster at Standford is chilling. Although her rapist, Brock Turner was caught and found guilty by a jury, a judge only gave him six months in jail because "a prison sentence would have a severe impact on him."[16]

Turner's light sentence is not the exception. Factoring in unreported rapes, only 6% of rapists will ever spend a day in jail; 15 out of 16 will walk free.[17] Every 107 seconds a woman is raped in the U.S. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, twenty million women in the United States have been raped. The study asserts that the number could be three times as high because only 1/3 of sexual assaults are reported.[18] There is no accountability. There are no popular reprisals. In too many cases, no one dares confront the perpetrator. Often, the sadist moves from one generation to the next.

In my own abuse case, when I was 16, I contacted the Plymouth county District Attorney's office in 1997 to file a report. It was four years after the abuse. The DA said he had 73 similar complaints against the basketball coach, Jim Taveres. After hearing my statement, the public official concluded, for at least the 74thtime, that he "did not have conclusive proof" to put Jim Tavares back away in jail.

Capitalist society, from the U.S. to Brazil is, in essence, a school of unchecked patriarchy and pedophilia.

On May 21st on this year, a 16-year-old Brazilian girl was gang-raped by 33 men, some of whom then went on social media to boast about their acts. It is tragic that it took such a heinous case to re-highlight the rape culture that threatens every Brazilian woman.

In Brazil, the statistics are even more deplorable than in the U.S. According to the Brazilian women's organization, Rio de Paz, every 72 hours, 420 women are raped in Brazil.[19]

The liberal observer remains shocked at the harrowing rape statistics while failing to realize the very cause of the horror; a depraved system can only produce depravity. Incest and rape are not natural or inevitable phenomena, but rather symptomatic of the current economic and social order. Token efforts to raise awareness among children about their rights and to facilitate violence prevention workshops are important in the short run but will do little to erase the overall problem. An end to the suffering requires a systematic overhaul of existing class relations.

Denial is complicity

There is another rung in the social inferno that is oppression to which we must descend in order to more fully understand the plight of the survivor.

There are other social actors who become complicit in the crimes spawned by a criminal system. Many mothers-too traumatized to stare the truth in its eyes-became indirect apologists for the offender, giving cover to the crimes with their silence. Feeling powerless before the crime of the century, too many times they have internalized and projected their own subconscious guilt and self-hatred onto the victims. Instead of appearing on the historical stage as the ultimate defenders of their daughters, how many mothers have appeared as collaborators of the crime?

Silence, reproduced between generations, extends the lease life of the pain. Silence within the family is collusion. Denial is collusion. Covering up is collusion.

Sapphire's novel Push, brought to the cinema in the 2009 film Precious, graphically documented the complex relationships that resulted from incest.[20] Sixteen year-old Claireece "Precious" Jones is pregnant with her father's second child. The heartbreaking novel examined how Precious' mother, Mary, instead of protecting and defending her daughter from her rapist husband, Carl, turned the blame on her daughter. Precious was the object of her mother's scorn. Stripped of a childhood and her parents' affection, Precious had to learn to navigate society on her own.

The mothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles who looked the other way were knee-deep in the swamp of insidiousness. Patriarchy pervaded their lives; more concerned with protecting the reputation of the family before the good town-folks, they sacrificed their children's health and happiness-their childhoods-so they could keep smiling at church on Sundays. They too were deeply affected by patriarchy and rape culture. Converted into silent bystanders, enablers and perpetuators of the insidiousness, they ignored the truth and blamed the victim. They too were broken; the illusion of an "American dream" was worth more to them than truth and redemption.

Internalized blame

When we paint the entire sorry portrait, we see the convergence of the different social-emotional factors acting on the survivors. Overwhelmed by the insidiousness, the matriarch escapes into booze or god. The primary witnesses often subconsciously rewrite history. Denial buries the dagger deeper into the chest of the abused. Searching for acceptance and validation, they find blame and hatred.

Unable to externalize their anger; the pain consumes the survivor, resulting in the cyclization of the insidiousness i.e. heroin, addiction, cutting, anorexia, morbid obesity, alcohol etc. Every form of self-injurious behavior is an agonized cry for help.

Heroin, bulimia and other self-loathing behaviors are a giant middle finger to America; no one ever cared about me, so why should I care about myself? Heroin and bulimia are rebellions devoid of direction and grit, a quest without a compass.

Robbed of support from the patriarchal society, the survivor slips into self-torment. Nince Inch Nails' lyrics, famously covered by Johnny Cash, capture the "Hurt:"

I hurt myself todayTo see if I still feelI focus on the painThe only thing that's realThe needle tears a holeThe old familiar stingTry to kill it all awayBut I remember everything.

What have I become?My sweetest friendEveryone I know goes awayIn the end.And you could have it allMy empire of dirtI will let you downI will make you hurt.

The Somali writer, Warsan Shire writes: "Not everyone is okay with living like an open wound. But the thing about open wounds is that, well, you aren't ignoring it. You're healing; the fresh air can get to it. It's honest. You aren't hiding who you are. You aren't rotting."

The suppression of pain is ineffective because pain will only find other outlets. We, survivors, can run and escape all the way to the grave but until we cough up all of the pain, there can be no thorough-going healing. Silence is not an option. Some form of therapy is necessary to help survivors understand the roots of their self-harm and to find meaning in an alienating society.

Ronald Savage and other survivors of abuse are heroes. Protectors of future generations, the survivors fought to overcome "the shame" patriarchy imposed on them and tell their stories.

Digging up and speaking the pain is the first step but it cannot happen without outside support. Because class society seeks to atomize and isolate the survivor, there must be an effort to collectivize our pain in a supportive, conscious community setting. There are 12 step programs and support groups called Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous and Incest Survivors Anonymous. There are also research-validated treatments such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that are effective for assisting those whose trauma has led to severely self-harming or suicidal behavior. These methods help the survivor see things differently and not blame themselves. Healing occurs when the survivor recognizes that they are good and beautiful and let's go of the poisonous negative thoughts and low self-esteem that the abuser and patriarchy have instilled within them.

As I argued in an article on trauma, addiction and capitalism, a survivor who is able to theoretically grasp the hell-hole they were born into, begins to empower themselves to turn on the class system, the source of their trauma. A revolutionary's work is to provide a political orientation towards trauma. If overcoming fear and denial is the individualized part of healing, revolutionary organizing against the monster, responsible for the crimes of the century, is the collective part of healing.

Therapy, support groups and the party, working together, all play their role in helping the survivor rise up on the society that violated them.

Our responsibility

Afrika Bambaataa was a pioneering hip hop voice who resisted injustice and capitalism, but this did not mean that he was beyond all of its insidiousness-patriarchy, white supremacy and homophobia.

On June 1st, 2016, Julien Terrell, cofounder of The Renaissance Zulu Chapter 64, issued the following statement condemning the covering up of Bambaataa's sexual violence against teenage boys and announcing the chapter's separation from the traditional Zulu Nation: "Many have said that Bambaataa's accomplishments in hip hop should not be included in the critique of his so called personal life. I say that any so called political and cultural commitment that does not transfer to your personal actions is NOT a commitment at all. It's nothing but talk and the time for putting ego aside has come. He [Bambaataa] is still lying but there is space for humility and compassion that the victims have offered despite the pain he caused. I hope those that are close to him support him in stepping to the allegations with integrity. That is what this culture is supposed to represent."

As revolutionaries and community leaders, we all carry the social baggage of the old world and must hold one another accountable for our actions. As Terrell explains, we have a responsibility to uproot and go to war with all of the contradictions, less they chaotically spill out and hurt others.

Socialism is healing

Experiments in rehabilitation in the U.S. are limited today because of the "lock them up and throw away the key" strategy of the state. In a transformed society, the abuser would undergo isolation, therapy, rehabilitation and slow reintegration. Reconciliation would involve the recounting of their own childhoods and the social crimes they went on to commit. There is no healing in denial. Anything short of a full, public admission and acceptance falls short of justice.

In a socialist society, inherited with all of social baggage of capitalism it will take generations to do away with all of the wicked inheritance-white supremacy, sexism, homophobia, individualism, consumerism etc. As the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and other socialist societies can attest, in a new world born of the old-with all of the birth marks of wickedness and depravity-there will be no shortage of challenges for nations reborn.

The ruling class vilifies these human experiments in social re-organization in order to contain our dreams and ground our visions, less we conceive of emancipation from the current social disorder. The unofficial religion of the U.S. today is anti-communism, for this very reason.

From the perspective of the extractors of surplus value, what has to be protected is not the right of a little girl to a childhood but their own unfettered access to profits. The anonymous survivor of rape at Stanford, the 16-year-old Brazilian girl, Ronald Savage and all of the nameless survivors-caught in the crosshairs of patriarchy and exploitation-demonstrate the urgency to organize for the toppling of the capitalist system.

Dr. Martin Luther King called for "a revolution in our nation's priorities." A socialist society would immediately and decisively intervene to halt and reverse the monstrous patterns of incest and rape.

Towards a culture of women's liberation

What would a world based on freedom-as opposed to necessity-look like? There is no way to predict the future but we can assert that it will not look anything like the degradation-what Engel's called "pre-history"-that today's oppressed communities and families confront.

In a healthy future, crystal meth, domestic abuse, and trauma itself will be remnants of a dark, distant past from which we will have emerged.

The goal then is to convert our current society into a school of women's liberation.

Society's superstructure must be torn up from the roots and reorganized to concretely confront the scourge of misogyny. The advertising industry sexually objectifies women. Viacom, General Electric and the entire mass media produce music and videos based on chauvinist caricatures of women as objects, shallow gossips, video vixens, hoes, thots and gold-diggers. Many actors in capitalist, consumer society are guilty in playing a role in the reproduction of rape culture. They cannot be let off the hook.

Socialist society will project empowering reference points through billboards, education, TV and social media.

In Cuba, where class relations are organized differently, the incidence of such crimes against women and children is far less common. After 1959, Cuba outlawed the exploitation of women in advertising. Housing, education, transportation, health care and a job were guaranteed social and economic rights. A society that had ceased to be a patriarchal, dog-eat-dog world took the bite out of the dog.

Though we can only make conjectures about the future, we can be sure that it will look nothing like this hell-on-earth that exists today.

Only a new, socialist society can provide real healing and in the words of martyred Irish revolutionary, Bobby Sands: "Our revenge will be the laughter of our children." We fight so that no little child or adult ever again has to live with what Ronald Savage and all survivors live with-the pulsating scars of incest, abuse and rape buried beneath their skin.

Thank you to Emmanuella Odilis for the feedback, edits and support. As the tears and truths emerge, the words and strength stream fourth…

This was originally published at Liberation School.

Notes

[1] "Statistics about Sexual Violence." National Sexual Violence Resource Center. 2015.

[2] Chemaly, Soraya. "50 Actual Facts about Rape." Huffington Post. December 8th, 2014.

[3] 1993.

[4] National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence against Women Survey. 1998.

[5] It is not uncommon for cops to use their batons to violently penetrate their captives. This has nothing to do with homosexuality, but are rather acts of aggression, power and contempt.

[6] Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's well-known opera Marriage of Figaro is about precisely this, peasants and servants, in the early dawn of the revolutionary movement in France, conspiring and outsmarting a philandering count who sought to prey upon the young women of an Italian village.

[7] Page 136. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1935.

[8] New York: Penguin. 1987.

[9] DeGruy, Joy. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing. Uptone Press, 2005.

[10] Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Boston: 1845.

[1] Frederick Douglas' testimony conjured up images of what Haitian families endure today in exile in the Dominican Republic. According to my research living and organizing within the Haitian communities of the D.R., the results are eerily similar with women and children twice victimized - by a system of anti-Haitianismo and by the alienated male sub-oppressors within the exploited Haitian community.

[12] There is a reactionary, "nationalist" trend that posits that Black men are damaged because they were not allowed to play a "traditional" patriarchal role. This chauvinist position submits that the solution is to allow the Black male to assume their "proper" place as patriarchal protectors. It should be stated that patriarchal "protection" in any class society, including pre-colonized Africa, has its own antithesis of rape and abuse.

[13] Originally published in Spanish as Si Me Permiten Hablar. New York: Monthly Review Press. 1978.

[14] This group expropriated the name of Maria Barzola, an Aymara activist assassinated in 1951 by the Bolivian government.

[15]On the plantation, Black women were at the same time domestic, breeder and field slave. As she picked cotton, tobacco or sugar, she laid her baby down beside her just out of arm's reach. Still reeling from the pain of childbirth, she was forced to contribute to the productive process. She was thrice enslaved.

[16] Fantz, Ashley. Outrage over 6-month sentence for Brock Turner in Stanford rape case. CNN. June 7, 2016.

[17] Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) calculation based on US Department of Justice 2010 Statistics.

[18] "Raising Awareness about Sexual Abuse Facts and Statistics. U.S. Department of Justice.

[19] Bearak, Max. "Women's Underwear Strewn on beach in Rio to protest Brazil's rape culture." The Washington Post. June 8th, 2016.

[20] Vintage. 1997.