Just Noticing: “Observations Of A Blogger”
Posted by Michelle Moquin on February 10th, 2013
Good morning!
“Just noticing…”
It is the weekend. I usually post things that are a bit of a lighter read on the weekends because some of you might take the weekend off and may not be here reading. But then I thought, do rapists take the weekend off? No. Do abusers take the weekend off? No. Do women get time off from their suffering and living in fear because it is the weekend? Unfortunately no.
Women here and around the world who endure such horrific lives, do so on a daily basis. There is no relief. Their only relief is that they didn’t get raped that day…or that they weren’t abused on a particular day. But the fear is still there…the fear of when is the next time going to happen?
Many of us thankfully, have no idea what it is like to live in fear on a daily basis, but many women do. Just because it is the weekend and we are taking some time off, the abused women around the world need to know that we still care and are not forgetting about them.
“Just noticing…”
Yes, Patricia, I did hear about it, and it was in my queue to blog it. Sickening. Here’s the write for those of you who didn’t read about it.
‘Dafne,’ 9-Year-Old Girl, Gives Birth To Baby Girl In Mexico
A 9-year-old girl in Mexico has reportedly given birth.
The girl, identified as “Dafne” by The Telegraph, reportedly delivered a 5.7 pound baby by cesarean section on Jan. 27 in Zoquipan Hospital in Jalisco, an area in western Mexico.
The girl was 8 years old when she became pregnant. “This is a rape or child sex abuse case,” Corona added, according to the Agence France-Presse. Dafne is below the age of consent as stated by Mexican law.
“The father is a boy who is 17, but we have not found him, since he ran away,” the mother of the girl told officials, according to the AFP.
“Due to her young age, we don’t know if she is being entirely truthful,” Lino Ginzalez Corona, spokesperson at Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office, said in a press conference, ABC reports.
The new mother is one of 11 children, according to ABC, and her parents were unable to watch her while they worked.
There have been only a handful of recent reported births among children this young, including a 10-year-old Colombian girl who gave birth last year, and a 9-year-old Chinese girl who gave birth to a healthy baby boy in 2010.
“Just noticing…”
Victoria: I hear you. Last Thursday the Senate rejected the GOP’s alternative to the bill, and rightfully so. Their version would have stripped out protections for LGBT victims of domestic violence, removed a key protection for Native American women and shifted the overall focus of VAWA away from women and more toward men.
Can you believe that? VAWA is about protecting women, and repub Senator Grassley obviously only care about the men. If he and other repubs had their way, tribal courts wouldn’t have the ability to prosecute non-Native American men who abuse Native American women on tribal lands. Basically a free right to rape and get away with it. Gee, do ya think that is why this sort of thing happens at such high level?
And…if they had their way they would remove the word “women” from VAWA’s largest grant program – Hello? The “W” in VAWA stands for “Women” (!) By removing the word “women” they are effectively broadening the scope of the original 1994 law to include male victims of violence, who face far less victimization than their female counterparts. Sickening isn’t it? Propose something else if you want to protect the men.
Oh… and it doesn’t stop there.
Grassley’s proposal would also take out protections for LGBT victims of domestic violence and place new restrictions on U visas, which are given to immigrant victims of domestic violence who help law enforcement officials to identify and prosecute their abusers.
Thankfully it was rejected by a vote of 34-65.
The Senate is lining up a Monday vote for the bipartisan bill, authored by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). It has 62 cosponsors, which essentially ensures its passage.
“Just noticing…”
…My heart is feeling especially heavy today. I heard about this young 17-year old girl in India who was gang raped and killed. I heard her story on the radio, and the details of the rape, and it was one of the most brutal stories that I have ever heard. I went to bed the other night thinking of her and I couldn’t sleep. I just can’t seem to get it out of my head how men can do this to women.
The following day I perused the net to find the story only to hear about the rape but none of the details of the rape. No one was talking about it because it was so horrific, and the family didn’t want to release the details. The articles stated that the people who found her were so affected by the scene of her body that they needed to be counseled.
I found this article this morning. It gives the horrific details but one was left out from the chronicle that I heard on the radio. Not only was a broken glass bottle shoved inside of her, but her stomach was sliced open and her organs were pulled out and strewn all over the site. I only bring this up not to sensationalize the story, as it is what I heard on the radio, but because it is what happened and should be told. It should be told how horrific men are. This is a brutal act done by men to women, and no details should be left out showing how sick men are.
If that doesn’t inspire you to do something, I don’t know what will. What is it with men on this planet? Why is there so much hatred toward women?
Here’s the write:
South Africa Rallies Against Fatal Gang-Rape
The brutal rape and murder of a 17-year-old girl has shaken the country’s consciousness—and inspired South Africans to share their own stories of sexual violence.
Eight days ago, in a crime that shocked South Africa, 17-year-old Anene Booysen was brutally gang raped. Her throat was slit; her fingers and legs shattered. The attackers had stuck a broken glass bottle inside her body and left her for dead on a construction site in the small, quiet Southern Cape town of Bredasdorp, about 120 miles from Cape Town. A security guard found her near lifeless body. She identified and named at least one of the alleged rapists, but died soon thereafter.
South Africa, a deeply wounded nation that still grapples with the scars of a violent apartheid past, has been jolted to its core by the gratuitous act of violence visited upon this young woman. Booysen’s case has also shattered the silence around the country’s rape crisis, which seldom gets the national attention it deserves.
This time, though, the national reaction to a rape–finally–seems to be different. This is a good thing. But it is also surprising, because collective denial about South Africa’s outrageous rape statistics has become as normal here as the rapes themselves. According to officials, rape is massively underreported in the country due to low conviction rates and the chilling effect of silence and shame. But the Medical Research Council estimates that up to 3,600 rapes happen daily in this nation of close to 52 million people. This places South Africa among the countries with the highest incidences of rape worldwide–and, outside of war zones, makes it one of the most violent societies, especially towards women.
It is difficult to know why this particular attack has yanked South Africans out of their complacency. For years now, there has been a particularly brutal epidemic of rapes and murders of black lesbian women in South Africa’s townships, for example. But activists have never really succeeded in getting South Africans to react with urgency and collective determination to root out sexual violence.
The newfound outrage over Booysen’s death might be connected to the global focus on a similar gang-rape in India, which has enflamed that nation and set off calls for harsher sentences for rapists. It’s possible that the India case could have quietly touched the hearts and minds of South Africans more than they realized—and that Booysen’s tragic demise might herald South Africa’s own awakening on the issue. Whatever the reason, the country is now embarking, somewhat clumsily and haphazardly but with unprecedented frankness, on a journey of talking about an evil that had been ignored for too long.
Over the last two days alone, I’ve lost count of the number of stories listeners have shared with me on my daily chat show on Talk Radio 702. One married man is grappling with the memory of a woman who molested him when he was very young. She was his mother’s friend. Another man stopped his car while driving to call in to the show and publicly, for the first time, talk about criminals who had hijacked him years ago but only drove off with his car after gang-raping him. Women and girls make up the highest number of victims, including many of my media colleagues who have shared their stories with me in confidence after reading about my own rape in my recent book A Bantu in My Bathroom.
*********
That’s enough for today.
Readers: For those of you with no electricity and too much snow, I hope you’re safe and warm.
Al: Thanks for reposting your link. It is always worth reposting something to bring light to the abuse of women and to show what we can do to help.
Lloyd: Thanks too for your encouragement.
I have not gotten through all of yesterday’s comments but I will later on today. Got to run now.
PEAce & LOve
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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February 10th, 2013 at 7:19 pm
Beautiful picture of you today, in your black straight jacket. Hehe :)
Have you thought of cropping it and using it here? It’s quite lovely.
And I want to add, I hope you blog about One Billion Rising. I’m not able to get off work. It’s awesome you are going, Michelle.
Gung Hay Fat Choy everybody!
/SB
February 10th, 2013 at 7:52 pm
No they don’t get a resting day, do they?
There’s a OBR here on Th aft, I’ll be at a meeting at that hour, will have to run another search for nearby area event. Thanks for the heads up, SB.
…and gong xi fa cai
Luv, Zen Lill
February 11th, 2013 at 12:06 am
I’m confused! Ive lost contact. I don’t know what is going on now. Can someone tell me if Patience is still required? Something is wrong with the time table and the host I think.
dazed42
February 11th, 2013 at 8:37 am
Hi Michelle:
The D.O.E. has a real knucklehead in charge. Steven Chu has come up with a new way to dispose of radioactive scrap metals. Recycle them and sell them to the unsuspecting public, us.
The U.S. Dept of Energy Secretary Steven Chu plans to dump 14,000 tons of radioactive scrap metal into the marketplace for use in the manufacturing of consumer products. This means that your everyday purchases, such as silverware, zippers, belt buckles, eyeglass frames, jewelry, watches, toys, pet bowls, and leashes could soon be made with radioactive scrap metal.
I have a link here to petition against this. When I read that zippers and belt buckles could be possible products made with this hazardous waste metal, I said “whoa, not near my boys” (obviously a scare tactic there). But who wants radioactive metals in consumer products at all. Will I have to bring a gieger counter with me when I go shopping?
http://signon.org/sign/will-the-zipper-on-your?source=mo&id=62350-17389115-s2XL9ox
Al