Rape as Sport: Open Season on Women

After a rape victim used a cell phone to call for help, KBR banned use of personal phones by its employees in Iraq, citing no specific reason. Jamie Leigh Jones, rape victim, was gang-raped by coworkers and held in a shipping container for days, until she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas.

Women military in Iraq are more likely to be raped than killed and 41% of women vets in one VA hospital had been raped. Congressman Jane Harman calls it an epidemic and only 8% of the alleged rapists go to courts martial in the military system, compared with 40% in the civil system. Congressman Gene Green reminds us that the military needs women in combat zones because it's so short-staffed now.

Is Rape Tourism in the US a Real Phenomenon? Amnesty International reports that some non-native men seek out women on reservations because they can rape without consequences. Women living there are 2.5x more likely than other women in the US and 86% are raped by white perpetrators. In one case investigated by AI, the perpetrators wore condoms, blindfolded the victims and made them bathe, suggesting premeditation. Since the women were blindfolded, they could not say where the rapes took place, so jurisdiction was in question. When this is the case, there may be no investigation at all, and the perps know it. One case was on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. My family has lived there.

Checks to support Pretty Bird House (safe house for Native women which had to be rebuilt after arson) can go to: Mita Maske Ti Ki (My Sister Friends' House) PO Box 2141 Sioux Falls, SD 57101