By Jennifer Mckean
Arizona Daily Wildcat
October 14, 1997

Beyond our walls

Arizona Daily Wildcat Jennifer Mckean

We are a nation full of politicians, feminists, Promise Keepers and every other group with a cause. Consider for a moment how lucky we are to live in a free democracy, to have opinions, and to be protected by laws.

Can you imagine being thrown into prison because you were savagely and brutally raped? What about a mother who is punished for her sons' alleged theft by being stripped naked in the town square? Her sons were also stripped and ordered to rape her in front of a crowd of townspeople spitting at them and making lewd catcalls. When the two boys couldn't get an erection, four men held their mother down and raped her in turn.

Millions of foreigners are denied basic human rights, especially women who are inferior objects in most undeveloped societies. They are underrepresented politically, they are not part of the lawmaking process and women have less access than men to education, food, and health care.

Pakistan has the Zina Ordinance. This law makes sex outside of wedlock, including rape, a punishable crime. For married women who break the law, the maximum sentence is death by stoning. For single women and children, the punishment is 100 lashes and up to 10 years imprisonment. A woman's only crime in these cases is that she is a woman.

In Pakistan, a woman has no voice. It is forbidden for her to speak at her own court appearance, if she is even granted one. The judge has the discretion to reject any statements made by the victim and that of any female witnesses. There must be four male witnesses to the rape in order for the event to even be recognized by court officials.

And we think that it's hard to prove a rape case in this country. It's virtually impossible in a nation that doesn't value women's rights. Complaints of rape are considered confessions of illicit sexual intercourse. Even if a man was to be found guilty by the courts, he would, without doubt, be cleared by the appeals court of any charges. Justice is never served, at any level.

Our judicial system is sophisticated and fair in comparison. All human beings are entitled to their rights, yet naïve women all around the world tolerate abuse and inferiority because they have never seen a woman treated as well as a man, or a lower caste woman given all of the luxuries of a high caste person.

I am as guilty as the next person of saying, "we have to concentrate on our own people and problems before we go off and save the world." But think about what's happening every hour of every day while we sit comfortably in class and read the newspaper. I don't feel guilty for being born an American instead of a Guatemalan or Honduran, but I believe it is our duty to be educated on the evils of these societies.

A 16-year-old girl was raped by her employer and his son in Pakistan and she became pregnant. She was sentenced to a three-year jail term, a public flogging and a fine, while both men walked away without a conviction.

An 11-year-old girl was raped, her attackers were set free, and she spent several years in prison without a court hearing. Once in custody, about 70 percent of women are physically and sexually abused again by police and prison guards, according to War Against Rape, a Pakistani human rights organization.

When the young girls are eventually released back into society as women, they are social outcasts who no man would wed, because their virginity is gone.

In India, there are thousands of documented cases of abuse and rape, yet governments have done nothing to prevent them. It has become so commonplace throughout India to gang-rape women of lower castes in public that little attention is given to the extreme acts of cruelty.

Though the evils are not in our own backyards, you don't have to look far to see the world. Open your eyes! We might not be able to directly help the individuals that suffer daily, but it's important for us to know and learn from other nations.

Marie Claire magazine recently published an article about the caste system in India. It described the story of a 15-year-old girl in a high caste who went away for the weekend with two youths from Dalit. When she returned, all three of them were beaten in public by angry villagers and hanged from a banyan tree. The young girl's own brother handed down the punishment out of shame and disgrace that his sister was associating with two lower caste members.

Suppose that you are a villager. You walk onto the UA Mall, and instead of hearing the occasional religious preacher, you hear a cheering audience, howling like a pack of wolves. Your curiosity draws you to the big event only to discover that one helpless woman is being raped by a crowd of men. You laugh or add your two cents and continue on with your day, thinking nothing of it. That absence of thought is criminal.

Every country has its evils. Pakistan imprisons rape victims, India practices a traditional caste system, Thailand kidnaps virgin girls and sells them into sexual slavery; certainly, America too has its share of travesties.

In the words of Surita Sandosham, head of Equity Now, a New York City-based human rights organization, "Nothing will change in this world without international pressure."

Jennifer McKean is a junior majoring in journalism.