I often find myself lamenting the position and expectations of women in the United States and the Caribbean. I am most familiar with the way in which hip-hop and dancehall culture make young women seem worthy of little more than degrading remarks and bootie shaking spots in late night videos.
But the more that I familiarize myself with the plight of women in other countries, the more I understand how our difficulties pale in comparison to theirs - being called a hoochie is incomparable to being gang raped for the sins of a family member.
CNN.com recently published the painful story of a Pakistani woman, Mukhtaran Mai, who lives in fear for her life because the men involved in her gang rape in 2002 were recently acquitted and released from holding.
"Mai was raped on the orders of a village council which wanted to avenge the alleged relations of her brother with a woman belonging to the superior Mastoi tribe," stated the March 5 article.
The article explains that gang rapes and honor killings of women were common practice in the rural areas of Pakistan with most of the perpetrators going unpunished for their heinous crimes.
According to the CNN article, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported that 320 women were raped and 350 were gang-raped in the first 10 months of 2004. Being subjected to a sanctioned gang rape as a result of a brother's affair is a concept that is almost unfathomable to me, but something that many women have to deal with daily.
Unfortunate females in many rural areas of Africa are also subjected to the perversion of the world around them.
In 2002 a week-old baby girl became the youngest victim of the "sex-with-a-virgin-will-cure-AIDS" urban myth that swept through Africa and lead to the ravaging of countless infants and young girls.
In the attempted genocide in Sudan, the rape of women and girls of all ages became the Arab militia's ethnic cleansing weapon of choice.
In a Washington Post article published online in 2004, a young Sudanese woman describes her ordeal.
"They grabbed my donkey and my straw and said, 'Black girl, you are too dark. You are like a dog. We want to make a light baby,' " said Sawela Suliman, 22, showing slashes from where a whip had struck her thighs as her father held up a police and health report with details of the attack. "They said, 'You get out of this area and leave the child when it's made,' " stated the article.
According to humanitarians in Darfur, the region hit by the attempted genocide, the Arab militiamen used rape so extensively and methodically it was clear that they had launched a campaign to attempt ethnic cleansing through rape; especially since in Arab culture children assume the culture of the father.
Young women and girls are endangered in many other areas of the world. Millions of young girls in poverty-stricken areas of Asia and South America are sold into virtual sexual slavery.
Worldvision.org estimates that two million children are currently enslaved in the global commercial sex trade, most of them girls under the age of 15. According to the organization's Web site, Thailand, Cambodia, India and Brazil have some of the highest rates of commercial sexual exploitation of children with these unfortunate rates increasing in Russia, Poland, Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
The fact that women, young girls, and even babies all over the world suffer through unmentionable atrocities daily makes the plight of women in the United States seem absolutely benign.
My five-year-old nieces once had a dance off where they busted out all the latest dance moves they'd memorized from music videos. I thought they were adorable until one of them got on her hands and knees and proudly mimicked a sexually explicit move she'd seen on television. I was aghast and worried about her future.
I wondered how she would ever become the kind of woman I want her to be with all these odds - rap videos, tasteless television shows etc. - against her?
Compared to the abused and neglected little girls and women all over the world, she has more than a fighting chance. And that's a sad fact in desperate need of amending.
