I'm deeply saddened to say that Amnesty International has a menu that includes "Violence Against Women". I'd wanted to write about this problem, having just learned that an average of one woman per hour dies due to domestic violence in Russia. This was reported on N.P.R.

I worked as a volunteer for Women Organized Against Rape for a short while. I sat in a little room at Jefferson Hospital dreading the phone that sat beside me. I was sexually abused as a very young girl by my father's step-brother. I did not tell my parents until I was in my thirties. My mother, in particular, was horrified. She had noticed my friendship with Uncle Marcus deteriorate, but never understood it.

When I finally told my parents about it, I believed that he was a young and confused teen-ager. She corrected the time-line, saying that this had happened when I was three to four years old and that he was close to twenty years old. I have also survived a terrible rape, that included being hand-cuffed and the soul-wrenching fact of having to tell my mother that there would be no fear of being pregnant, as it was only anal penetration.

The perpetrator got me less than a week after my (now ex) boyfriend had knocked me down on my front stoop and throttled me saying "Is this how you want it to end?" I was terribly fragile and did not know how to fight back. I wept, I struggled, but my fight/flight instinct was non-existent. When he took off the cuffs that chained me to his bed, I fled, absolutely hysterical. I was in a part of town that I was familiar with, yet I was lost. I ran around trying to find a cop or a cab, crying and hurt. The city seemed empty and I was too.

But my experience pales in comparison to the terrible conditions for women globally. The rape of women as a war tactic is hardly secret. Women and girls who've been raped in places of conflict are almost always shunned. The book "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali speaks to the on-going brutal subjugation of Muslim women. On the rape of women,CNN reports:

Another factor that impedes victims from coming forward is some interpretations of Sharia, or Islamic law. Some authorities rule for a rape to be validated, victims must have four witnesses to the crime. If not, the victims can be charged with fornication or adultery.


When I took out a Restraining Order against the ex-boyfriend who choked me, I had to hand it to him personally, which is insane. I believe that today, the police are involved with the serving of a Restraining Order. One small improvement for women who've been abused.