Stop mass rape and genocide! The STP calls for women's rights

The global campaign "One Billion Rising" brought women and men out on the streets in more than 200 countries and 80 cities in Germany – also here in Göttingen – to make a clear statement against the violence that women on every continent are suffering from. About a third of all the women worldwide have already experienced violence, rape, beatings or maltreatment.

Therefore, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) calls for solidarity with the women and girls who still have to fight for their rights in many countries of the world – and especially emphasizes the fate of the many women who become victims of crimes of genocide, expulsion and mass rapes. Mass rape is also a strategic method of warfare – to demoralize and suppress the civilian population of the enemy party and to systematically disrupt sustainable social structures.

About 200,000 women were raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo since the beginning of the war in the 1990's. During the war in Bosnia – from 1992 to 1995 – around 20,000 women were imprisoned in camps, raped and abused for weeks or months. 80 percent of the surviving women suffer from serious physical and psychological damage. More than 250,000 women were raped during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. After Russia's genocidal attacks against Chechnya (1994 – 1996 and 1999 – 2009), women often became victims of honor killings or of revenge justice. Tens of thousands of women were raped in West Darfur since the beginning of the genocide in 2003. After being raped, the surviving women are often confronted with tasks they are unable to solve alone, because they have lost their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons as well as their daughters, mothers, sisters, other relatives and friends. All on their own, they must try to help their communities to survive and partake in the rebuilding.

In 2001, the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague (ICTY) declared rape in war to be a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions and a crime against humanity.

The Society for Threatened Peoples sends a call to journalists, authors, parliamentarians, political parties, governments, churches and other religious communities, to teachers and student associations, unions and trade associations, institutions and organizations to advocate for the rights of the women and girls in the genocide regions – and to act against anyone who encourages, trivializes or denies such crimes.