SA sexual mutilations worse than Congo

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US Women-issues-roving-ambassador Melanne Verveer investigates sexual violence in Congo – but why does the US state department ignore the far worse sexual-mutilation epidemic in South Africa?

Tue, Feb 2011 – It was announced by the US state department today that their ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues Melanne Verveer is formally opening the “The City of Joy” in Bukavu – a recovery centre for female victims of sexual violence, run by French-educated Congolese Dr Denis Mukwege, sponsored by  the US-based Panzi Foundation. While in Bukavu and Kinshasa, ambassador Verveer, accompanied by a congressional delegation, also plans meetings with Congolese government officials, media, local and international ngo’s, women leaders and human rights activists.

Congolese hospital helped total of 13,000 victims of sexual violence – including 4,000 fistula repairs

It is noted that the Panzi Hospital has since its founding, cared for more than 13,000 victims of sexual- and gender-based violence. Of those, 4,000 were cases of fistula repair. The hospital also has provided psychosocial assistance to about 11,000 patients, and provided economic empowerment and micro-finance training for nearly 3,000 patients as they completed their treatment and were reintegrated back into their communities. Source: US state dept. media contact: Nicole Conn, ConnNR@state.gov, tel 001 202-647-6388

“During wars, there’s rape, but not such mutilation of a woman’s vagina, with bayonets, pieces of wood… this is not normal sexual violence…’

CONGO PANZI HOSPITAL TREATS VICTIMS OF BRUTALLY-RAPED CHILDREN AND WOMEN WHO SUFFER FROM FISTULA-RUPTURES –  dr Denis Mukwege set upe Panzi Hospital in Congo to help girls and women raped so brutally that they suffer fistulas—severe, painful, embarrassing gynecological ruptures. “It is the character of the violence carried out on the woman, not trying to kill her but destroying a piece of her, that was so shocking. During wars, we see rape — but one doesn’t see such mutilation of a woman’s vagina, introducing bayonets or pieces of wood. …This wasn’t the normal type of sexual violence”.. he said. http://www.peterfrantz.com/Panzi_Foundation_USA/Dr_Mukwege.html

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2011/02/155835.htm
http://www.peterfrantz.com/Panzi_Foundation_USA/Welcome.html
http://www.peterfrantz.com/Panzi_Foundation_USA/Dr_Mukwege.html

“ The females were raped so brutally that they suffered fistulas, painful gynocological ruptures ”

According to their website, French-trained dr Denis Mukwege set up the Panzi Hospital in the Congo when he realised the extent of the rape-crisis in the Congo, with more and more women seeking medical help at his hospital, having been raped so brutally that they were suffering fistulas—severe, painful, embarrassing gynecological ruptures. “It is the character of the violence carried out on the woman, not trying to kill her but destroying a piece of her, that was so shocking. During wars, we see rape—but one doesn’t see such mutilation of a woman’s vagina, introducing bayonets or pieces of wood. …This wasn’t the normal type of sexual violence,” said Mukwege. Left untreated, develop into infections, infertility and death. And the shame of the condition often causes women to be cast out of their communities. “It is the character of the violence carried out on the woman, not trying to kill her but destroying a piece of her, that was so shocking. During wars, we see rape—but one doesn’t see such mutilation of a woman’s vagina, introducing bayonets or pieces of wood. …This wasn’t the normal type of sexual violence.” http://www.peterfrantz.com/Panzi_Foundation_USA/Dr_Mukwege.html 

Indeed, Dr Mukwege must be congratulated for his very clear dedication and his skills in helping these tortured Congolese girls and women recover from these horrors. However in South Africa, destruction of a woman’s sexual organs by frenzied black males is so routine that it’s barely reported in the news media. They are reported as ‘sexual violence’ if the police even bothers to write down the complaint, and some 71,000 of these cases were reported in 2009’s police records. And South Africa does not have a medical centre dedicated only to repair ruptured fistulas.

South African children and women often do not survive sexual-mutilation ordeals:

Moreover – many of the SA victims of such incredible sexual mutilations as described above, do not survive their ordeal. Consider the case of  the unarmed Boer women Helen Lotter, 57 and her frail mother Alice, 78:  attacked by a gang of black males on their farm near Allenridge in the Free State. These SA women were sexually mutilated for hours with scissors and broken glass shards – and in exactly the same manner described by Dr Mukwege as happening to the Congolese women…

Helen Lotter’s shredded womb could not be found back by police-forensic examinors after her sexual-mutilation death

http://www.volksblad.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Slagting-van-vroue-beskryf-20100602

• Picture: Forensic testimony at the trial of two of the young black males who were convicted of the sexual-mutilation, torture and murders of the Lotter farm-women on March 6, 2009 near Annandale, Free State, described Helen Lotter’s injuries when he found her as follows: “she was so badly injured that I found two large pieces of her body-fat, the size of my hand, lying next to her on the kitchen floor where she was found, still alive, covered in blood,” testified SAPS warrant-officer forensic-photographer Frederick Meintjies of Welkom. Ms Lotter’s womb had been internally pulverised by so many stabbings by scissors and pieces of broken glass that no intact piece of womb-tissue could be found during the police-forensic examination after her death two days later. http://www.volksblad.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Slagting-van-vroue-beskryf-20100602 The case was barely reported in the English-language news media in SA.

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W/o Meintjies – who needed trauma treatment afterwards — photographed the blood-saturated homestead rooms shortly after the women’s cruel live double-mutilation and slow tortures. A bloodied pair of scissors and a broken beer bottle were the torture-instruments. Ms Helen Lotter’s womb had been internally pulverised by so many stabbings that no single intact piece of her womb could be found. Yet after hours of this frenzied hatred and torture by their black attackers, both  Boer women were still alive. They suffered, were aware and in agony when they were found by SAPS Captain Venter, he testified at the trial. The elderly, frail Alice died shortly after her arrival in hospital. Her unmarried daughter Helen died several days later. Both women were able to identify their murderers before their deaths. This led to the conviction of two black men: their gardener Joseph Hlongwane (22) and his comrade Joseph Khumalo (21), who denied their guilt in their testimony to judge S.P.B. Hancke in the Odendaalsrust law court.  State advocate Sophie Giorgi and judge Hancke both expressed their horror at the visual evidence shown at the trial, detailing the extreme cruelty with which the unarmed, frail Boer women had been slaughtered alive by the young black males. “In my 25 years in court this is the first time I have ever heard of someone dying of sharp-trauma injuries to her lower-body,” said Hancke. “These murders can only be described as barbaric and cruel,’ said Giogi. “It seems as if murders are being committed in a much more violent and cruel way these days,’ Hancke added. Indeed the judge’s perception is entirely accurate – as can be seen in the cases handled by the Investigative Psychology Unit and the Trauma Society’s records in SA. ttp://www.traumasa.co.za/Gallery.aspx?scID=12&Title=Head imaging

US: “rape and sexual mutilation epidemic caused by years of conflict and war in the Congo”  – so can the US State Dept. explain the far worse conditions in ‘peaceful, democratic” South Africa?

Also very familiar to South African doctors, is the comment by Mukwege that these victims of sexual mutilations often are unimaginably young —as young as two.  “The added tragedy of this violence is that the victims are shamed into silence and fearful of seeking treatment. When women come for care, they are generally fearful that afterward they will be cast out.” He now trains fellow obstetricians, nurses and other medical staff in courses organized and supported by IMC. After years of experience in treating females with fistula, he has taught colleagues in DRC and around the world how to surgically treat this complicated condition and provide follow-up care.

The US government views this rape-epidemic in the Congo as ‘created by conflict and war” and believes that if the war-like environment is removed, the sexual-mutilations also will cease.  But can the US state department explain the fact that such vicious sexual violence is meted out routinely to black women and girls in South Africa from the day they are born until the day they die? This cannot be explained so they obviously just ignore it?

In ‘the gloriously, newly democratic’ South Africa under the ANC-regime, such sexual attacks against even the smallest babies and females of all ages and races – carried out by very violent, out-of-control black African males –  are such commonplace, everyday events that only the very worst cases, such as the torture-deaths of the Lotter woman, are still reported in the news media. It’s widely noted in the country’s medical research documentation that especially black South African females are exposed to such sexual attacks and sexual mutilation from the very day they are born, says the SA Law commission in its research document.

• http://womensnet.org.za/south-african-law-commission-research-paper-domestic-violence
• http://www.csvr.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=190

Marriage is like living on a bed of coals…

“Marriage is like living on a bed of coals’, concluded researchers investigating domestic violence in four villages in Moretele, near Pretoria. http://womensnet.org.za/marriage-like-sitting-red-coals-a-case-study-domestic-violence-four-villages-moretele-district-tshwa

Life for a Woman in Africa is Hell, an Outright Nightmare, a Monumental Tragedy:

Health researcher Ebenezer Durojaye, who worked at the University of the Free State, said in October 2009 in Cape Town that ‘life for a woman is hell in Africa’. He spoke at the 19th world congress of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) in Oct 2009:  “The situation in Africa is an outright nightmare and a monumental tragedy,” Durojaye said.

Sexual mutilation of very young girl infants in South Africa, often during gang-rape:

• 221,072 children younger than 17 were raped in 1999 in SA…

Red Cross Children’s Hospital THE LANCET. April 2002. Prof Doulas Bowley and Dr Graeme Pitcher: “The Crime Informaiton Management Centre of the SAPF recorded 221,072 ‘sexual offences’ in 1999 alone against children younger than 17 years. As described in the Lancet by Rachel Jewkes and colleagues, child and adolescent rape is a growing concern in sub-Saharan Africa – but infant-rape north of South Africa has been ‘inordinately rarely reported’. However South Africa is unique: it has started recording many baby-girl rapes: children aged 1 year or less. Rape in this manner can be immediately life threatening. The tearing of the perineal body, rectovaginal septum, and anterior anal sphincter can cause infants to die from haemorrhage or abdominal sepsis despite medical cares.  Cases have generally been committed by apparently “normal” individuals with no history of mental illness. Frequently there are multiple rapists, as many as six in one case, and many perpetrators are first-degree or second- degree relatives. There is growing support for the theory that ‘infant rape is related to a myth that raping a very small virgin infant will cure the rapist of AIDS. This myth is thought to have originated in Central Africa and has moved south along with the AIDS-pandemic. A study from the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town confirmed a 1% seroconversion rate in a cohort of 200 child rape victims in 1999. The presence of a sexually transmitted infection increases the risk of HIV-1 transmission two-fold to five-foldand young girls in South Africa have been shown to be at very high risk of becoming infected after a limited number of sexual exposures,possibly because of the high prevalence of other sexually transmitted diseases. Current mechanisms for collection of forensic evidence are wholly inadequate, so conviction rates are very low even though most perpetrators are known to the victim’s family.5 The naïve and dishonest view that there is no proven, causal link between HIV and AIDS will perpetuate crimes of this nature. The failure of the political leadership to frankly acknowledge the causes, effects, and treatment of HIV/AIDS has been the fertile ground for bizarre and dangerous myths to take root and flourish. http://www.speakout.org.za/about/child/child_infant_rape_in.html