Our Bodies, Their Battlefield: What War Does to Women

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The author met with Dr. Mukwege who runs a gynecological clinic in Bukavu, Congo to aid rape victims. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018. So, there are some heroes in this book. A powerful, wrenching account that travels around the globe giving voice to those who have experienced almost unimaginable horrors... Far from an easy book to read, it casts vital light on a subject that has been long, and shamefully, ignored."

Our Bodies Their Battlefield: Lamb, Christina: 9780008300005 Our Bodies Their Battlefield: Lamb, Christina: 9780008300005

O vertinant tiesiog kaip kūrinį, knygos stilių, tai nejučiomis lyginau su S. Aleksijevič darbais ir pastarieji man skaitėsi įdomiau nei Ch. Lamb knyga. Working as a female journalist in conflict zones, these were the stories I most dreaded covering, with their bleak facts and bleaker outlook. Women were victims first of the individual crimes against them, and then of the strictures of their societies.Rape has been used as a tool of fear and intimidation, a way of devastating communities but also for soldiers and young men to create grotesque bonds of solidarity, trust and loyalty. While Lamb recognises that sexual violence against men has been and is a problem – noting that some estimates suggest that nearly a quarter of men in conflict-affected territories in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo have experienced sexual violence – the focus here is on women.

Our Bodies, Their Battlefield by Christina Lamb review

Lamb chronicles extraordinary tragedy and challenges in the lives of women in wartime. And none is more devastating than the increase of the use of rape as a weapon of war. Visiting warzones including the Congo, Rwanda, Nigeria, Bosnia, and Iraq, and spending time with the Rohingya fleeing Myanmar, she records the harrowing stories of survivors, from Yazidi girls kept as sex slaves by ISIS fighters and the beekeeper risking his life to rescue them; to the thousands of schoolgirls abducted across northern Nigeria by Boko Haram, to the Congolese gynecologist who stitches up more rape victims than anyone on earth. Told as a journey, and structured by country, Our Bodies, Their Battlefields gives these women voice. Sukrečianti iki begalybės, viena kraupiausių, ką teko skaityti. Bet privaloma visiems. Kad nutrauktume tylą ir kad prievartos šiam pasaulyje liktų mažiau. Ypač rekomentuoju kiekvienam vyrui.At times, Lamb worries that she is being intrusive, but she is also careful not to be credulous. An experienced journalist, she can tell when something doesn’t smell right – one Rohingya woman in a camp in Bangladesh has a long story that doesn’t add up. In the age of #MeToo, the impetus is to believe women and on the whole, she – quite rightly – does, while never losing her journalistic rigour. The litany of pain she recounts is all too believeable. I know because I have heard it too.

Our Bodies, Their Battlefield: What War Does to Women eBook Our Bodies, Their Battlefield: What War Does to Women eBook

This has been in many ways a journey through the worst depravities of man and I thank you for bearing with me, for I know it has not been an easy read,” she writes. But silence is the women’s worst enemy, and that’s why, while some may be tempted to turn away from the horror, this is such an important book. Labai baisiai skamba, bet šiomis dienomis tai nėra jau naujiena, nes Ukrainoje vyksta identiškai panašios situacijos, kai masiškai prievartaujama po keliasdešimt kartų tą pačią moterį, kai tai daroma su vaikais, kūdikiais, kai tai daroma iki mirties, po mirties, ar nužudoma auka po visko, stebint šeimos nariui. Around the world, a woman's body is still very much a battlefield and hundreds of thousands of women bear the invisible wounds of war.” She speaks with women in Bangladesh (Rohingya refugees), Argentina, Guatemala, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nigeria, and Rwanda. Here is like a prison, everyone fighting each other,” said Ayesha, the very still girl who seemed to have stepped out of a painting. “We have nothing left, no money, we spent everything to get here and the world does not care about us.”It led, in 1998, to rape being recognised as an instrument of genocide for the first time if there was a specific intent to destroy a particular group, and its first prosecution as a war crime in an international court. As a junior researcher on a TV documentary in Uganda in 1986, I was told to ask a question that was the dark cliche of war reporting: “Anyone here been raped and speak English?” To my horror, a teenage girl stepped shyly forward, eyes cast downwards. Since then, I have come across hundreds of women raped in wars around the world – and I have found kinder ways of establishing if they want to tell their story. There have been a number of successes in different places, in recent years: Guatemala, Colombia, Chad. But each time it’s been where the woman or women involved have been incredibly courageous, and incredibly persistent. There isn’t any institutional change, or major international movement to try and help these women. That’s what we need to be doing. It’s not enough that you occasionally get a success because somebody fought endlessly. You mention in the book one example of a Rohingya refugee woman living in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, who had been raped. A queue of journalists were lining up to hear her story. What would you say about the ethical responsibility of foreign correspondents when covering crises like those you have covered? No one should have to live through the things the women in this book have had to endure. It makes me both devastated and appalled that our governments don’t think these things are important enough to tell us or even important enough to intervene, as they could have done on numerous occasions. The author also explains that this rape and sexual enslavement is all part of the systemic genocide and ethnic cleansing taking place – to dehumanize and destroy. She also points out that in war it may at times be necessary to kill – but rape is a deliberately vicious act.