Has America become apathetic towards human rights?

Doctors Without Borders has reported that 75% of all the rape cases it dealt with worldwide were in the eastern Congo, 30 percent of whom were children.

Rape has become ingrained in Congolese civilian society and is widely used to determine power relations. Men and teenagers rape not only women and girls of all ages, but also other males. Is it safe to declare that those who participate in this atrocity have devolved into something less than human? Resorting to pure physical power in order to have their will become the ‘rule of the land’ IS the result of something less than human.

How much longer can the rest of the world sit back on its pampered laurels and allow this atrocity to continue? How much longer can we stomach the animalistic enslavement of women by saying it is their country therefore it is none of our business? The U.S. has ignored this tenet many times when it is to their benefit.

There is the fine distinction between respecting sovereignty of a nation and respecting the safety of its human inhabitants. Which is more valuable?

We Americans protest any attempt to step on our rights yet we don’t care about what happens elsewhere. And we prove this every day by simply moving onto the next news story.

The U.S. partook of its animalistic behavior by unleashing its formidable military muscle against Iraq based on human rights violations, among other things, but we wouldn’t dream of taking on China over their human rights abuses. Nor will we take on Congo over its human rights abuses, nor Burma over its human rights abuses, nor any other country unless there are oil reserves we want to control and the country is smaller than us.

It deeply saddens me to realize that the U.S. weighs the safety of helpless victims against how resource-rich their nation is. For surely if the Congo had oil reserves coveted by the U.S. we would be occupying them, and saving at least a majority of these women from their hell, instead of occupying Iraq.

Rape represents a grave lack of respect for human life and dignity. To use it as a tool of war is both a war crime and a crime against humanity. To allow it to continue lessens the value of our humanity.

For a man to turn against his wife after she becomes a victim of rape demeans the man and further victimizes the woman.

A society that views a raped woman as ‘damaged goods’ simply validates the power these animals have over them.

Again I ask, how long are we going to allow this to continue?