Editor:
Where there is war, there is war rape - the widespread, sometimes systematic sexual violation by soldiers and related personnel against "enemy" women, both military and civilian.
It seems that to the extent that the history and mythology of war are socially valued as ingredients of a culture's heritage, so too is war rape recorded as either tragedy or triumph or simply an inevitability. Accounts of war rape stretch from Homer's Iliad to the genocide currently taking place in Darfur, Sudan.
On Remembrance Day, we honour those who have served in the military. We collectively grieve for those who were injured or killed in armed conflict. Each Nov. 11 some of us renew the pledge "never again." Some, such as Anita Couvrette (Coast Reporter letters, Nov. 2), wear white poppies to signify a commitment to work toward an end to war and to commemorate all the victims of war, military and civilian.
In the Second World War, 50 per cent of casualties were civilian. In current armed conflicts, such as Afghanistan, that figure has risen to 90 per cent. Countless hundreds of thousands of women and girls are subject to violations ranging from forced nudity to gang rape to sexual slavery to forced pregnancy to sexual mutilation to death. Even those who survive are physically, psychologically and sometimes socially damaged for life.
It is to recognize those victims that the poppy I wear every November is inscribed "For every woman raped in every war."
Lisa S. Price, Gibsons
