Rule by Rape Jordan Litaker and Nancy Velazquez

Rape Culture  21% of Ghanaian women reported in one survey that their sexual initiation was by rape  17% of Nigerian women said that they had endured rape or attempted rape by the age of nineteen  21% of South African women reported that they have been raped by the age of fifteen  Ethiopian law explicitly provided that a man could not be prosecuted for violating a woman or girl he later married “In many poor countries, the problem is not so much individual thugs and rapists but a entire culture of sexual predation”

Woinshet Zebene  In the Ethiopian countryside, if a young man has an eye on a girl but doesn’t have a bride price, or if he doubts that the girl’s family will accept him, then he and several friends kidnap the girl, and he rapes her.  The women is now ruined and will have difficulty marrying anyone else.  As a 13 year old seventh grader, Woinshet Zebene was a victim of these cruel practices. The kidnappers casually battered and raped Woinshet for two days. Her family and teacher went to the police and demanded her rescue. Her and her father decided that she would not marry her rapist and Woinshet would report the rape as a crime.

Lenient Responses Court official As a male, he refused to listen to a girl and told Woinshet to get it over with and marry her rapist. “Even if you go home, he will go after you again. So there is no point in resisting.” Judge At the court hearing, the judge told Woinshet: “He wants to marry you. Why are you refusing?”

Proactive Responses Zebene: Woinshet’s Father Had seen women in the capital working confidently, holding meaningful jobs, enjoying rights and measure of equality. He wanted the same thing for his daughter and encouraged her to persecute her rapist. Refused all bribes to marry his daughter. Indignant Americans Wrote angry letters demanding change in the Ethiopian legal code. Also provided support and a stipend to help Woinshet pursue her education in Addis Ababa. Today, a man is liable for rape even if the victim later agrees to marry him.

Personal Response There is much progress to be made in places like Addis Ababa when it comes to equality of men and women, and the value placed on a woman’s purity. If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, "I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” then the girl’s father and mother…shall display the cloth [that the couple slept on] before the elders of the town … If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. - Deuteronomy 22:13-21