rape

"Yet despite such statements, rape in Pakistan is a weapon commonly used for revenge. According to human rights lawyers, 50 percent of reported rapes in the country are gangrapes, usually carried out when someone wants to take revenge ..."

"According to a 1990 study of rape in Pakistan , " the police is notorious for delays or outright refusals to register FIRs ."

"Pakistan did not lag behind in crimes against women. There are at least 11 rape cases reported in Pakistan every day, with over 22,000 rape cases reported to police across the country in the last six years since 2015, according to official statistics. However, only 77 accused have been convicted, which comprises 0.3 per cent of the total figure.” The rape of Mukhtaran Bibi in Pakistan received international attention after it was reported to be politically sanctioned.” The group War Against Rape (WAR) has documented the severity of rape in Pakistan. According to women's studies professor Shahla Haeri, rape in Pakistan is 'often institutionalized and has the tacit and at times the explicit approval of the state. According to the late lawyer Asma Jahangir, who was a co-founder of the women’s rights group ‘Women's Action Forum, up to 72 per cent of women in custody in Pakistan are physically or sexually abused.” According to WAR, over 82 per cent of rapists are family members, including fathers, brothers, grandfathers and uncles of the victims."

"I am heartbroken that we may now be destined to learn the painful lessons of the time before Roe was made law of the land — a time when women risked losing their lives getting illegal abortions. A time when the government denied women control over their reproductive functions, forced them to move forward with pregnancies they didn’t want, and then abandoned them once their babies were born."

""Forced pregnancy" means the unlawful confinement of a woman forcibly made pregnant, with the intent of affecting the ethnic composition of any population or carrying out other grave violations of international law. This definition shall not in any way be interpreted as affecting national laws relating to pregnancy;"

"Forced pregnancy is defined as when a woman or girl becomes pregnant without having sought or desired it, and abortion is denied, hindered, delayed or made difficult. Some of these pregnancies are caused by a lack of sexual education, access to contraception, or mistake, but many of them, especially among young girls, are caused by sexual violence, often perpetrated by relatives or acquaintances. When abortion is illegal or inaccessible, often young girls’ lives are at risk through clandestine abortions or having to give birth. Being so young, most are neither physically nor emotionally mature enough to carry a pregnancy to full term, give birth, or become mothers. And yet, without access to safe and legal abortion, they are forced to do so, compounding the harm from the sexual violence they’ve already suffered."

"[S]ince undesired pregnancy creates an involuntary servitude, the state must provide to those who desire it the means to terminate such servitude."

"If forced to carry pregnancies to term, many women would have no choice but to sacrifice playing their sport—a sacrifice not required of their male counterparts, despite their equal role in engendering a pregnancy. Absent the right to access safe and legal abortion care, women’s ability to participate and excel in athletics would inevitably decline and the movement toward gender equality in sports would reverse course."

"Thus defined, it should be apparent that "involuntary servitude" includes coerced pregnancy. The pregnant woman may not serve at the fetus’ “command”-it is the state that, by outlawing abortion, supplies the element of coercion-but she is serving involuntarily for the fetus’ "benefit", and this is what the Court has said that the amendment forbids. If citizens may not be forced to surrender control of their persons and services, then women’s persons may not be invaded and their services may not be coerced for the benefit of fetuses. It is as simple as that. The injury inflicted on women by forced motherhood is lesser in degree than that inflicted on blacks by antebellum slavery, since it is temporary and involves less than total control over the body, but it the same “kind” of injury. When abortion is outlawed, a woman who does not want to carry her pregnancy to term must serve the fetus, and that servitude is involuntary. Some of those to whom I have made this argument have responded less with skepticism than with horror. They consider it a libel on motherhood, which, far from being like slavery, is an exhilarating, awe-inspiring, and joyous experience. It may not be out of place, therefore, to address this concern at the outset. The objection gathers whatever force it has by focusing on the experience of women who “want” to be mothers. The thirteenth amendment, however, does not apply to them. The servitude it prohibits is “involuntary”. The distinction between wanted and unwanted pregnancy is like the difference between wanted and unwanted sex. Can rape be defended on the grounds that sex is an exhilarating, awe-inspiring, joyous experience? Do arguments that focus on the degrading and violative aspects of rape constitute a libel of sex? Plantation slavery obviously cannot be justified on the grounds that many people find gardening deeply satisfying, but this objection is really no better than that."

"The Commission on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women Committee and the Committee on the Rights of the Child has cataloged forced pregnancy as a harmful practice that gravely affects the rights of girls. The U.N. Human Rights Council has recognized that denial of abortion in cases of rape inflicts such psychological and physical trauma that it can amount to torture under international law."

"When women are compelled to carry and bear children, they are subjected to “involuntary servitude” in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment. Abortion prohibitions violate the amendment’s guarantee of personal liberty, because forced pregnancy and childbirth, by compelling the woman to serve the fetus, created “that control by which the personal service of one man [sic] is disposed of or coerced for another's benefit which is the essence of involuntary servitude.” Such laws violate the amendment’s guarantee of equality, because forcing women to be mothers makes them into a servant caste, a group which, by virtue of status of birth, is held subject to a special duty to serve others and not themselves."

"All athletes—men and women—have a narrow window of time to achieve their greatest athletic potential. This reality is magnified for women athletes for whom childbearing age coincides with their competitive peak in athletics. If the State compelled women athletes to carry pregnancies to term and give birth, it could derail women’s athletic careers, academic futures, and economic livelihoods at a large scale. Such a fundamental restriction on bodily integrity and human autonomy would never be imposed on a male athlete, though he would be equally responsible for a pregnancy."

"Laws that prevent people from making their own decisions about whether to continue a pregnancy or have an abortion amount to forced pregnancy. Outright abortion bans aren’t the only way to force a pregnancy — even when Roe v. Wade was still technically intact, laws pushed abortion out of reach across the country. Long-term consequences include: * Long-lasting health consequences as well as life-threatening complications like eclampsia (which can lead to seizures or comas) and postpartum hemorrhage * Increased levels of poverty for people turned away from the abortion care they need and an inability to cover basic needs like food, housing, and transportation * Ongoing contact with and violence from an abusive partner Policies that force people to remain pregnant and give birth are unconscionable, cruel, and dangerous. Lives and futures are at stake."

"The women who bear children and the medical experts who assist them testify that pregnancy and childbearing are indeed labor. The fact that many women enter into such labor voluntarily and joyfully does not alter the fact that other women, under other circumstances, find childbearing too arduous, become pregnant through no choice of their own, and are then forced to complete the pregnancy to term by compulsion of state laws prohibiting voluntary abortion. It is the purpose of the Thirteenth Amendment to prohibit a relationship in which one person or entity limits the freedom of another person. In the absence of a compelling state interest or due conviction for a crime, the state’s forcing the pregnant woman through unwanted pregnancy to full term is a denial of her Thirteenth Amendment right to be free from “a condition of enforced compulsory service of one to another.” This is the very essence of involuntary servitude in which the personal service of one person is “disposed of or coerced for another’s benefit.”"

"Allowing a state to take control of a woman's body and force her to undergo the physical demands, risks, and life-altering consequences of pregnancy is a fundamental deprivation of her liberty. And, once the Court recognizes that that liberty interest deserves heightened protection, it does need to draw a workable line, and viability is a line that logically balances the interests at stake."

"The Constitution provides a guarantee of liberty. The Court has interpreted that liberty to include the ability to make decisions related to child – childbearing, marriage, and family. Women have an equal right to liberty under the Constitution, Your Honor, and if they're not able to make this decision, if states can take control of women's bodies and force them to endure months of pregnancy and childbirth, then they will never have equal status under the Constitution."

"Athletics “have become part of the fabric of America.” Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n v. Alston, 141 S. Ct. 2141, 2168 (2021) (Kavanagh, J., concurring). Women’s ability to “participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation”—including through high school, collegiate, and professional sports—“has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.” Casey, 505 U.S. at 856 (plurality opinion). Absent the right to access safe and legal abortion care, and the ability of “the woman to retain the ultimate control over her destiny and her body,” id. at 869, women’s sports would not be the enormous success they are today. Among other reasons, women’s ability to participate and excel in athletics would decline, severely impairing the vitality of sports in the United States. Further, women and girls would be deprived of the multitude of collateral benefits that result from athletic participation, including greater educational success, career advancement, enhanced self-esteem, and improved health. Athletic prowess depends on bodily integrity. The physical body is a critical tool for athletes, and its condition determines elite athletes’ futures and livelihoods. High school and collegiate athletes use their bodies not only to compete, but also to secure higher education through recruiting opportunities and athletic scholarships that may be otherwise unobtainable. Professional athletes use their bodies for their livelihoods, including to access lucrative sponsorships and advertising opportunities. Amici depend on the right to control their bodies and reproductive lives in order to reach their athletic potential. Indeed, Amici are united in their belief that the physical tolls of forced pregnancy and childbirth would undermine athletes’ ability to actualize their full human potential."

"The decision to become pregnant, thereby risking long-term health and career consequences, involves “the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy.” Casey, 505 U.S. at 851. The decision belongs to the individual to make. Forcing athletes to bear the unknowable risk of when and whether their bodies will recover from pregnancy and childbirth would violate their most fundamental liberties."

"[F]orced pregnancy is a deprivation of individual liberty (and this is what the privacy argument stresses), but that deprivation is selectively imposed on “women”-and women are a group that has traditionally been regarded as a servant caste, whose powers (unlike those of men) are properly directed to the benefit of others rather than themselves. Compulsory motherhood deprives women of both liberty and equality."

"[A] requirement that abortions be performed in hospitals may “force women to travel to find available facilities, resulting in both financial expense and additional health risk,” and thereby may “significantly limit a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion” by “impos[ing] heavy, and unnecessary, burden on women’s access to a relatively inexpensive, otherwise accessible, and safe abortion procedure.” As a consequence, some women will be unable to get abortions at all. What the state cannot do to all women, it cannot do to poor women. If government may not increase the cost of abortion directly, it may not do so indirectly-not, at least, without compensating those whom its action would otherwise render unable to afford abortions."

"The right to bodily integrity and decisional autonomy is of heightened concern for women athletes who become pregnant from sexual violence. If forced to carry their rapist’s child to term, these women would not only be forced to make the same physical, emotional, and athletic sacrifices that would be required of all athletes who would have to endure compelled pregnancies, but they also would be re-traumatized by the repeated deprivation of control over their bodies—not only by their assailant, but also by the government. This intrusion can be acutely devastating for an athlete, given that control over her body is inextricably linked to her identity, career, and educational pursuits. The prospect of forced childbearing is particularly poignant for collegiate athletes, given that nearly one in five women are sexually assaulted during their time in college."

"We fought a civil war to end slavery, and made its abolition the supreme law of the land. The central evil of slavery, as Justice Harlan observed, was that it placed one “class of human beings in practical subjection to another class.” That is precisely what a law that compels women to be mothers does. A law outlawing abortion therefore would betray one of the fundamental principles by which the American polity defines itself."

"[F]orced pregnancy is different form the degrading, ill-paid jobs that the poor must do, because they are at least able to change employers. The pregnant woman, on the other hand, cannot exchange her burden for any other. Moreover, the Court has held that a state may not impose costs that make poverty an absolute barrier to the exercise of a constitutional right. Boddie v. Connecticut invalidated state rules that barred access to divorce for those who could not afford to pay filing fees. “[M]arriage involves interests of basic importance in our society,” the Court observed. Because “[t]he requirement that these appellants resort to the judicial process is entirely a state-created matter,” the Court concluded that “a State may not, consistent with the obligations imposed on it by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, preempt the right to dissolve this legal relationship without affording all citizens access to the means it has prescribed for doing so.” Since a tax on abortions would equally be “entirely a state-created matter,” a state could not demand such a tax of a woman who is too poor to pay it."

"Were fetuses to be given the full legal protection accorded to born persons, the resemblance between forced pregnancy and slavery might eventually become more apparent. In recent decades, medical science has found that a broad range of activities by pregnant women can have a negative effect of the fetus, “including failing to eat properly, using prescription, nonprescription and illegal drugs, smoking, drinking alcohol, exposing herself to infectious disease or to workplace hazards, engaging in immoderate exercise or sexual intercourse, residing at high altitudes for prolonged periods, or using a general anesthetic or drugs to induce rapid labor during delivery.” Note, “The Creation of Fetal Rights: conflicts with Women’s Constitutional Rights to Liberty, Privacy, and equal Protection, 95 Yale L..H. 599, 606-07 (1986) (footnotes omitted). There are two ways of using this information: by communicating it to women and trusting them to use it appropriately, or by regulating pregnant women’s behavior directly. The former approach only makes sense if pregnant women can be presumed to care about the welfare of their fetuses, and this presumption will be implausible if one and a half million women a year (that is, between quarter and a third of pregnant women) are pregnant against their wills. See Tierze, Forrest & Henshaw, supra note 130, at 475-76. The latter approach has already, in some cases,been carried to its logical conclusion of imprisoning the woman for the duration of her pregnancy. See e.g., 1989 Minn. Sess. Law Serv. P 290, Part. 5 (West) (statute authorizing involuntary civil commitment of women who abuse drugs during pregnancy). Recognition of fetal personhood might entail internment of pregnant women on a much larger scale."

"Committing rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, as defined in article 7, paragraph 2 (f), enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence also constituting a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions;"

"The demands of athletics and pregnancy are physically and emotionally intense. If women were to lose the agency to make individual, personal choices as to if, when, and how to balance these competing demands, many will be forced to sacrifice their athletic aspirations and pursuits. Compelled pregnancies would allow the State to “conscript[] women’s bodies into its service, forc[e] women to continue their pregnancies, suffer the pains of childbirth, and in most instances, provide years of maternal care.” Casey, 505 U.S. at 928 (Blackmun, J., concurring). Often this will be at the expense of women’s athletic careers, as well as their educational goals and professional livelihoods. Such “governmental intrusion” is “unique to the [woman’s] condition,” id. at 851–52, as only women’s bodies are essential for both athletic participation and pregnancy and childbirth. Depriving women of the opportunity to make autonomous choices about how to use their bodies—a matter “of the highest privacy and the most personal nature,” id. at 915 (Stevens, J., concurring)—would gravely harm equality in athletics, and elsewhere."

"Enforced childbirth is slavery[.]"

"The baby is a gift, given by life itself. But to be a gift a thing must be freely given and freely received. A gift can also be rejected. A gift that cannot be rejected is not a gift, but a symptom of tyranny."

"Our fight will continue until we can put an end to laws that force people to carry pregnancies against their will and deny them the fundamental right to control their own bodies."

"In 1993 the United Nations (UN) Commission on Human Rights (replaced in 2006 by the UN Human Rights Council) declared systematic rape and military sexual slavery to be crimes against humanity punishable as violations of women’s human rights. In 1995 the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women specified that rape by armed groups during wartime is a war crime. The jurisdiction of the international tribunals established to prosecute crimes committed in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda both included rape, making these tribunals among the first international bodies to prosecute sexual violence as a war crime. In a landmark case in 1998, the Rwandan tribunal ruled that “rape and sexual violence constitute genocide.” The International Criminal Court, established in 1998, subsequently was granted jurisdiction over a range of women’s issues, including rape and forced pregnancy. In a resolution adopted in 2008 the UN Security Council affirmed that “rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide.”"

"The fall out is also reaching the children of the kidnapped brides. The Duke University study found that ethnic babies in Kyrgyzstan are smaller than average. Smaller birth weights have been linked to a higher risk of disease. It was unclear why these babies were smaller, but it was likely due to the psychological trauma suffered by the mother from being in a forced marriage, said economics professor Charles Becker, who co-authored the Duke University study."

"Black women’s sexual subordination and forced pregnancies were foundational to slavery. If cotton was euphemistically king, Black women’s wealth-maximizing forced reproduction was queen. Ending the forced sexual and reproductive servitude of Black girls and women was a critical part of the passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments. The overturning of Roe v. Wade reveals the Supreme Court’s neglectful reading of the amendments that abolished slavery and guaranteed all people equal protection under the law. It means the erasure of Black women from the Constitution. Mandated, forced or compulsory pregnancy contravenes enumerated rights in the Constitution, namely the 13th Amendment’s prohibition against involuntary servitude and protection of bodily autonomy, as well as the 14th Amendment’s defense of privacy and freedom. This Supreme Court demonstrates a selective and opportunistic interpretation of the Constitution and legal history, which ignores the intent of the 13th and 14th Amendments, especially as related to Black women’s bodily autonomy, liberty and privacy which extended beyond freeing them from labor in cotton fields to shielding them from rape and forced reproduction. The horrors inflicted on Black women during slavery, especially sexual violations and forced pregnancies, have been all but wiped from cultural and legal memory. Ultimately, this failure disserves all women."

"Kyrgyzstan has the highest maternal mortality rate in Central Asia — the large number of underage girls giving birth following forced marriage is one factor in this."

"Extra judicial killings cannot be accepted in a country of law."

"The action taken by Hyderabad Police is praiseworthy. In Uttar Pradesh rape is happening every day, be it young girls or aged women, nobody is being spared."

"So the predators have become the prey! Now this is called true poetic justice!"

"The story of Bangladesh was unique in one respect. For the first time in history the rape of women in war, and the complex aftermath of mass assault, received serious international attention. The desperate need of Sheik Mujibur Rahman’s government for international sympathy and financial aid was part of the reason; a new feminist consciousness that encompassed rape as a political issue and a growing, practical acceptance of abortion as a solution to unwanted pregnancy were contributing factors of critical importance. And so an obscure war in an obscure corner of the globe, to Western eyes, provided the setting for an examination of the “unspeakable” crime. For once, the particular terror of unarmed women facing armed men had full hearing."

"A Catholic convent in Calcutta, Mother Theresa’s, opened its doors in Dacca to women who were willing to offer their babies for overseas adoption, but despite the publicity accorded to Mother Theresa, few rape victims actually came to her shelter. Those who learned of the option chose to have an abortion.... Planned Parenthood, in cooperation with the newly created Bangladesh Central Organization for Women’s Rehabilitation, set up clinics in Dacca and seventeen outlying areas to cope with the unwanted pregnancies."

"Rape in Bangladesh had hardly been restricted to beauty. Girls of eight and grandmothers of seventy-five had been sexually assaulted during the nine-month repression. Pakistani soldiers had not only violated Bengali women on the spot; they abducted tens of hundreds and held them by force in their military barracks for nightly use. The women were kept naked to prevent their escape."

"Hit-and-run rape of large numbers of Bengali women was brutally simple in terms of logistics as the Pakistani regulars swept through and occupied the tiny, populous land, an area little larger than the state of New York. (Bangladesh is the most overcrowded country in the world.) The Mukti Bahini “freedom fighters” were hardly an effective counterforce. According to victims, Moslem Biharis who collaborated with the Pakistani Army—the hireling razakars—were most enthusiastic rapists. In the general breakdown of law and order, Mukti Bahini themselves committed rape, a situation reminiscent of World War II when Greek and Italian peasant women became victims of whatever soldiers happened to pass through their village."

"Khadiga, thirteen years old, was interviewed by a photojournalist in Dacca. She was walking to school with four other girls when they were kidnapped by a gang of Pakistani soldiers. All five were put in a military brothel in Mohammedpur and held captive for six months until the end of the war. Khadiga was regularly abused by two men a day; others, she said, had to service seven to ten men daily. (Some accounts have mentioned as many as eighty assaults in a single night, a bodily abuse that is beyond my ability to fully comprehend, even as I write these words.) At first, Khadiga said, the soldiers tied a gag around her mouth to keep her from screaming. As the months wore on and the captives’ spirit was broken, the soldiers devised a simple quid pro quo. They withheld the daily ration of food until the girls had submitted, to the full quota."

"Mulk Raj Anand, an Indian novelist, was convinced of conspiracy. The rapes were so systematic and pervasive that they had to be conscious Army policy, “planned by the West Pakistanis in a deliberate effort to create a new race” or to dilute Bengali nationalism, Anand passionately told reporters."

"[Aubrey Menen, sent on a reporting assignment to Bangladesh, reconstructed the modus operandi of one hit-and-run rape:] ...And so on, until all the six had raped the belle of the village. Then all six left, hurriedly. The father found his daughter lying on the string cot unconscious and bleeding. Her husband was crouched on the floor, kneeling over his vomit."

"When mass rapes occurred in the course of aggressive war in Bangladesh and later in Bosnia, Mother Teresa in the first case and the Pope in the second made strenuous appeals to the victims not to abort the seed of the invader and the violator."

"A stream of victims and eyewitnesses tell how truckloads of Pakistani soldiers and their hireling razakars swooped down on villages in the night, rounding up women by force. Some were raped on the spot. Others were carried off to military compounds. Some women were still there when Indian troops battled their way into Pakistani strongholds. Weeping survivors of villages razed because they were suspected of siding with the Mukti Bahini freedom fighters told of how wives were raped before the eyes of their bound husbands, who were then put to death."

"When asked if the usual figures of the number of women raped by the Pakistani Army, 200-400,000, are accurate, Dr. Davis states that they are underestimated: ...Probably the numbers are very conservative compared with what they did. The descriptions of how they captured towns were very interesting. They’d keep the infantry back and put artillery ahead and they would shell the hospitals and schools. And that caused absolute chaos in the town. And then the infantry would go in and begin to segregate the women. Apart from little children, all those were sexually matured would be segregated..And then the women would be put in the compound under guard and made available to the troops...Some of the stories they told were appalling. Being raped again and again and again. A lot of them died in those [rape] camps. There was an air of disbelief about the whole thing. Nobody could credit that it really happened! But the evidence clearly showed that it did happen."

"...Some army officer raided Rokeya Hall on 7 October 1971. Accompanied by five soldiers, Major Aslam had first visited the hostel on 3 October and asked the superintendent to supply some girls who could sing and dance at a function to be held in Tejgaon Cantonment. The superintendent told him that most of the girls had left the hostel after the disturbances and only 40 students were residing but as a superintendent of a girls' hostel she should not allow them to go to the cantonment for this purpose. Dissatisfied, Major Aslam went away. Soon after the superintendent informed a higher army officer in the cantonment, over the telephone, of the Major' s mission. However, on 7 October at about 8 pm. Major Aslam and his men raided the hostel. The soldiers broke open the doors, dragged the girls out and stripped them before raping and torturing them in front of the helpless superintendent. The entire thing was done so openly without any provocation, that even the Karachi-based newspaper, Dawn, had to publish the story, violating censorship by the military authorities. In seven days after liberation about 300 girls were recovered from different places around Dacca where they had been taken away and kept confined by the Pakistani army men. On 26 December altogether 55 emaciated and half-dead girls on the verge of mental derangement were recovered by the Red Cross with the help of the Mukti Bahini and the allied forces from various hideouts of the Pakistani army in Narayanganj, Dacca Cantonment and other small towns on the periphery of Dacca city."

"Like the Japanese during World War II and the Red Army in its victorious march through Eastern Europe in 1945, the West Pakistanis were singularly devoted to raping any women in sight. Many were repeatedly raped in their homes or on the streets and then killed. Many were taken to military installations where they were kept and raped repeatedly, in some cases until they died. According to one report, for example, 700 naked women were liberated from the army cantonment at Moinamati. Of those women that survived the war, perhaps 200,000 or more may have been raped, at least according to a postwar figure that gained wide currency."

"The most serious crisis was pregnancy. Accurate statistics on the number of raped women who found themselves with child were difficult to determine but 25,000 is the generally accepted figure. Less speculative was the attitude of the raped, pregnant women. Few cared to bear their babies. Those close to birth expressed little interest in the fate of the child."

"The Reverend Kentaro Buma reported that more than 200,000 Bengali women had been raped by Pakistani soldiers during the nine-month conflict, a figure that had been supplied to him by Bangladesh authorities in Dacca. Thousands of the raped women had become pregnant, he said. And by tradition, no Moslem husband would take back a wife who had been touched by another man, even if she had been subdued by force."