Mali Islamists Using Rape As A Weapon Of War- UN Study

According to a study commissioned by UN Women, when the Islamists took over the northern part of Mali they began raping women some as young as 9, others as old as 70. The Islamists call it 'marriage' or Nikah Mut'ah- a temporary marriage which is allowed in Islam. These so-called 'marriages' are nothing more than a form of Islamically sanctioned prostitution, and in the case of the women in Mali, rape.

Interviews with Malian women revealed:

Throughout the occupied regions, girls are forced into marriage. When an Islamist marries you, you can be sure that, at night, you will be visited by at least four or five people, and that every night, you’ll receive a visit from a different man, a “new husband”. One girl told me: “it was by the smell that I knew that it was a different man coming to me every time. Every time, I was aware of a different smell than the last time.”

The Islamists perform religious marriages in order to escape the clutches of international criminal justice. They carry out a form of “marriage” so that, at night, you can be treated as a sexual slave. During the day, you are there to serve tea to the men and attend to their every need. This is why I always say that what’s happened in Mali is unprecedented.

It’s true to say that rape is being used as a weapon of war.

Imagine, in Gao, armed men bursting in on a family. The husband is there. They seize his wife, rape his wife and his daughter. I warn you, what I’m going to say is hard but they force him to rape his daughter. It’s dreadful. When you do that to a man, it takes away his humanity. Even if he wants to resist, he can’t. It’s to be expected, it’s human.

Anyone who turns a woman’s body into a trophy of war, he’s already won the battle. He doesn’t need any other weapons. He’s already won.

The rest here.