from The Guardian Yifat Susskind is executive director of Madre, an international women’s human rights organisation
"As recounted by the women in Istanbul, Isis has used rape to exert control and spread terror through communities. It has imposed draconian limits on women’s freedoms to work, speak or be seen in public, policing these controls through violence. Isis has abducted women and girls, sometimes by the busload, and sold them into sexual slavery."
" But the most destructive power of rape as a weapon of war lies in the deep-rooted stigma attached to it. Survivors are ostracised, even blamed for the attacks. Families fear being tarnished by the stigma and banish wives, mothers and daughters. In the worst cases, people adhere to distorted notions of “honour” and kill rape survivors. In short, rape tears at the fabric that binds families and communities."
"Grassroots activists in Iraq and Syria are already mobilised, reaching out to survivors and their families with aid and counselling. Some have set up emergency escape routes to activist-run shelters. Many regularly visit refugee camps, not only to bring relief supplies but to listen to women’s stories carefully and without judgment."
"All these are vital interventions, modelling a way for communities to stand by survivors and begin to render rape obsolete as a weapon of war."
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