We Are The Collateral Damage That No One Sees

International Journalists & Correspondents do a really good job of reporting war, conflict and humanitarian crisis. But there is a separate issue within the chaos that claims lives, homes and the dignity of life. Women and girls, some too young to even know what it’s like to be close with the opposite sex are all of a sudden forced to be a women enslaved to male lust and perversion. These are the invisible stories that not many report on and if they do, it’s a one-liner no more. It’s not the fault of journalists but of society’s reluctance to look at the suffering of women and girls outside the famlial scope. There is a complacency that rape and enslavement of women is just a part of war, it’s somehow “natural” and “expected” just like the war itself and therefore cast aside as a side effect of living in a region that is raging in turmoil.

Women are the issue that unless you are an outspoken feminist, doesn’t get covered much if even at all. In the realm of terrorism and the groups that carry out these atrocities, claim the lives of women through coercion, false promises and brainwashing. Women are used as scapegoats and take the blame for terrorist activites and violence while they are under the control of a patriarcal madman. This is when women get A LOT of coverage. No one wants to see the bondage she is in, now this does not excuse the fact that something horrific happened and lives were lost, but the fact that this gets more attention than the thousands of women being raped, tortured and killed is not the right balance. Demonizing women at every turn will desensitize the masses to all of the abuse, exploitation, military sanctioned rape and murder of women.

That’s not to say that there aren’t female journalists out there going to refugee camps, places of extreme danger to reach these women and talk with them. Sitting in their homes or tents receiving their horror story so that the world will know. But this still doesn’t get much attention-unless you Google it. How will we ever understand the humanitarian atrocities of women and girls if it’s not in the world media the same way other disasters are? A country should be looked at by how they treat their women because with out us really, life cannot continue. Think about it.