I rarely cry. I’m a tough old bird that has huge empathy for people hurt, dying or lost. I just find no point in crying over things I cannot change. The older I get, the less I cry. That being said there are a few stories around the world that still make me weep.
These graphic news stories, pictures and films that will stay with me forever, every minute detail. The horrific crimes against women that have brought me to tears and at times haunt my nightmares are just disturbing. The brutality of these attacks on innocent women has sickened me. Just thinking about it now brings tears to my eyes. I need to write about them as they break my heart and the recent case of the young woman who was savagely raped, all because the men who committed this heinous crime believed she had no right catching a bus home with her male friend, eats away at my soul.
But let me start with the first story that still haunts me nearly 30 years later.
I was in year 8 at High School. A young and impressionable teenager. For history class we all sat down to watch a documentary on World War II. It started off with the basic history of which countries were involved, battles, etc. Then we were shown actual footage from the death camps. There was row after row of piled up bodies, Women, children, elderly. Some were charred as they had been partially burnt, but all the bodies were naked. As we listened to how the women and children were lead to the gas chambers, a few of my fellow class mates asked to be excused. The graphic and sometimes violent end to these innocent people was too much for some. I sat there watching the screen show me atrocity after atrocity. Each new story, photo and original footage making me feel ill to my core. I kept watching, my innocence was lost in those two short hours. The more I learned of how the women tried to save their children by trying to hold them closely and not letting them breathe in the gas, only to leave these poor children and babies to the mercy of their killers after was shocking. So many babies were thrown live into the furnaces. The poor mothers had no idea that would be the fate of the tiny little babies.
The stories and the images are always with me. The brutality of the murders of so many women and children still makes me weep today. What was done to the bodies after death is beyond my comprehension. Those images have never faded. The many stories I have read since that fateful lesson only make cry more. Some stories are too much for me to repeat.
There has been many a story of domestic abuse around the world that have made me wish I owned a gun. I wanted to kill the abuser for what they had done. It is a fanciful idea as I couldn’t take a life, let alone hold a gun. But my anger is raw and I believe justified.
The next story that has always been with me is of a husband and wife in America. Their story was made into a movie that I watched in my twenties. Later I researched the story to make sure that the terrible events were not twisted to make the movie more interesting to viewers. Unfortunately only some of the dialogue between the husband and wife was. The rest of the story was true.
The movie started with the couple in love and enjoying each others company. It moves on to the husband becoming more controlling and abusive. Then the wife went missing. The husband was completely distraught. Begged for his wife to be found. The police though smelled a rat.
They uncovered she had been to the emergency department for many injuries she claimed were self afflicted. The very common excuses of falling over, burning oneself on the oven door, etc. The list is numerous. Family and friends had seen warning signs but nothing that showed the real situation the wife was facing. Her husband had complete control over everything she did. Through the Police’s thorough investigation they uncovered a crime scene so violent it beggars belief.
Though the home was spotless, they discovered blood splatters from using a special solution that was sprayed on almost every surface in the home. The scene before them sickened even hardened police. The husband had beaten his wife to death with his dumbbells. Her blood was found almost everywhere, but the most concentrated area was the bedroom. All four walls, the floor, everything was covered in her blood. The attack that ended her life was extremely vicious and long. The images of that bedroom still make me sick. I actually feel nauseous. He was sent to prison for the life he took. Bu it was too late though for the lovely woman who had died so tragically at his hands.
Just over a decade ago I was watching a documentary on SBS (tv channel in Australia). It was about the Korean War. They filmed people retelling their accounts of the war. It was really interesting how each side had this hatred for each other that they have never let go of and why. The documentary was coming to an end. About 15-20 minutes remained. I’m not sure which side the man that repulsed me was on. That detail I have forgotten but not his words on the crimes against women and children that he and his fellow soldiers committed.
He was asked what did he do when the troops came to villages on the opposing side. He took great pleasure in recounting his awful deeds. They are as follows to the best of my recollection. He recalled this village they came upon. They rounded up all the woman, children and elderly. They killed a lot of children in front of mothers and often beat the elderly. One woman was giving birth as they invaded the village. They barricaded the doors and windows of her home, then set it alight. The woman was screaming and so was her newly delivered baby as they were burned alive. The mother of the woman tried desperately to get to her daughter and grandchild only to be beaten and held off by the soldiers. They then lined up all the women, laid them over watermelons one at a time, before they stuffed kerosene rages into the woman’s vagina and set it alight.
The man being interview took great delight in watching these women scream in agony. In his eyes he was hurting the opposing army’s men. Showing the husbands, fathers, uncles, brothers that their women were now worthless. It was the attitude of this man describing his actions as great fun, a needed action to the “whores” of the enemy that repulsed me. Even decades after the conflict, after the brutal attack on these innocent women he was still enjoying the memories of the violence he had committed. It seemed to arouse him sexually.
His words of violence have never left me. They make me sick, cry and want to reach out to these poor women and hold them tight.
There once was this little 4 year old girl named Darcey. She was so excited about her first day a school as was her elder brother. She thought her father was taking them to school. No one could have foreseen what would happen next. He was suppose to drop the children off at their school, where their mother was waiting. During a phone call from the mother, he told her “You’ll never see your children again”. He stopped his car on the Westgate Bridge in Melbourne, took Darcy out of the car and hung her over the railing. People driving by could not believe what happened next. He let Darcey go and she fell approximately 58 meters to her death. This was done in front of his eldest son, who was to young to comprehend what had just happened to his sister. All he could think of was that she couldn’t swim and they had to go back to help help her. Her father calmly returned to his car and drove the Commonwealth Law Court. Took his eldest son and baby son up the steps and into the building where he finally broke down.
My heart always feels like it is being ripped out when I think about the fear Darcey would of endured. She most likely didn’t know she was about to die, but her fear of being dropped be her father is unimaginable. Her story has effected many people, especially the police officers that tried to save her, but it was too late. Another beautiful soul had been snuffed out because a man believed it was the best way to hurt someone that had hurt him. So many lives were destroyed that day. So many questions of ‘why?’. Unfortunately this is not uncommon. In the last two decades I have read many stories, seen them on the news, about someone killing innocent children to harm the other parent. Kids driven into dams, drowned in bath tubs, shot, strangled, stabbed. Every single one is beyond bad. It is mortifying what people will do just to harm another.
The last story that I find hard to bare is of a 23 year old woman in India, Jyoti Singh. Jyoti had just finished her final exams and was about to start her internship as a Doctor. Her story is worse than any horror story you could watch. The events on the night that destroyed her just seem to unreal to be true, but they are true. The attitude of the abusers, her murderers is unbelievable. To this day they believe Jyoti should of just accepted being raped, coped it silently as she should of been a good woman and not leave her home at night. Jyoti was returning home some time after 8pm, after watching ‘The Life of Pi’ with a male friend.
This now lost soul endured the most heinous attack. It is so hard to write any of the details of what happened. It is the worst attack I have ever read and I hope never to hear another of this magnitude again in my life time, but without change it is highly probable.
Jyoti and her friend had just finished watching a movie at the cinema when they both hopped on board one of the many private buses to head home. The men on the bus beat the young man and then set about the beyond brutal gang rape of Jyoti. Her injuries from the attack is sickening. She had the most unimaginable injuries to her abdomen, intestines and genitalia. One of the rapist, who was only 17 at the time of the attack, had reached his hand inside her only to remove it with her intestines in his hands. They had not only raped Jyoti but used objects to do it too, which lead to the horrific injuries she sustained. There was bite marks all over her. They threw Jyoti and the young man she was with off the bus naked. They left her to die, feeling that they were justified in teaching her a lesson and to know her place.
Many men stood around as Jyoti was in need of help, but did nothing. One man ran to a near by hotel and got a sheet. He ripped it in half and gave the young man half and the other to Jyoti. Help arrived and took them to the hospital. The Doctors could not believe she was alive. Jyoti’s injuries were so severe it was amazing that she still lived, but she had no chance of recovery. The Doctors stated there was so much of her missing, they didn’t know what to reconnect anything too.
I’m crying at the thought of the pain, fear and realization her life was over that Jyoti would of felt. I cry because the young man, her friend had to watch this whole attack and was helpless to save her. I cry because the attitudes of her attackers that ripped her apart have no remorse for what they have done. They lay the blame squarely at the victims feet. The sorrow I feel for a woman I didn’t know that once lived across the ocean in a land I have never been, lost her life because the attackers believed she had no value as a woman is real. She should never of been attacked, she should of been safe to catch a bus home with her friend after the movie. Her life was considered worthless the moment she stepped onto that bus. She was no longer considered as human by those men. Dirt had more meaning than her in the eyes of her attackers. This is evident in their belief she should of just accepted being raped instead of fighting them.
I’ll never forget her story and neither should anyone else.
I applaud the woman who made the documentary of her attack and stand with those that protested advocating for change. “India’s Daughter” by Leslee Udwin was aired on the BBC. It has been banned in India but I urge people to watch it. As heart wrenching as it is, it shows the attitudes of many people.
There are millions of women with stories of rape, abuse, no worth, religious/cultural limitations and the list goes on. One of these stories is too much. Both men and women are equals. Neither has the right over the other. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if these kinds attacks on women were a thing of by gone eras? Only through world education and no resistance to change can this be achieved. I hope the stories of the women who have survived or perished will help future generations stop the violence and attitudes of many men and women all around the world.
It isn’t just an issue for each country to deal with but a global problem that we all must address together.
Say “NO” to violence. Stand up and be counted as a person ready for change.
Please visit UN Women to see how you can help too.
harpyfreedom 