Panelists At Ramapo College To Discuss “The Disabling of The Women of Darfur”
(Mahwah) – “The Disabling of the Women of Darfur” will be the subject of a panel discussion to be held Tuesday, October 18 at 3:30 p.m. at Ramapo College of New Jersey. The participants will be Denise Bell of Amnesty International and Abdelbaggy Abushanab of the Darfur Rehabilitation Project. The event will be held in the H-Wing Auditorium.
Sponsored by the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, the Office of Specialized Services and the Women’s Center of Ramapo College, the program will deal with the sexual violence against women that is part and parcel of violence against the indigenous population of the Darfur region of Sudan. Reports by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders make it clear that rape and other forms of sexual abuse are an integral component of the campaign of terror being perpetrated by the government-supported Jinjaweed militia.
According to a recent report of New York-based Human Rights Watch, “Rape and sexual violence have specifically been used to terrorize and displace rural communities. In some attacks … girls as young as seven and eight years old were raped, while some women were raped and then genitally mutilated.”
Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres in June found that in the four previous months alone 500 women had been raped. Women in refugee camps cannot go out in search of food without risking being assaulted.
Among the questions that will be raised at the event are:
• What can be done to end the killing and violence?
• What makes the situation in Darfur so intractable?
• What is our role as members of a college community? As ordinary citizens?
• Why is the “disabling” of women in all its manifestations seemingly such an constant element in ethnic and racial violence?
For more information, please contact Dr. Michael A. Riff, director of the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, at 201.684.7409, or Cheryl Schwartz of Ramapo College’s Office of Specialized Services at 201.684.7693.
