Personal Reflection

           Researching for this blog wasn't an easy task. I mean that in two different senses. First off, there was a scarce amount of information, and I wish that I could have dug deeper into this work. My second reasoning for this difficulty was the fact that these sorts of things, rape, abductions, child soldier recruitment, murders, etc; They all happen on a day to day basis in Africa. The people that populate such a broken continent have to face such tragedy every single moment that they live. Women being kidnapped, raped, forced into marriage. Men being attacked, forced into illegal military systems. And children, the most innocent of all, being made to kill one another, being sexually violated before they even know what that type of thing is. 

        As I sit here writing this safe in my home, in my country with women's rights, racial equality, freedom of speech, I find myself reflecting on my own life, and the lives of the people around me. I examine the heart ache and pain that a Canadian citizen would go through, compared to that of an African. One thing is for sure, someone always has it worse. Especially in this case. 

      

Facts and Statistics Regarding War Crimes

 

   Rape

• A woman is raped approximately every 26 seconds in Africa.
• 1,738 South African men anonymously admitted to have raped someone.
• 3 out of 4 men admitted those women were under 20 years of age, while 1 out of 10 said the victims were under 10.
• 2.1% of women over the age of 16 in Africa admit to have been sexually abused at least once in their life.
• An estimated 40% of African women will be raped in their life time.
• While only 1 out of every 9 rapes will be reported, only 14% of rapists will be charged.

Child Soldiers

• Children are often used as spies before they become official "Soldiers".
• Quite often children in the military will be used as human shields, protecting the older, more experienced men.
• When young girls are recruited with promises to be able to fight, they're turned into sex slaves for the other Soldiers instead.
• Child soldiers are more subject to being terrorized.
• When the children are captured by other rebel groups, they sometimes get limbs amputated as some form of punishment. 

 

Central African Republic Conflict

                   

                   Beginning in 2012, the Central African Republic Conflict started out as a problem with the Seleka rebel group. This one of many rebel groups in Africa, accused the government of failing to abide by peace laws that were settled in both 2007 and 2011. So instead of trying to make meetings and sort things out in a civil way, Seleka started capturing many large towns and villages. After a while, surrounding places had began to become fed up with their people being murdered, imprisoned, and turned into slaves. Some of the first places that sent troops to fight off the rebels were countries such as Chad and 
Angola.

                  A year had passed and the African government had seemed to have no more power over the rebels than when they just started. Countless shootings, human trafficking, and the production of child armies began to boom more and more as time went on. Skip to present day, 2014. As the media looks at Africa, they see a country where human rights are being abused, religious groups such as Muslims are being targeted with continuous massacres and even outbreaks of cannibalistic actions. All of this has lead to many Muslims fleeing the country for their lives. Not stopping and looking back at war-torn Africa.