There is no rape in Darfur...Someone's left reality behind...

The most frustrating thing about following the story of what's happening in Darfur is knowing that very little has improved. Many of the same things being stated now are needed to make things better have been stated for the past several years.

Ridiculous statements made like the one by said Mohammad Hassan Awad, a Humanitarian Aid Commissioner for West Darfur "There is no rape in Darfur," give a tiny clue into how difficult it is to address this as a problem.

As this recent CNN article points out rape has gotten to the point there where men do not even accompany their wives or daughters so that they are not killed or harmed while trying to prevent a rape. Which points to another issue, this demonstrates the men have been beaten down to the point where they allow this to happen.

Even four years ago, the problem of rape and women having babies born from a rape being mistreated by their own people was well reported. As well as the denial from the government that this was happening.

Personally having more women UN officials to "educate" women on rape is going to do very little, I have a feeling they already know they have been raped, that it's wrong but given no one will do anything about it, all of the education in the world on rape is not going to make their lives better...

Update on Darfur...

As most of you know I have followed the scenario in Darfur for several years how though I don't blog about the issue as much as I should. Hence this update on Darfur as far as the attempts to create an U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force is some what optimistic news in relation to pledges being made.

There are still needs, and it's obvious the longer this takes the more who will die while waiting for this latest peace keeping attempt to start. There is also the reality that some of the troops sent in the past have committed atrocities and it appears at least from a planning standpoint this is being addressed more stringently than in the past.