Why Rape in Zimbabwe Isn't Sexy

While I was pleased to learn of AIDS-Free World's investigation of political rape in Zimbabwe, it struck me that ZANU-PF government militia have been perpetrating these horrifying assaults for nearly ten years with little notice from the rest of the world. While the atrocities in Darfur and human rights violations in Tibet dominate headlines and inspire the creation of NGOs focused solely on ending those particular humanitarian crises, international coalitions of Olympian athletes (see prior post), You Tube-based political movements, hip t-shirts, and even political video games, a Google search on "rape in Zimbabwe" gives rise to no such international outpouring. Instead, one reads a few quiet, tragic stories from rape survivors and sex slaves, reported in papers year after year, and human rights reports decrying the South African government's silence in the face of countless rape stories from Zimbabwean asylum seekers. In the words of one survivor:

We are living through a plague of brutal violence directed at women and girls. When talking about rape in a conflict situation, it is not like a wound on your hand or face. Our bleeding is hidden under our panties.

Where are Mia Farrow and George Clooney? Or even Madonna, whose adopted child hails from Malawi, not all that far from Zimbabwe? Celebrity roasting aside, why is it that some human rights crises capture the popular imagination, while others remain all but invisible? Is it that, in Zimbabwe, "the most vulnerable, the poorest, uneducated, unemployed rural women" are raped? Surely the same can be said for those suffering human rights abuses in Darfur. Is it the decade-long duration of the conflict in Zimbabwe, as opposed to the relatively recent eruption of violence in Darfur? Hard to single out this factor when the conflict in Tibet has been simmering for over five decades. Is it that political rape still gets less attention than other types of physical assault? Even CNN covers rape in Darfur, so that can't be dispositive either. And while the sheer numbers of rape victims may be greater in Darfur than in Zimbabwe, the same surely can't be said of Tibet. Perhaps Zimbabweans need a charismatic leader like the Dalai Lama? The label of genocide? More to the point, as Mariam Bibi Jooma of the South African Institute for Security Studies notes, international celebrity may not, in the end, make much of an impact:

despite the “Save Darfur” campaign gaining mass support on a scale perhaps rivalled only by the former anti-apartheid movement, very little progress has actually been achieved on either the political or military fronts in Darfur.

Perhaps the ICC's indictment of Al-Bashir will change this (see prior posts here, here, here, and here.) But even if Jooma is right that celebrity causes aren't all they're cracked up to be, it would be refreshing to see increased attention focused on Zimbabwe's brutal rape camps.