July 2008 – Page 16

Rape Kits: Still Not Being Tested

The LA Times op-ed page, of Heather MacDonald “What Campus Rape Crisis?” (actual title) notoriety, has actually published a responsible piece about rape. It’s called “Lost Promise for Rape Victims” by Sarah Tofte of Human Rights Watch, and is about the infuriating and heartbreaking fact that hundreds of thousands of rape kits in America are not being tested. And she exemplifies the injustice by describing the grueling process that is rape kit collection.

The process — which can last more than four hours — begins in a private interview room, separate from the hospital emergency room, where a counselor asks in detail what happened during the rape. The counselor is there throughout the subsequent examination.

If I were a rape victim, I would next be led into the exam room and asked to undress while standing on a large sheet of butcher paper so that anything that falls from my clothing or body that may provide links to a perpetrator or a crime scene (hairs and carpet or clothing fibers) can be carefully collected and placed in the rape kit.

I would be examined on a gynecological table with stirrups. My body would be scanned with an ultraviolet light to find otherwise undetectable semen or saliva that might contain the assailant’s DNA.

[. . .]

If I were a rape victim, the police officer on duty at the center might drive me home with the rape kit in the patrol car. I might imagine that the police were taking it directly to the crime lab to test the samples for DNA that could identify my assailant or provide evidence against an already identified suspect.

The part that really got to me is the image of the ultraviolet light. Of course, I absolutely understand the necessity of it, and how it would be an outrageously useful tool. But as I generally come at these things, I can’t help but look at this from the standpoint of the survivor. And (as a survivor who did not report) the thought of seeing my rapist’s bodily fluids on me under that light sends chills up my spine.

And after going through all that? Forget the relatively low chances of the kit turning up useful evidence, resulting in an arrest, a court date and then a conviction. The kit most likely won’t even be cracked open.

A Review of The Veil Anthology

Full disclosure: I interviewed editor Jennifer Heath about this book for Bitch’s upcoming issue. The review below also appeared on my blog.

Jennifer Heath published The Scimitar and the Veil: Extraordinary Women of Islam in 2004. And I loved it. It profiled strong, intelligent women in Islam’s history, including the women of the Prophet’s life, but also Hadith scholars, poets, warriors, etc. It was a quick read despite the thickness of the book because Heath made these women into great stories without stripping them of their humanity.

So when I read that Heath edited and wrote for The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore, and Politics (published in 2008), I was really excited.

The paperback book has a great cover, using an abstract image for the cover art (pictured here). There is no actual veil on the cover, but the blue evokes the same blues found in the Afghan chadaari (burqa). No pictures of women with heavily-kohl-rimmed eyes peeking out from behind a black cloth. Yay!

The very word “veil” elicits groans and eye-rolling from the Muslim community, but it’s something that eludes many. In her introduction, Heath argues that the veils have multi-layered meanings, and are part of societies, politics, religions, and that the veil still has heavy symbolism around it. Because of this symbolism, the veil is often imbued with mystery.

The book is separated into three sections, which aren’t officially themed. The first section concentrates on the religious use and history of the veil in different contexts. Mohja Kahf writes an interesting essay about forced unveilings in the Middle East (something that doesn’t ever make it to the evening news). Pamela K. Taylor writes an excellent essay about the politics imbued with the scarf she wears, and how she navigates through the positive and negative aspects of these associations.

Section two deals with the veil’s relationship to the physical realm. In this section, Shireen Malik details a history of Salome and her veils. One of my favorite pieces, “Drawing the Line at Modesty My Place in the Order of Things,” by Michelle Auerbach, talks about her yearning for an idyllic version of a Jewish lifestyle, complete with family gatherings and dinners, but her struggle with the modesty requirements of the sect of Judaism she was practicing. I found this personally resonant as a Muslim woman who loves the idea of community, but finds herself at odds with the seeming rigidity of what is modest and what isn’t.

The third section focuses on sociopolitics and the veil, following histories of the veil in different countries and political environments. Aisha Lee Fox Shaheed asks the question “How Islamic is the veil?” in her essay “Dress Codes and Modes,” while Dinah Zeiger traces the Orientalism and privilege inherent in National Geographic’s search for the (heretofore) nameless Afghan girl, now a woman with children, featured on the 1985 cover of the magazine.

The book’s inclusion of Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity alongside Islam is one of its best features. So often, veils are ascribed to Islam and Islam only, ignoring the extensive pre-Islamic existences of this piece of cloth. This inclusion also has the (perhaps intentional) effect of interfaith communication and alliance-building: reading about the different reasons, histories, and levels of veiling in other religions makes women of other faiths seem less different than we are taught.

Heath doesn’t aim to give a concrete definition of what veiling is. The book gives several different (and differing) perspectives on what veiling is to the women within these pages, and lets the reader mull over what this may mean herself. In a politically-charged atmosphere, where most books, speakers, and articles aim to define and control the veil and its meanings, The Veil is a refreshing anti-viewpoint.

The many faces of human trafficking victims

A distant relative of mine was trafficked.

Depending on what you’ve read and seen in the media, you may not expect this story to look like this: he is male, and wasn’t destined to become a sex slave, but a construction-site slave. Desperate for a job in Western Europe, he left his Ukrainian village with some sketchy individuals, was forced to trek through a marsh in freezing weather, and was eventually discovered on a train by police, still determined to reach his destination.

This spring, an article on modern-day slavery was published in the L. A. Times – it warned readers that slavery is far from over, that, in fact, there are more slaves today than before, and that slavery has many faces and many forms.

The article mentions prostitution, and argues that not all prostitutes are sex slaves, and that the U.S. legislators, by focusing mainly on the sex trade, are not seeing the complete picture.