May 3 2010
"Hundreds of thousands of women in conflict zones around the world have been or are now becoming victims of rape and sexual torture," reflects Michel Martin, host of NPR's "Tell Me More," as she interviewed Margot Wallstrom, U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, in a show examining the U.N.'s "ramped up" campaign to end systemic sexual violence in war.
Martin said: "As we know, for many victims the pain does not end with the assaulted self. Many of these women become infected with HIV/AIDS and other diseases. They may become pregnant with children of the men who brutalized them. And many become outcasts, disowned by their families and communities."
"We have to make sure that the political leaders take responsibility for this issue. We have to understand that this is a tactic or a consequence of war and conflict. And that it can be addressed. And we also have to bring together, to coordinate better all our efforts and we have to do more on prevention to understand also why how do their perpetrators think," Wallstrom, head of the U.N's Stop Rape Now campaign, said (4/29).
 This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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