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The women of Darfur have been the unfortunate victims of genocide in Sudan, the largest country in Africa in the western region.
A five-person panel discussion was set up Tuesday via webcam at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and students from this college were able to view the film and discussion.
The people on the panel were international justice expert, Kelly Askin; Niemat Ahmadi, a human rights advocate and Darfur survivor; John Heffernan, the museum's genocide prevention initiative director; actress Maria Bello; and the Rev. Dr. Gloria White-Hammond, coalition board chairwoman.
The film was called "Violence Against Women and the Darfur Genocide" and the discussion was called "One Night, One Voice: Spotlighting Rape and War Crime."
The individuals of Darfur are suffering and do not have control of their own lives.
They fight to take their lives back, in hopes that one day it will be normal once more.
In 2003, after decades of neglect, drought and oppression, two groups of agrarian farmers organized a rebellion against Darfur's President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir.
Bashir's response to the rebel's outrageous antics and assaults were to take action on civilians.
Anyone who appeared to be identified as a rebel, whether men, women or innocent children were murdered.
The Sudanese government trained and armed a group called the Janjaweed.
Working together, they destroyed entire villages, wiping out food and water supplies.
More than 4,000 villages were burned down at the hand of the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed.
No longer were only rebels targeted, but anyone who they encountered.
Women and girls are often the main targets of genocide, and rape is being used as a means of war.
There are times when women are raped multiple times.
There have been women who have died from being raped, said Adrienne Fricke, human rights attorney.
Children have been thrown into fires, men are tortured and murdered and some people were sent into the desert, Heffernan said.
According to the film, 400,000 people were killed in 2004.
Heffernan said he did a study on the women of Darfur and found some women had post-traumatic stress disorder and long-term physical and emotional problems, had been disowned by their families, condemned as adulterers and had children by their assaulters.
A woman in the film named Halima was raped by a member of the Janjaweed who then burned cigarettes into her body.
She said she saw men raping 40 school girls and their teachers and all Halima kept repeating during her filming was "they were just children."
"Rape crimes are considered against humanity," Fricke said.
Askin remembered a case in which a woman told her she was raped in front of her 5- and 3-year-old children after the woman's husband had been murdered in front of her and the kids.
The child who witnessed the rape is now 7.
He had drawn a picture of that night that he seems to remember vividly, drawing his mother being raped and his father slaughtered, Askin said.
Ahmadi said before the genocide started, women were well-respected and secure. Now it is the women who are at their most vulnerable.
"The top decision maker was not even my father; it was my eldest aunt," Ahmadi said.
She said in a traditional society in Sudan, women hold a place of honor and chastity, but now many young women have lost their chance at marriage because they are considered spoiled.
Ahmadi came to the United States from Darfur to continue her work helping the people of Darfur bring justice and peace to their land.
Hammond said a victim came to her and she said, "We're dying but we're also living."
Two and a half million people have fled their homes. They relocated to camps that aren't much safer than where they were; these individuals are still under attack everyday.
Ahmadi said these groups have captured women when they are in search of food and firewood to take back with them to their camps.
These women are putting their lives at great risk.
There have been several cases of women who have done this and have found themselves at the mercy of the Janjaweed after being surrounded and raped at gunpoint.
"The women in Darfur are 100 percent Muslim. They are very religious and chastity is a big value," Fatima Haroun, human rights advocate, said.
"When you rape a woman, you've raped her whole tribe," Fricke said. "By raping a woman in front of her male family members, it ensures the destruction of the fabric of that family."
Heffernan went to Darfur in 2004 and said he spoke to an immense amount of women who were raped and thought the first thing he should do was to write and report on it.
Fricke said there are women who are left behind because of the shame and do not know how to restart their lives and reintegrate into society.
With their religious beliefs as a factor, once it's known you have been raped, many family members are not as accepting, Fricke said.
Fricke said rape is condoned by the Sudanese government as part of their systematic campaign.
The Sudanese government and Janjaweed use rape and violence as a tool of intimidation and terror, Fricke said.
Ahmadi said her work puts her at great risk and the Sudanese government has made numerous attempts to kill her.
"I dedicate my life to the Darfuri women," Ahmadi said.
If you would like to send a supportive message to the women of Darfur, call and leave a message at (888) 473-7885.
A video game is also available on the Internet at www.darfurisdying.com to show what the people of Darfur go through on a daily basis.
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