Issue Investigator Chap. 3-5

The major issues that I found in this case was corrupt law enforcement and rape. Corrupt government doesn't just mean that the police sides with the criminals or that they like the actions that are being commit ed. In these chapters corrupt law enforcement refers to the police being to afraid of how much power the criminals may have behind them and fearing for their lives and their families lives; the criminals may also have a "high status" in their country which makes them almost untouchable by police. Even if the criminal were to be arrested, he or she would be released and all charges would be dropped do to their political influence. This is not something you hear about often in the United States, but you don't have to look far to find it. Our neighboring country to the south (Mexico), has seen it's far share of corrupt government; the police are bought out by drug cartels so that their shipments of drugs get through the country with out any problems. The police that are not bought out by the cartels or the ones who resist have fear for their lives because the cartels will not hesitate to shoot, stab, and murder anyone who gets in their way.

Rape was another large issue in these chapters. People hear about rape in the United States on a fairly frequent basis; we have shows that go after child molesters and rapist (Date Line NBC: To Catch A Predator) and shows that portray the lives of detectives who investigate sex crimes (Law and Order SVU). So Americans are familiar with what rape is and other crimes of that nature. But the kind of rape that is happening in 3rd world countries is NOTHING like what happens in the States. Girls of all ages are being brutalized and sodomized with sticks, pipes, bats, guns, whatever these sick people get their hands on. They don't just try and force the women to have sex with them; they want to abuse them, humiliate them, and make them wish they weren't even alive. In chapter five, there was even a story of how militias in the Congo would stick a firearm in a women's vagina and pull the trigger. Supposedly this was because the women had pre-marital sex and was no longer "pure", but who is that for someone else to decide? These abusers do not care about the age of the women, whether she has a family or not, or what she does in society; these people rape and abuse with no mercy and it doesn't appear as though it will stop any time soon.

Chris Giroux