The international press has recently focused on the abuses against indigenous girls in San José del Guaviare [capital of the department of Guaviare in the Colombian Amazonia]. Girls between the ages of 7 and 15, mainly from the Nukak-Makú and Jiw indigenous ethnic groups, are forced into a life of sexual exploitation (“makuseo”), just five blocks from the ICBF (the state institution in charge of watching over children and which in the region is directed by a former military man). Most of the abusers are soldiers deployed in the battalions near the indigenous settlements. Before everyone’s eyes, these girls are forced into prostitution in exchange for a few pesos, or food and guarapo [fermented sugar cane juice], or a dose of chemical glue that they inhale to alleviate hunger.

And it doesn’t stop there: 20 percent of the pregnancies treated at the city hospital are among indigenous children. In the last four years, 69 Nukak girls, between the ages of 10 and 14, have become pregnant. And the Prosecutor’s Office is still investigating the 378 rapes of indigenous girls and women reported in Guaviare between 2018 and 2020. 118 soldiers are being investigated.

These abuses have been perpetrated for several years and are almost always covered up with impunity. And not only in the Department of Guaviare. The case of the kidnapping and gang rape of an indigenous girl from the Emberá Chamí ethnic group, from Pueblo Rico, Risaralda, committed by Army soldiers in 2020, was very notorious. The girl was kidnapped on Sunday, June 22, and raped by an undetermined number of soldiers. She was found Monday night near a local school and was taken to the hospital.

This is not a local matter. In May 2022, in Paraguay, an evangelical pastor accused of abusing 10 girls from the Aché indigenous community, in the Department of Alto Paraná, was sentenced to 27 years in prison, given the “triple vulnerability” of the victims, as women, as children and as indigenous people. In November, in Argentina, the femicide of two girls of the Wichí ethnic group, aged 12 and 14, caused indigenous women to rise up against the “chineo,” the gang rape of indigenous girls and women, a practice that dates back to the time of the Spanish conquest (the Spanish began to call the indigenous women Chinese because of their slanted eyes), but it continues today. In some cases, the crime is perpetrated by “groups of men who go to the mountains and hunt down adolescents and girls, whom they run after, pursue, throw on the ground, and rape.”

There Exists a Rape Culture...

During 2022, 17,106 cases of sexual violence against children under 14 years of age in Colombia were reported to Medicina Legal [Colombian Institute of Forensic Medicine and Forensic Sciences]. But the real figure is estimated to be triple that figure. Of the 17,106 cases, 1,800 children were between 0 and 4 years of age; 4,292 were between the ages of 5 and 9, and 11,014 were between the ages of 10 and 14. The DANE [National Administrative Department of Statistics] reported that in 2021, 4,708 births were recorded in Colombia among girls between the ages of 10 and 14, 19 percent more than in 2020.

This occurs not only in the remote areas of Colombia. There is no place, either on the street or at home, or in the countryside in Colombia or around the world, where women and girls are not in danger of being raped, where they are not blamed and degraded for being raped, where they are not told they have to get over it. Or where women are not reduced to being incubators of children, forced against their will to give birth by shame, coercion or force. Or where abortion and even birth control are not illegal or under sharp attack. Or where women and young girls are not oppressed, beaten, imprisoned, sworn at, defiled, abused, harassed, exploited, murdered, spit on, do not have acid thrown on them, are not groped, humiliated or systematically degraded.

There exists a “rape culture,” and it is normalized in society, by the existence of beliefs, stereotypes and behaviors that engender and feed into the idea that women and, therefore, their bodies, are the property of men. Rape culture is made up of all those beliefs, thoughts, attitudes, and actions based on gender stereotypes—such as blaming the victims, relating it to how they dress or what they do, or trivializing issues such as harassment—and in turn rape culture is fueled by advertising, movies, music, pornography, culture, education or the lack thereof, or machist discourses: “Women say ‘no’ when they mean ‘yes.’” “She was dressed like a whore.” “Why didn’t she leave there?” “You know that’s what they do with men.” “She was drunk.” “If you’re a good girl, nothing will happen to you” or “Only bad girls are raped.” And “Anyone who fights hard enough can resist rape.”

But this violence and degradation, cruelty and savagery, are not simply the depraved behavior of a handful of men. Nor is this simply “human nature.” This is about the nature of many of the men trained by the system we live in, the global system of imperialism, in which patriarchy (the domination of women by men) is woven into, or “normalized” in, its roots, its traditions, its “morality,” and its culture.

This violence is a direct and inevitable product of a system that requires the subjugated and degraded position of women in its feudal and medieval forms and in its “modern” and even postmodern forms. These rapes cannot be separated from the more extensive relationships in the world where every year millions of women and girls are kidnapped, tricked, sold by starving families, and beaten in the global network of sexual slavery and where millions of men have been conditioned to see women as nothing more than a piece of meat to be consumed, debased, brutalized, and discarded.

This violent terror and degradation of women is a cornerstone and important glue of all class societies. And right now, this all is escalating rapidly and aggressively. This has to do with the normalized societal integration of rape pornography. In music women are mocked as “bitches” and “whores.” In Biblical scriptures rape is celebrated as a prize of war. In “macho rape culture” promoted by sports coaches and physical education teachers, as well as in boardrooms and in military battalions. In the culture of erotic clubs and “escorts” that prevails in “executive” environments. Among professors and teachers, bosses and others in positions of authority who demand or force “sexual favors.” Among the hordes of men who harass women on social media. It is essential that people strongly oppose this whole culture of rape, violence and degradation against women.

… And a Structural Racism

In the 20th century [in Colombia], when landowners and settlers from the interior began to invade the Llano [Orinoco River basin], massacres became commonplace. Indigenous people accustomed to the freedom of the savannahs in their nomadic life could not stand the fences that the new settlers had built, and, so, they jumped over them, in pursuit of the prey on which they fed. The landowners organized hunting parties. They murdered without mercy. From this criminal custom the verb “guajibiar” arose, to designate this practice which until the 1970s was common in the Llano, disputing with the indigenous peoples for, and reducing, their traditional habitat spaces.

There are also emblematic cases here. In La Rubiera, in a place on the border with Venezuela, in December 1967, some cowboys from the region killed 16 Cuibá indigenous people (of the Guahibo or Sikuani family). Two indigenous people survived and from them, the massacre came to light. When the authorities of Colombia and Venezuela began the investigation, all the defendants spontaneously confessed their participation, but affirmed that “they did not know that killing Indios [denigrating name in Spanish for indigenous people] was bad” because “Indios have no soul.” And this was not just a matter of “rustic people.” A judge from Ibagué, where the trial was held, endorsed this argument to acquit some of the defendants.

In the background of all this can be perceived the so-called biological racism, the pseudoscientific belief that there is evidence that supports or justifies racial discrimination, racial inferiority or racial superiority, a belief which had credibility even in the scientific community. For example, in 1950 the Nobel Prize winner in physics William Shockley proposed sterilizing Black people for eugenic reasons. And, in 2007, the U.S. biochemist James Dewey Watson stated that the intelligence of Africans was inferior to that of Westerners.

And among the common people this permeated significantly, particularly among conservative groups. And it’s still going deep. A 2017 investigation found that in France, a “young person perceived as black or Arab” was twenty times more likely to be detained and searched by the police—and much less likely to be hired by a company. In a survey carried out in Germany in 2005, half of those asked said they felt threatened by immigration.

In the 1990s, when the book The Bell Curve came out, revolutionary thinker and leader Bob Avakian wrote about the book’s author Charles Murray’s pseudo-scientific ideas:

One after another, all kinds of "theories" and "studies"—claiming to show that there are innate and unchangeable differences between races and genders and other groupings in society which explain why some have and really should have a privileged and dominant position over others—are spread and legitimized throughout the mass media. This, it is claimed, provides the "scientific explanation" for why programs that purport to overcome such inequalities are doomed to failure and must be gutted. What it actually provides further scientific proof of is the utter bankruptcy of a system and a ruling class that is abandoning even the pretense of overcoming profound inequalities and instead is inventing "profound reasons" why they cannot be overcome. And in all this, while the ‘liberals’ have a role to play, the initiative belongs to the "conservatives.” [Bob Avakian, Two Excerpts: “Preaching from a Pulpit of Bones—We Need Morality But Not Traditional Morality,” Revolution #019, October 23, 2005, posted at revcom.us.]

And There Also Exists a Real Way Out

Machismo, patriarchalism and the prevalence of sexist stereotypes, as well as historical discrimination connected to the socioeconomic fabric, to the class structure, are the cause of social tolerance towards violence against women and girls in all its dimensions—physical, psychological, sexual, economic, and others. In the countryside, practices harmful to indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant communities continue in Colombia related to the armed conflict, the persistence of forced recruitment of girls, boys and adolescents, as well as kidnapping, sexual violence, confinement, and displacement.

The proposed “way outs” are usually limited to what is considered possible in today’s world conditions. But what is needed is that we discuss how we could end all this abuse once and for all, and not about “what we could do to make the law work better for battered women and girls” or how to “empower” women, so that they can stay afloat in the putrid pond of this same system based on the exploitation and oppression not only of women but of the vast majority of all humanity.

The many obstacles that women and girls face in seeking justice in court and from the police, and what this teaches, is that, in essence, it is not a matter of individual police caring for, or not sincerely caring for, women, but that there is a state that imposes a certain way of life. The courts, the laws, and the agents of law and order, are part of that state that imposes a system and a society in which male domination is an integral element at all levels. This is not a question of human nature but of the nature of the system of capitalism-imperialism, which cannot eliminate patriarchy.

And the systematic rape of Nukak and Jiw indigenous girls in Guaviare, by many military officials, concentrates the horror of this capitalist-imperialist system and the patriarchy that dominates worldwide.

Bob Avakian has said that the frequency of rape would be reason enough to make a revolution, even if all [the capitalist-imperialist system’s] other monstrous crimes and injustices did not exist. Rape is formally against the law, but for all intents and purposes, especially for the powerful and their armed agents, rape is a protected activity. Rape plays an important role in this system: It terrifies all women, keeps them in fear, and constantly reminds them of “their place.” It is a violent means of enforcing the many perverse privileges and benefits promised to men, to make them feel that they have at least a stake in some part of the current system. This is true, even if many men are offended and are even disgusted by this particular form of oppression.

It is necessary to fight for a world in which ALL chains have been broken. But from now on, let’s seek to treat women, men and people of different genders as equals. We will not tolerate physical or verbal abuse against women or treating them as sexual objects, nor will we tolerate insults or “jokes” about people’s gender or sexual orientation.

It is time to start living this way. And you have to link this to creating a total revolution of the kind that could uproot and abolish rape once and for all. The system must be overthrown and replaced with a radically new revolutionary state power. This is not a dream. This is possible. But right now, you need to participate.

STOP Discrimination and Oppression of Indigenous Peoples and Blacks and All Kinds of Racism and Xenophobia!

Stop the Degradation, Dehumanization and Patriarchal Subjugation of Women and All Oppression Based on Sexual or Gender Orientation!

Break the Chains, Unleash the Fury of Women as a Mighty Force for Revolution!

Revolutionary Communist Group, Colombia | January 2023 | comrev.co | @comrevco

References

• “Explotación sexual de niñas: la consecuencia invisible del ecocidio en el Guaviare,” Natalia Pedraza, El Espectador, October 13, 2021.
• “La ley de la selva: niñas indígenas de la Amazonia colombiana son víctimas de violaciones sexuales en medio de una crisis alimenticia,” Gerardo Reyes, Univisión, December 11, 2022.
• “La tragedia de los nukaks en el Guaviare: abusos sexuales, prostitución, drogadicción, abandono y hambre”, Semana, January 21, 2023.
• “Investigan por explotación sexual de niños indígenas a 118 militares en Guaviare,” El Espectador, January 11, 2023.
• CIDH condena el secuestro y la violación sexual colectiva en contra de una, niña indígena de 12 años y la falta de investigación adecuada en Colombia,” Oficina de Prensa de la CIDH, June 29, 2020.
• “Cuiviadas y guajibiadas: La guerra de exterminio contra los grupos indígenas cazadores-recolectores de los llanos orientales (siglos XIX y XX),” Augusto Gómez, Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura 25, 1998.
• “Argentina busca combatir el ‘chineo’, la violación en grupo de niñas y mujeres indígenas”, elpais.es, June 10, 2022.
• “Paraguay: Denuncian que pastores evangélicos violaron y embarazaron a diez niñas indígenas”, mujeresdelsur-afm.org.
• “Dictan 27 años de cárcel a pastor por abusar de niñas indígenas en Paraguay”, EFE, May 14, 2022.
• “From Delhi to Ohio and Around the World: If You Are Not Fighting Rape, You Are Condoning It! We Need Revolution and a Whole New World!,” by Sunsara Taylor, January 13, 2013, revcom.us.
• “The Stanford Rape Outrage: ‘Reason Enough to Make Revolution,’” by Sunsara Taylor, June 13, 2016, revcom.us.
• In a World of Rape and Violence Against Women, Bringing Out Revolution and the Leadership of Bob Avakian, September 15, 2014, revcom.us.