Such an important book! I wish that more people would read about women’s stories in war and the terrible price they pay due to soldiers and men. How they are completely destroyed and no one comes to their aid. One of the most impactful books I’ve ever read. ( )

I've never read a nonfiction book quite like this one. The cover of the book barely hints at what's contained within. The book I finished just before this one was about lynchings in America. What's covered in this book could easily be argued to be even more disturbing. I will also point out that the author has a remarkable ability to write with such concise clarity that it borders on seeming just simple, but it isn't. She packs a strong wallop in which she says. Where the true uniqueness of this book comes in is where the author straddles a very fine line between dispassionate reporting and strong advocacy, i.e., public relations. Indeed, she acknowledges at the end of the book that she started expanding the scope of the book after inadvertently(?) and repeatedly bumping into the areas and issues she was covering for different reasons. The point of the book in simple terms is that massive and systematic rape and sex slavery is a huge component of many, if not all, armed conflicts around the world. One need not know much about Rwanda or World War II, for instance, to know that many horrible deaths and much destruction took place. This book takes those events and several others known, at least superficially, to many readers, to show how females -- and I'm very sorry to add, children -- in particular, suffered well beyond what is taken for granted. Toward the end of the reporting on these areas, the reader will barely be able to comprehend just how abysmally one human can treat another -- of any and all ages. And where, according to the book, is the progress on tackling this issue? Progress has been made, but, if this was a book about civil rights in America, and not about global sexual abuse in war time, the world community would be somewhere where blacks in America were, perhaps shortly before the Brown vs. Board of Education SCOTUS decision in 1954, the one that took many more decades to enforce. ( )

This is a book which will change your perspective on art and history, as well as current affairs. I spent the first 100-150 pages thinking, "This can't be true..." then, the remainder thinking that it is so awful, that no single mind could invent such horror.

We all know that ladies are vulnerable in a war situation. We have probably read of Viking raids, Roman and Greek history where a casual line informs us that the victors raped and pillaged. This book gives us the victim's view of this behaviour but, it goes one stage further: rape is used in war not just, or perhaps not mainly, as a sexual release for the troops (bad enough as this is), but as a weapon. This tome gives numerous examples of women, and children (including babies) raped and sexually tortured; their insides damaged in unthinkable ways. I genuinely don't think that I shall ever casually accept ancient stories that speak of ravishing, or some such euphemism for rape.

The position of the women does not improve once the conflict is over; they are often ostracised by their family and communities and the UN seems to have the opinion that rape is collateral damage. Organised rape is often the first charge dropped to concentrate on the 'important' wrongs.

If the picture, as painted, is not sufficiently bleak, many countries have little or no support organisations for these ladies, who are left as the living dead. This is not an easy read, but should not be ignored, either. ( )