Women are legitimate spoils of war, per Duterte 'joke'

[Mumsnut]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4544180/Foreign-fighters-ISIS-invasion-Philippines.html

Weird. Started this last night, and as of this morning it wasn't showing anywhere but in my 'I'm on'.

I found it pretty appalling.

I read about that. Really disgusting comments, it just shows how far we still have to go. Too many men people in the world still view women as objects.

Every day I'm thankful I was born in the UK in the present time. But where we are now, thats not where every other country sees as a destination to aspire to.

BBC link:
Philippines' Duterte under fire for second rape joke
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-40072315

I don't know what the Daily Fail story is like, but the title in that link isn't encouraging.

Longer article from the Washington Post:
Duterte jokes that his soldiers can rape women under martial law in the Philippines
www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/27/duterte-jokes-that-his-soldiers-can-rape-women-under-martial-law-in-the-philippines/?tid=pm_world_pop&utm_term=.20b5c17f7447

Last month, Trump called him "a good man".

I don't think this can be cast as "how far we have to go".

This is a new and very, very nasty turn in the Philippines, which had a woman president from 1986 to 1992, Cory Aquino, and local female politicians have been quite normal for years.

When you consider that rape is the worst crime a man can be accused of in this country, apart from murder, I'm surprised that there are not more men tweeting about this disgusting comment from an horrific dictator.

I'm surprised there doesn't seem to be anyone apart from Chelsea Clinton commenting.

The Daily Mail report is a long and as far as I can tell purely factual account of what is happening in the the Philippines in relation to Isis terrorist attacks and the imposition of martial law. To be fair to the Mail I'm not sure if other papers even carried the story.

Other papers are covering both the martial law and rape "jokes" in detail.

The Independent:

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte jokes that soldiers can rape women under his martial law
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/philippines-president-rodrigo-duterte-martial-law-rape-soldiers-joke-a7758751.html

Philippine troops battle to restore order in Marawi after Isis militants kill 21 on street to street rampage
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/philippines-marawi-city-isis-militants-kill-21-people-isnilon-hapilon-hostages-soldiers-army-a7755091.html

And at least 8 articles in the last 5 days in the Guardian:
www.theguardian.com/world/philippines

When you consider that rape is the worst crime a man can be accused of in this country, apart from murder

I think it should be but doesn't seem to be viewed as such by many; even being convicted of rape doesn't seem to ruin many men's lives and excuses are often still made for them.

Not sure how relevant this is to this thread but there were also some comments I felt were pretty unpleasant in this case: www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/broad-street-rapist-jailed-after-13096573

"You saw a woman who had too much to drink and was easy game" and from the defence barrister "It is not a case of him dragging someone into an alleyway. This was an opportunistic attack on a woman who, to some extent, was not able to resist his advances because of the drink she had consumed".

The comments from the generally hideous Duterte are abhorrent.

For those who don't know the Philippines, the island of Mindanao has had a violent separatist struggle going on for more than 40 years, divided along Christian vs Muslim lines but essentially about civil power not theology IIUC (so a bit like Northern Ireland - though I'm not claiming it's absolutely identical).

It's not at all surprising Daesh would step into the middle of this and try to expand there.

For context, the Philippines has also been engaged in conflict against communist guerrillas in the other islands for about the same period, although at a lower intensity IIRC. So violent power struggles are sadly common there.

(When I said the DM link didn't look encouraging, I meant that from what was visible it didn't appear the rape comment had merited it's own headline, BUT I haven't clicked so for all I know the DM may indeed have dedicated a headline and lead to the rape comments.)

I've just re-read my longer post, and realise it could sound as if I'm saying that because it's common, violence is OK.

Obviously it isn't.

I expect Daesh to attempt to ramp up the violence significantly and capitalise on existing divisions and methods of fighting already well-established in the Philippines. And I expect Duterte's response to be similar to that he's adopted to previous violence - repackaged it to try to gain international support from countries which otherwise wouldn't touch him with bargepole.

The Mail made the rape comment the headline and from the articles posted did so ahead of other papers.

Sorry but this pussyfooting round the Mail irritates me. It's a paper - frequently it is dreadful - occasionally it can be very surprising in its stance. If people don't like it, don't link to it , but I don't see the point of including links and then doing this keeping your hands clean by not opening them.

What is disappointing is the apparent lack of response from apparently the entire planet to these comments.

I didn't post the link to the Mail. I didn't open it (ie give them the clicks) because I already knew about the rape comment and martial law in Mindanao from the other papers/BBC.

I appreciate you saying what the Mail did lead with though, as you did click.

And I agree, very little apparent response is depressing. Though I think predictable, alas.

I did look for a link to another paper when I decided to post the thread - but at that time there wasn't one

Surely there must be consequences for this? Absolutely disgusting.
On another note the mail is getting worse. "marital“ law- how do these errors get in?