The boys, also refugees from Liberia, lured the girl into a shed by promising her some chewing gum. Once they had her in the shed, all four of them held her down for 15 minutes and raped her, and were later seen running from the scene of the crime after neighbors called the police due to hearing the girl's screams. The 14 year old has been charged as an adult with kidnapping and sexual assault; the rest of the boys have been charged as juveniles, with sexual assault and kidnapping charges against them, with the exception of the 9 year old, who is being charged with sexual assault alone.

But the story only gets worse: the 8 year old's parents have since shunned the girl, noting that they were ashamed of the girl for being viciously raped by her peers. According to police Sgt. Andy Hill: "The father told the caseworker and an officer in her presence that he didn't want her back. He said, 'Take her, I don't want her.'"

The girl is now in foster care, and the horrific treatment by her parents has created quite an outrage—even the Liberian President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has released a statement: "I think that family is wrong. They should help that child who has been traumatized and they should make sure that they work with the U.S. law authorities to see what can be done about the other young boys who have committed this offense. Not only should they abide by the law, but they too need serious counseling because clearly they are doing something, something that is no longer acceptable in our society here."

Sirleaf, naturally, is trying to dispel the notion that this practice is perfectly acceptable in Liberia, and that the actions of the girl's parents, though horrifying in American society, are quite normal in their home country, where the social structure, as Monica Westin of World of Hope International tells the Associated Press, is built around the notion that the woman is always to blame: "[Women] always being blamed for everything," Westin says, "It's always the girl's fault. There's no gender equality."

Ali Keita of the Arizona Mandingo Association tells the Arizona Republic that while the boys grew up witnessing such horrific acts, "there is no excuse for the crime," and that he believes that the 8-year-old's parents are more embarrassed about their own lack of protection for their child, rather than "ashamed" of their daughter's victimization. Tony Weedor, founder of the CenterPoint International Foundation (and also a Liberian refugee) disagrees, noting that the little girl is a victim of a much larger cultural issue: "It's a shame-based culture, so the crime is not as important as protecting the family name and the name of the community. I just feel so sorry for this little girl. Some of these people will not care about the trauma she's going through - they're more concerned about the shame she brought on the family."

The parents, meanwhile, have not been charged with an crime, as, Bell notes, "They didn't abandon the child. They committed no crime. They just didn't support the child, which led to CPS coming over there." Meanwhile, the police say they've received "dozens of calls" about the girl from well-wishers seeking to help her in some way. "I've never seen a response like this to an incident, and it's just been very, very emotional from just about everybody," Sgt. Hill says, "It's almost overwhelming. I've had dozens of calls and e-mails. The department's had many calls. The investigative bureau has had them from people who just want to help by giving money and many people wanting to adopt the child." The father has reportedly said that he wants his daughter back, but a decision has not been made on the girl's future at this time. One can only hope that wherever she ends up, she is given the love and support she truly needs.

"Shame" Felt By Young Assault Victim's Family Decried [CNN]
Outpouring Grows For Girl, 8 [KPHO]
Arizona Girl Shunned After Alleged Rape [Montreal Gazette]
Outcry Over Disowned US Rape Girl [BBC]
Family Shuns Girl, 8, After Rape [MSNBC]
Oldest Boy In Assault Of Girl To Be Tried As An Adult [AZCentral]

"We would consider it date rape," says University spokesman Richard Rojo, noting that he believes that "outright rape" only involves "a rapist jumping out of bushes and attacking people randomly." It only gets worse from there: Rojo, who admits that the incident was, indeed, sexual assault, downplays the woman's rape as "a social situation and unfortunately an all-too common problem at universities."

Jane Doe, the victim in this case, is currently suing the University for their horrendous response for the situation, which included a great deal of victim-blaming and shaming: in the University reports on the incident, Doe was described as engaging in "a lot of 'sleazy behavior'," and had reportedly made comments like, "Who is going to get laid tonight?" Guess what, University of the Pacific? THAT'S NOT A FREE TICKET FOR ANYONE TO HAVE SEX WITH HER AGAINST HER WILL.

It gets even worse: Doe claims that Pacific Vice President of Student Life Elizabeth Griego took the men's side on the issue, accusing Doe of causing the incident and noting that the men involved "are very popular and do not need to force anyone to have sex with them." The school has banned two of Doe's alleged attackers from campus and expelled one permanently, which shows that they do, in fact, admit that this sexual assault took place. So why do they insist upon continuing to blame Doe and "lessen" the crime by pointing out all of your typical "she was asking for it" bullshit? What message does that give to other women on campus who might be faced with the same horrific situation?

"Pacific believes that education happens as much outside the classroom as within," claims the school's website. It's too bad that the school itself has so very much to learn.

UOP Responds To Sexual Assault [RecordNet]

As reported earlier, street harassment is insanely prevalent in Egypt. 83% percent of Egyptian women say they have been harassed, but less than 3 percent ever report it, according to a Reuters poll. In fact, the only reason Gomaa's crime was reported is that Noha jumped on the hood of her attacker's car, dragged him to a police station herself, and demanded that the crime be reported even as onlookers tried to help him escape.

Though nearly half of the Egyptian women polled earlier this year said they are sexually harassed on a daily basis, which the Reuters poll defined as men touching or ogling women, shouting sexually explicit remarks, and exposing their genitals, the problem is almost never addressed by the authorities or the mainstream media in Egypt. Noha's case is extremely unusual only in that she insisted on prosecuting Gomaa and chose to speak publicly about the incident.

In a translated interview with the Egyptian paper The Seventh Day, Noha describes the incident, saying that Gomaa stuck his arm out of his van and grabbed her breast, pulled her toward the car violently. She pushed him away and fell to the ground and he tried to drive off, but was forced to stop as a car pulled in front of him. Noha ran down the street and stood on the car's hood. "I was overcome by a feeling of strength and was prepared to be run over by his car, but not to let him get away with it," she said.

Noha called to people on the busy street to help, but they told her to let him go and asked if she was crazy. One woman told Noha, who was wearing loose clothing but not a hijab, "First, look at what you're wearing." Noha and a friend managed to get Gomaa to the nearby police station but she says the police assistant refused to investigate at first, then told her there were no cars to transport Gomaa to the central police station. Noha had to drive her attacker and a police officer to the main station in her own car.

Noha's experience demonstrates two reasons why so few cases of sexual harassment are reported in Egypt. The "blame the victim" mentality is so deeply ingrained in Egyptian society that 53 percent of Egyptian men polled by Reuters said women brought the abuse on themselves by dressing indecently and even many women agreed. Though wearing a hijab is thought to prevent harassment, 72 percent of the 83 percent of Egyptian women who were harassed said they were veiled when the abuse occurred.

It is also extremely unlikely that authorities will do anything if the crimes are reported, since there isn't even a specific Egyptian law criminalizing sexual harassment. There have been two recent cases of mob-style sexual attacks on female Egyptian pedestrians, one earlier this month and another at the same time in 2006, and witnesses say that police officers just watched as the women were violently groped and their clothing was torn off.

Egyptian women's rights groups are praising the judge in Noha's case for handing down a harsh sentence that they hope will set an example. The Egyptian Center for Women's Rights said in a press release that the decision, "will restore confidence in the legal system’s ability to defend women subjected to such crimes in every step of the process - from filing police reports, to investigation, to sentencing. [It] sends a message to all segments of Egyptian society that sexual harassment is a crime and will not be tolerated."

Khairy Ramadan, a columnist in the Egyptian newspaper Almasry-Alyoum, praised the ruling as well, saying enforcement is at the root of the problem. "Sexual harassment happens everywhere in the world. The difference is that they enforce the law abroad, whereas we just did it now for the first time," he writes. "Does this [ruling] mean society has changed? Until we find the answer, Noha must be praised for what she did and we all must support and protect her."

Egyptian sexual harasser jailed [BBC]
Harassment = Jail Time! [Muslimah Media Watch]