"For the moment pregnancies can be disguised, but not for much longer. Many fathers will kill their own daughters if they find out they have been raped."
...The charity World for Libya has engaged imams across the border in Tunisia to preach that rape is not the victim's fault.
...World for Libya is trying to reach a group of teenage girls still inside Libya whose school was attacked by forces loyal to Col Gaddafi.
"The armed men separated the girls and raped those they deemed more attractive," says Nader Elhamessi. "One of the girls cut her wrists and killed herself rather than face the shame. The rapes were only reported to us by the girls who were left alone."
The reality is that rape has always been a byproduct of war and violence (involving even American soldiers on occasion) . But the best we have here is second-hand reports from teenagers who say they themselves were not harmed. That's just not good enough before spreading a story like this.
Another basic thing journalists should do is explain what organizations are. We looked up "the Libyan aid agency World for Libya" and found that its website is hosted by a London ad agency. That agency is owned by Salah Mussa, a wealthy London-based real estate magnate and Libyan exile. His company, Chesterton, was glad to do business with Qaddafi not so long ago.
Chesterton hopes to open an office in Libya by November 2009 and work closely with the country's sovereign wealth fund there, the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA).
Unfortunately for Mussa, Goldman Sachs was there first, managing to lose 98 percent of $1.3 billion the Libyan sovereign wealth fund gave it to invest. This was reported by the Wall Street Journal. Qaddafi, furious at the losses, became increasingly hostile to Western investors seeking Libya's riches.
Back to the BBC story:
One family who contacted Ms Elgadi needed medication for HIV.
"The mother, the father and the son were all raped by Col Gaddafi's forces. The mother came to us when they discovered they had contracted HIV/Aids as a result."
Viagra
...The International Criminal Court says it believes Col Gaddafi's forces are using rape as a weapon of war. The ICC says it has reason to believe orders to rape were given, and the drug Viagra was distributed to fighters.
For more on the ICC's claim, and how thin it is, see our previous piece.
BBC, continuing:
A major in the Libyan army who has now deserted told the BBC the shipments of Viagra were widely known about, but neither he nor his colleagues saw them.
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