Talking about rape without talking about culture

Trish Kinney has a piece in the Huffington Post about the Liberia rape case in Arizona.  (For background on the case, read Kinney’s piece and this post.)  I found the below excerpt spot-on.  There is at least one similarity between the ideas below and a comment Dove made in response to my earlier post: It is unfortunate that the father of the girl who was raped said his daughter brought shame to his family.  But this is not an exclusively Liberian phenomena.  It happens everywhere.

Stephanie Orr deals with these types of cases in her position as Executive Director of CASA, the Center Against Sexual Abuse and Violence in Phoenix. She stated that, according to reports, the child was the family’s black sheep, labeled a liar and a troublemaker by her parents and siblings. Her sister was seen in a CNN video saying that “she always bring trouble, she always bring trouble”. Unable to control her, it was a pattern for the father to ask that someone take her off their hands. Ms. Orr spoke of the deep dysfunction of this young victim’s family, of a neglected child’s need for attention of any kind, of poor parenting, and the bully mentality of boys in the age range of the accused. None of these factors were referred to in the context of the culture of Liberia. She warned that those interested in the story should not be sidetracked with the cultural politics that have defined it. No, this is not a story about Liberia’s troubled history and its cultural implications. This is a story about child rape and its underlying complexities.