Carelain, NLD. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 x 4 cm, 2024
Alma Mathijsen, NLD. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 x 4 cm, 2023
Ankie, NLD. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 x 4 cm, 2023
Levi, NLD. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 x 4 cm, 2022
This person denied permission to give her name and story. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 x 4 cm, 2022
Jan Hoek, NLD. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 x 4 cm, 2022
This person prefers not to state his name, because he has been sexually abused, but not raped. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 x 4 cm, 2022
This person denied permission to show this painting in public. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm x 4 cm, 2022
Hauwa NAG. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 x 4 cm, 2022
In March 2018, Too Young To Wed brought two girls to the US who had escaped Boko Haram in Nigeria, to tell their stories to the UN in NYC and to lawmakers in Washington DC. One of them was Hauwa (2000), who was abducted in the fall of 2014. The militants killed her parents when they refused to give her hand in marriage. She was taken to a forest camp where she was enslaved, raped and beaten. Two years later, being pregnant, she managed to escape. On her way, she gave birth, but after a few nights, her child became ill and died. She dug a hole, buried the child, and continued. Hauwa has gone back to school to finish her education.
Photography TooYoungToWed.org/ main/stories
Short Film From Survivor To Advocate, Erin Brethauer, 2018.
One Of The Chibok Girls NAG. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 x 4 cm, 2021
On 14 April 2014, 276 mostly Christian female students aged 15 to 18 were kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram from a school in Chibok, Nigeria. 57 of the schoolgirls escaped immediately. Boko Haram forced the girls into islam and sex slavery. In 2022, 107 girls have been rescued, 112 of the girls remain missing. Boko Haram has abducted thousands of women and children in the last 10 years. Social media #BringBackOurGirls
Books The Chibok Girls, Helon Habila, 2016.
Stolen Girls, Wolfgang Bauer, 2017.
Girl, Edna O’Brien, 2019.
Documentaries Coming Home, Abdam Creative Media, 2017.
Nigeria’s Stolen Daughters, Gemma Atwal, 2018.
Daughters of Chibok, Joel Benson, 2019.
This person denied permission to give her name and story. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 x 4 cm, 2021
This person denied permission to give his name and story. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 x 4 cm, 2020
Sohaila Abdulali, IND/USA. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 x 4 cm, 2019
Sohaila (1963), born in Bombay, moved to the USA when she was 15. Back in Bombay in 1980 she was gangraped while on a walk with a male friend. The 4 attackers said she was an immoral ‘whore’ to be alone with a boy. The police managed to make her the guilty party. No charges were brought. In 1983, Sohaila wrote a story about her rape in an Indian magazine. In 2012, when Jyoti Singh was gangraped and killed in a bus in New Delhi, Sohaila’s story went viral on Facebook. She wrote an op-ed in the NY Times and a book on rape, based on international research, survivors stories & her own experiences.
Book What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape, Sohaila Abdulali, 2018
This person denied permission to give her name and story. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2019
Faces of Rape I-XXXVIII have been exhibited on 25-26 January 2020 in Bagagehal Loods 6, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Opening was performed by Joyce Roodnat, cultural commentator and editor of Dutch quality newspaper NRC. In October 2017 she described her #MeToo experiences in this newspaper. Also the Gregorian choir Schola Cantorum Karolus Magnus from Nijmegen brought some songs from the cd The Martyred Virgins, their ode to female victims of (sexual) violence from 2012.
This person denied permission to show this painting in public. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2019
Margôt Verhagen, NLD. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2019
Margôt Verhagen (1933) lost her father during WWII, and when her mother also died in 1950, she was taken to a home of the Good Shepherd Sisters in Velp. She stayed there till 1954 and had a terrible time. She was forced into hard labour, received no payment and was not allowed to talk or to make friends. The place was like a prison. Above all else, she was raped by the rector of the home. She fought but couldn’t compete with him. In 2016 her complaint against the rector was upheld by the commission who investigated sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. She had not been the only victim.
Paz De La Huerta, USA. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2019
American actress Paz de la Huerta (1984) accused film producer Harvey Weinstein in November 2017 of raping her twice in 2010. He pressured her for sex in her apartment and threatened to harm her career if she didn’t submit, then raped her when she refused. For two weeks he taunted her with phone calls. To stop this, she agreed to see him at her apartment, where he raped her again. More than 80 women have accused Weinstein of sexual harassment; he has denied all allegations. On May 25, 2018, he was arrested, charged with rape and other offences, and released on bail.
Vanity Fair
Interview by Rebecca Keegan, November 2, 2017
Jackie Phamotse, ZAF. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018
Jackie Phamotse (1988) is a South-African writer; in her book Bare she reveals the abuse she’s received from the men that surrounded her. From her father’s power over her to being gang raped at a club; raped during a model casting and how she sold her soul to a man who gave her a lavish lifestyle as he slowly took possession of her life. Phamotse wrote this book to help young women who need to be freed from this lifestyle of being abused by a sugardaddy. It is also a dedication to Karabo Mokoena, who had such a toxic relationship with her boyfriend that she was killed and burned.
Book
Bare, Jackie Phamotse, 2017.
This person denied permission to show this painting in public. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018
This person denied permission to show this painting in public. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018
Hannah Gadsby, AUS. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018 Sold
Hannah Gadsby (1978) is an Australian comedian who was born and raised in the remote north-west of Tasmania. Her stand-up show Nanette, which has a film tie-in on Netflix since 2018, deals with growing up gay in Tasmania where homosexuality was illegal until 1997. She felt abnormal and like an outsider. She was once beaten up by a man who thought she was flirting with his girlfriend. In her show she talked about having been raped twice in Tasmania. She expressed a lot of anger about this, a reaction rarely shown in public by women who have been raped.
Film
Nanette, Hannah Gadsby, 2018, on Netflix.
Tatiana Gutsu, UKR/USA. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018
Tatiana Gutsu (1976) is a former artistic gymnast from the Soviet Union and the winner of the all-around title at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Following that event, she unexpectedly moved from the Ukraine to the USA. On 17 October 2017 she revealed via Facebook that she had been raped in 1991 by gold medalist Vitaly Scherbo, who was 4 years older, when both competed in the DTB cup in Stuttgart. She also mentioned 2 other members of the team, who knew of the crime, but didn’t help her.
News
www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/10/17/former-soviet-gymnast-tatiana-gutsu-accuses-fellow-olympic-gold-medalist-of-rape/
Sylvia Veld, NLD. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018
Sylvia Veld (1988) is a woman who was brutally raped and nearly killed, after a night out in 2016, by a total stranger who also stole her iPhone. She immediately went to the police, but they failed her in every way. She had to wait 2 weeks before filing a report. In the meantime, she was able to trace the man via Find my iPhone, but when she informed the police where he was, they didn’t act. She collected a lot of evidence herself, and when the police eventually took over, they caught him 5 months later. The rapist was an asylum seeker and was sent back to his country.
Book
De jacht op mijn verkrachter, Sylvia Veld & Robert Vinkenborg, 2018.
Saskia Noort, NLD. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018
Saskia Noort (1967) is a Dutch thriller writer. Her first novel, which was published in 2018, told the story of her own rape. She was 14 years old when raped in a garden during a party by a much older boy from next door. She never talked about it until October 2017, because the guilt and shame were too strong. She was also afraid of not being believed, which actually happened when she told her 14-year-old daughter. Saskia wants women to be able to report assaults to the police without feeling shame or self-hate, and for men to ask for sex instead of taking it by force.
Book
Stromboli, Saskia Noort, 2018.
Self-portrait, NLD. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018
Fiona Broese van Groenou (1961) was raped in January 1977, a few weeks before her 16th birthday. She was on her bike in the middle of the night crossing the woods of Noord-Brabant, from Valkenswaard, where her school was, to Aalst, where she lived. A red car stopped and a naked man got out, possibly holding a knife. He pulled her off her bike and raped her. He was a German and threatened to kill her if she went to the police (“Ich mach dich Kalt”). She didn’t report it to the police then, nor in the 12 years that followed. She thinks that there should be no limitation period on rape.
Website
www.fbvg.art: Faces of Rape, FBVG, 2013-2020
Andrea Constand, CAN. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018
Andrea Constand (1973) is a former basketball player and one of the more than 60 women who have accused actor Bill Cosby of sexual abuse. She was the first and only one who successfully filed a lawsuit against him, because all the other crimes were time-barred. In January 2004, he invited her to his home, where he drugged and sexual assaulted her. A year later, she went to the police and then to court; Cosby settled for a secret amount. In 2015 he was charged with aggravated indecent assaults, and was found guilty in 2018. He was sentenced to 3-10 years in prison.
New York Magazine
July 27, 2015
F., MMR (Rohingya). Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018 Sold
In 2017 AP investigated the systematic rape of Rohingya women by Myanmar’s army. N. (2000) was at home with her parents and siblings, when 10 soldiers burst into the house; they tied her hands and put tape over her mouth. They ripped off her clothes and threw her on the floor. 5 men took turns raping her, while the others helped holding her down. Her parents were forced to watch. N. bled for 6 days and had too much pain to walk to Bangladesh. Her father had to carry her.
Blog
apimagesblog.com/rohingya/2017/12/5/21-rohingya-women-recount-rape-by-myanmar-armed-forces; text Kristen Gelinau, photography Wong Maye-E.
Rose McGowan, USA. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018
Rose McGowan (1973) is an American actress who was raped by film producer Harvey Weinstein in a hotel room in 1997. After the rape he reached a settlement with her. He did this with at least seven other women. In 2017, on October 10 McGowan stated that Weinstein had behaved inappropriately with her. On October 12 she accused Weinstein of having raped her. These revelations were the start of the #meToo movement. In 2017, Time recognized McGowan as one of the Silence Breakers, the magazine’s Person of the Year, for speaking out about sexual assault and harassment.
Book
Brave, Rose McGowan, 2018
Hellen Amuge, UGA. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018
In 1987, when the civil war in Uganda had just begun, Hellen Amuge (1962) was raped by seven men, and her father was murdered. After the rape she was torn apart, and beaten with a heavy lock. When she told her husband, he got angry with her and immediately took a second wife. In 2003, while Hellen was in the woods, she was raped again, by three men of the Lord’s Resistance Army. From them she contracted HIV. Now she is spreading awareness about HIV and training people to take care of victims of rape.
SEMA
The Dr. Denis Mukwege Foundation is building a global network that connects survivors of conflict-related sexual violence: mukwegefoundation.org/sema
Emma Sulkowicz, USA. Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018
Emma Sulkowicz (1992) uses they/them pronouns. They were raped in 2012 in their dorm by a fellow student of Columbia University, NY. Because both the police and the University took no action, in 2014 Emma created an artwork called Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight) in protest; Emma carried a mattress wherever they went on campus during their final year at University. The piece would only end with the rapist gone or expelled. Neither happened, so the ‘Mattress Girl’ carried their mattress at graduation in May 2015.
Video
Emma Sulkowicz: Carry That Weight, Columbia Daily Spectator, 2014.
Unknown, MMR (Rohingya). Acryl on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018
In 2017, an AP investigation found the rape of Rohingya women by Myanmar’s armed forces to be ‘sweeping and methodical’. Individual and extensive interviews with 29 girls and women who fled to Bangladesh resulted in a ‘sickening sameness’ in their stories - from the military-style uniforms of the attackers to the horrific acts they committed. The UN has said Myanmar’s military uses rape as a ‘calculated tool of terror’ in removing the Muslim minority from the mostly Buddhist country.
Blog
APimagesblog.com/rohingya/2017/12/10/ap-investigation-rape-of-rohingya-sweeping-methodical?rq=rohingya; text Kristen Gelinau, photography Wong Maye-E.
Allison Huguet, USA. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2017
In 2010, Allison Huguet (1990) was raped while asleep by her childhood friend, a football player for the University of Montana Grizzlies in Missoula. It affected her profoundly and, the next day, she asked him to apologise. He consented and she secretly audio-taped his confession. Jon Krakauer wrote a book about various rapes in Missoula, and the handling of these cases. This was the only case where the rapist was convicted, and that’s only because of the tape.
Book
Missoula, Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, Jon Krakauer, 2015.
Video
abcnews.go.com/US/missoula-shines-spotlight-campus-rape-women-share-allegations, 2015
Kelsey Belnap, USA. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2017
In 2010 Kelsey Belnap (1989) was gang-raped by four University of Montana football players at a party in Missoula. Although she was drunk, she remembers saying no to sex and pushing a man away. However, she blacked out after being put on a bed. She filed a sexual assault complaint with the Missoula Police Department who responded by interrogating her like a suspect. The complaint reached the head football coach, but he didn’t inform the school officials. The Missoula County Attorney’s Office didn’t prosecute the football players.
The Missoulian
Reporter Gwen Florio covered the case, which divided the community strongly.
Book
Missoula, Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, Jon Krakauer, 2015.
Pearl Mali, ZAF. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2017 Sold
Pearl Mali (1993) was raped almost daily from the ages of 12 to 16 by an elderly man her mother brought home from church to cure Pearl of being gay. Pearl fled home in 2009 but found out she was pregnant. She tried to abort the pregnancy and kill herself but failed at both. The police told her to return home but her mother refused and took the baby, believing that Pearl would make him gay. She brought her case to court but it was in vain: she can only visit her son at weekends.
The New York Times
The Brutality of ‘Corrective Rape’, Clare Carter, July 27, 2013.
Video
www.clarecarter.com/corrective-rape-gallery/23.
Photography
Pearl Mali, Makhaza, Khayelitsha, 2011, Zanele Muholi.
Zukiswa Gaca, ZAF. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2017
Zukiswa Gaca (1989) was 15 when she ran away from home in rural South Africa after being raped. 5 years later while in Khayelitsa township - near Cape Town, she was targeted again, becoming a victim of what’s called ‘correction rape’. Men force themselves onto lesbians, believing it will change their orientation. Sometimes these rapes end in murders. Zukiswa was raped by a man who hates lesbians. He wanted to show her that he is the man and thus he has more power. The police let him walk free. Zukiswa had to put a lot of pressure on the police for them to investigate properly.
Video
I was raped for being a lesbian, CNN Video, 2011
Gloria Viseras, ESP. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2017
When Gloria Viseras (1965) was 15, she was a champion gymnast in Spain who participated in the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. Her coach, Jesús Carballo, had been sexually abusing her from the ages of 12 to 15, along with other young female gymnasts. In 2012, 32 years later, she found out that she had not been the only one and decided to go public with her story. The coach filed a case against her for undermining his honour. When the judge ruled in her favour, he appealed against that decision. In the end Gloria won the case in the Supreme Court.
Interview
The Council of Europe, 2018: https://vimeo.com/258977543
Parween Alhinto, IRQ (Yezidi). Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2017
Parween Alhinto (1998), a Yazidi living in Iraq, was kidnapped in 2014 from her hometown Rambose, and held by the Islamic State for four months and 10 days. Once in Mosul she was traded as a (sex) slave. She was passed on from one owner to the other. They did whatever they wanted with her: she was constantly being raped and beaten and forced into being Muslim. She managed to escape. She wants the world to know what’s happened and to act upon that knowledge. She intends to establish a psychological centre for the victims where they can be treated for their traumas.
Documentary
Yezidi Girls, Reber Dosky, 2017
Nadia Murad Basee, IRQ (Yezidi). Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2017
Website
nadiasinitiative.org
Book
The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State, 2017.
Documentary
On Her Shoulders, Alexandria Bombach, 2018
Jessica Stern, USA. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2016
In 1973 Jessica Stern (1958), along with her 14-year-old sister, was raped at gunpoint by an unknown intruder in the home of her step-mother. Two weeks later the rapist was arrested as a suspect in 3 other cases of rape. He would go on to serve a few years in prison. Later on it was discovered that he had raped 44 girls between 1971 and 1973 in the same region and in the same way: in their own homes with a fake gun. Jessica Stern wrote a book about her experience. She connected it to the reason she became an expert on terrorism: she wanted to understand violent and evil men.
Book
Denial, A Memoir of Terror, Jessica Stern, 2010.
Zawadi Devota, COD. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2016
Zawadi Devota (1997) was first shot and then raped, as a result of which she became HIV positive. In The Democratic Republic of Congo, under cover of war, rape is being committed on a massive scale. Dr. Denis Mukwege is a Congolese gynaecologist who has become a specialist in the treatment of wartime sexual violence and a global campaigner against the use of rape as a weapon of war. He thinks rape in war occurs not only to humiliate the enemy, but also to prevent a new generation of warriors being born. Photographer Robin Hammond portrays the victims.
Website
mukwegefoundation.org
Photographs
Rape - A Weapon of War, Robin Hammond, 2015.
Rachel Uwiduhaye, COD. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2015 Sold
Rachel Uwiduhaye (1992) got pregnant as a consequence of rape. In the Democratic Republic of Congo 500.000 women and children have been raped as acts of war. Sexual violence has become so widespread that the UN’s Margot Wallstrom described Congo as the ‘rape capital of the world’. Doctors Without Borders reported that over half of all the rape cases it deals with take place in the DRC. The UN now recognizes sexual violence committed during armed conflicts as a war crime. Robin Hammond took photographs of women who have been raped in the Congo.
Photographs
Rape - A Weapon of War, Robin Hammond, 2015.
This person denied permission to give her name and story. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2015
This person denied permission to show this painting in public. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2015
Shatiima Davis, USA. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2014
New Yorker Shatiima Davis (1986) joined the army at 18. She was sent to Iraq. A few weeks in she was raped by a fellow soldier while sleeping. She didn’t tell anyone out of fear of being sent home. When she returned in 2006, she did tell her commander. She lost her job, her home, and became deeply depressed. Photographer François Pesant met her and started the project An Enemy Within, about rape in the US Army. Each year there are 25,000 victims of sexual violence in the army; 3,000 make an official complaint; only 300 lead to a court case.
Film & Book
An Enemy within, François Pesant & Alexandra Geneste, 2013/14.
Erin Deleon, USA. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2014
In 1998, Erin DeLeon (1981) was living in Port Arthur, Texas, when she was assaulted. Home alone one day with her one-year-old son sleeping upstairs, a masked and armed man broke in, demanding money or jewellery. Then, when her 14-year-old sister arrived home, the man raped Erin and forced both sisters to perform oral sex on him. When their uncle came in to check on them, he was shot dead immediately. The man had murdered 4 other people and had raped a 10-year-old girl. He was sentenced to death, and was executed on June 12th 2013.
Documentary
Killing Time, Jaap van Hoewijk, 2013
Jamie Leigh-Jones, USA. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2014
In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones (1985) was stationed in Baghdad, Iraq, by KBR, a US contracting company. On her fourth day, some co-workers invited her for a drink. She blacked out after her second sip. The next day she realised she had been gang-raped, which was later confirmed by an army doctor. Jones tried to get her case resolved through KBR channels, then the Department of Justice. When nothing worked, she gave an interview to ABC TV news. In a civil lawsuit in 2011, the jury voted that no rape had taken place.
YouTube
Worker Discrimination Hearing: Jamie Leigh Jones, 2008.
HBO-Documentary
Hot Coffee, 2014
Joanie de Rijke, NLD. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2013
Joanie de Rijke (1965) is a Dutch war journalist who works for the Belgian media. In November 2008 she was kidnapped and held for six days by the Afghan Taliban rebels she wanted to interview, and was raped by their leader. She wrote a book about her experience which led to her being a guest on Pauw & Witteman and De Wereld Draait Door, two leading talkshows on Dutch television. The book and the television show caused a lot of controversy. After having denied permission to use her image before, she has admirably changed her mind, and now features in this series.
Book
In the hands of Taliban, Joanie de Rijke, 2011.
Tracey Emin, GBR. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2013
Artist Tracey Emin (1963) was one of the Young British Artists in the nineties. Her artwork was inspired by a lot of events in her own life. In 1976 she was raped at the age of 13, in Margate - a town in South-East England. She said this had happened to a lot of girls back then. They called it ‘being broken into’. She reacted to the rape by developing an intense sex-life which led to two abortions. Later, through art, she found a way to express everything that had happened to her.
Films
How it Feels, 1996;
Tracey Emin’s CV Cunt Vernacular, 1997;
Hommage to Edvard Munch and all My Dead Children, 1998;
Top Spot, 2004.
Book
Strangeland, Tracey Emin, 2005
Mukhtar Mai, PAK. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2013
In 2002, Mukhtar Mai (1972), a woman from a small Pakistani village, was gang raped by order of a tribal council belonging to a higher clan than hers. She had been punished for something her 12-year-old brother had been wrongfully accused of. Custom was to commit suicide, but instead, she spoke up and pursued the case, gaining the attention of (inter)national media. In 2006 she wrote a book and in 2009 she founded the MMWWO, Mukhtar Mai’s Women Welfare Organization.
Book
In the name of honour, Mukhtar Mai, 2006.
Documentaries
Shame, Mohammed Naqvi, 2006.
After the Rape: The Mukhtar Mai Story, Catherine Ulmer, 2008.
Website
www.mukhtarmai.org
Kori Cioca + Panayiota Bertzikis, USA. Acryl on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, 2013.
Both Kori Cioca (1985) and Panayiota Bertzikis (1981) were raped while serving on active duty in the US Coast Guard, in 2005 and 2006 respectively. When Panayiota Bertzikis made claims of being sexually assaulted by a shipmate, she found a lack of support and no substantial steps were made to investigate the matter from the authorities. That’s why she founded the Military Rape Crisis Center in August 2006. It provides all kinds of support and services for victims of military sexual trauma.
Documentary
The Invisible War, Kirby Dick & Amy Ziering, 2012, about sexual violence in the US army.