时间:2018-12-08 作者:英语课 分类:VOA标准英语2010年(四)月


英语课

Program - I'm Worth Defending - teaches girls and women how to defend themselves




Rape 2 is a constant threat for girls and women living in the crime-ridden slums of Kenya's capital, Nairobi. It is estimated that one out of five women are raped 3 in the slums, and there are few arrests of rapists. A U.S.-initiated and funded program is working hard to change all that. 


Charity Waithera has been to hell and back. During the country's post-election violence, she was brutally 4 gang-raped near a section of Nairobi called Korogocho.


Some eight months after her ordeal 5, the 46-year-old mother of seven joined a group called "I'm Worth Defending." Her life has since been transformed.


"I have been taught to remove the rape experience from my heart - that is very important," she said. "I have been taught how to protect myself if I meet with gangsters 6 or rapists. I have also been taught how to run away if I am in a compromising situation and which areas of the man I can hold if I am being attacked."


I'm Worth Defending is an international non-government organization based in Korogocho and operating in other slums in Kenya's capital.


The group teaches girls and women self-defense 7 skills and provides counseling on rape.


"We bring to light that frailty 8 is not the thing. It is about you as a person and the inner belief that you are worth defending, that your spirit tells you that you have a purpose and you have to defend that purpose," said Philip Otieno, the executive director of I'm Worth Defending.


He says that his group also focuses on rape prevention and life skills.


"We are not blind to teaching the boys who are potential rapists if they are not talked to. We have a boys' class that is pure lecture session where we give them the eight basic rules that we want them to adhere to. We are talking about respect for women as rule number one," he said.


In the self-defense classes, students are shown how to talk their way out of dangerous situations and, if cornered, what areas of the rapist's body to strike.


Student Veronica Njeri describes how she can use her body to fend 1 off a rapist. "I have been shown how to break the knee of my attacker using my legs so that he cannot run after me. Using the side of my hand, I can hit my attacker continuously on the neck area and face just to confuse him. Using my elbow, I can hit my attacker in the stomach area if he is holding me from behind," she explained.


"After the class, they are optimistic," says defense instructor 9 Maggie Mbatia. "The training empowers girls and women,  They are saying, 'Oh my God, I did not expect this from that class. Oh, it makes me feel like I am worth a lot more than what I think I am because I thought I am just that woman who can do nothing. If there is no man around to defend me, then I cannot defend myself. But after this class, I really feel powerful. I really feel that I have a purpose and I must fulfill 10 it.'"


The Nairobi slum of Korogocho is among the poorest, where most people earn less than $1 a day and crime is rampant 11.


Girls and women are especially vulnerable to being raped in these parts of town.


It is easy for attackers to break into houses made out of mud and corrugated 12 iron. Streets and alleyways are not lit at night. Women are stigmatized 13 if they report rapes 14 and can even be hurt or killed for doing so.


There are no reliable statistics as to the number of rapes in the capital or nation-wide. The Gender 15 Violence Recovery Centre in Nairobi reports that they see an average of 230 new clients a month, most of who are sexual assault survivors 16.


Officials report that more than half of the victims live in slum areas.


I'm Worth Defending's Otieno says he wants girls and women to be equipped with the skills to defend themselves before the rapists can get to them.

 



1 fend
v.照料(自己),(自己)谋生,挡开,避开
  • I've had to fend for myself since I was 14.我从十四岁时起就不得不照料自己。
  • He raised his arm up to fend branches from his eyes.他举手将树枝从他眼前挡开。
2 rape
n.抢夺,掠夺,强奸;vt.掠夺,抢夺,强奸
  • The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
  • He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。
3 raped
v.以暴力夺取,强夺( rape的过去式和过去分词 );强奸
  • A young woman was brutally raped in her own home. 一名年轻女子在自己家中惨遭强暴。 来自辞典例句
  • We got stick together, or we will be having our women raped. 我们得团结一致,不然我们的妻女就会遭到蹂躏。 来自辞典例句
4 brutally
adv.残忍地,野蛮地,冷酷无情地
  • The uprising was brutally put down.起义被残酷地镇压下去了。
  • A pro-democracy uprising was brutally suppressed.一场争取民主的起义被残酷镇压了。
5 ordeal
n.苦难经历,(尤指对品格、耐力的)严峻考验
  • She managed to keep her sanity throughout the ordeal.在那场磨难中她始终保持神志正常。
  • Being lost in the wilderness for a week was an ordeal for me.在荒野里迷路一星期对我来说真是一场磨难。
6 gangsters
匪徒,歹徒( gangster的名词复数 )
  • The gangsters offered him a sum equivalent to a whole year's earnings. 歹徒提出要给他一笔相当于他一年收入的钱。
  • One of the gangsters was caught by the police. 歹徒之一被警察逮捕。
7 defense
n.防御,保卫;[pl.]防务工事;辩护,答辩
  • The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
  • The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。
8 frailty
n.脆弱;意志薄弱
  • Despite increasing physical frailty,he continued to write stories.尽管身体越来越虛弱,他仍然继续写小说。
  • He paused and suddenly all the frailty and fatigue showed.他顿住了,虚弱与疲惫一下子显露出来。
9 instructor
n.指导者,教员,教练
  • The college jumped him from instructor to full professor.大学突然把他从讲师提升为正教授。
  • The skiing instructor was a tall,sunburnt man.滑雪教练是一个高高个子晒得黑黑的男子。
10 fulfill
vt.履行,实现,完成;满足,使满意
  • If you make a promise you should fulfill it.如果你许诺了,你就要履行你的诺言。
  • This company should be able to fulfill our requirements.这家公司应该能够满足我们的要求。
11 rampant
adj.(植物)蔓生的;狂暴的,无约束的
  • Sickness was rampant in the area.该地区疾病蔓延。
  • You cannot allow children to rampant through the museum.你不能任由小孩子在博物馆里乱跑。
12 corrugated
adj.波纹的;缩成皱纹的;波纹面的;波纹状的v.(使某物)起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词)
  • a corrugated iron roof 波纹铁屋顶
  • His brow corrugated with the effort of thinking. 他皱着眉头用心地思考。 来自《简明英汉词典》
13 stigmatized
v.使受耻辱,指责,污辱( stigmatize的过去式和过去分词 )
  • He was stigmatized as an ex-convict. 他遭人污辱,说他给判过刑。 来自辞典例句
  • Such a view has been stigmatized as mechanical jurisprudence. 蔑称这种观点为机械法学。 来自辞典例句
14 rapes
n.芸苔( rape的名词复数 );强奸罪;强奸案;肆意损坏v.以暴力夺取,强夺( rape的第三人称单数 );强奸
  • The man who had committed several rapes was arrested. 那个犯了多起强奸案的男人被抓起来了。 来自辞典例句
  • The incidence of reported rapes rose 0.8 percent. 美国联邦调查局还发布了两份特别报告。 来自互联网
15 gender
n.(生理上的)性,(名词、代词等的)性
  • French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语,所有的名词都有性。
  • Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。
16 survivors
幸存者,残存者,生还者( survivor的名词复数 )
  • The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
  • survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者
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According to the Custom of Port
action spot
Anotis
armogenesis
asparagus filicinus ham.
auto call
barrel antenna
batch-processing environment
bid welcome to
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call packing
catia
chaetodon kleinii
chafingly
Chinaman
clinogram
collapsing liner
complement-fixing antigen
consumer sales resistance
cotage
cracked rice grains
crossbar automatic telephone system
crupel
defensive mechanism
domain of a function
dompnation
double-cropping
doubletop pk.
dumbreck
earth reflect
employee rating
engleson
enoy
ETAC
facundity
flamenco dancer
gassest
glycophosphoglyceride
gorringe
grass
grisly
have a good idea of
hawe-bake
high-resolution surface composition mapping radiometer (hrscmr)
historical geomorphology
house of correction
kittels
lasitter
legal cessions
load-out system
low velocity scanning
maln
memory buffer
microcomputer on a chip
modified Mercalli intensity scale
municipal traffic
myasthenic pseudoparalysis
national union of teachers (nut)
nonhorse
oscillating movement
overcalculates
Pauline
Pearl Mae Bailey
pectoraliss
perdurabo
pitcher's arm fault
polymorphonucleate
preciously
protoxylem
pump load-drop cavitation
quick-references
rabbit punch
range circuit
Rastovac
regular maintenance of buildings and structures
respond type-out key
Rohrsen
roller bearing cup
Sanborn County
scurrilities
self face
shadow-test
sheng nus
silver-bearing copper
single-phase condenser motor
sociofugal
SSPX
stainless-steel fibre
step cutting
substitute flag signal
superdemocracy
tail-wagging
Tapuri
tax-residents
thrombopenia
toreroes
tremains
trust company
tuned radio-frequency transformer
type ga(u)ge
Wal-Mart effect
wilhem