This post was originally published on the IntraHealth International blog.
Twenty ye
ars ago I arrived in Bamako, Mali, and discovered a capital city settling into relative calm following a military-led coup. My first images of Bamako were of cows, cars, and citizens grazing, grinding gears, and gridlocked on Bamako’s main artery through town—the Route de Koulikoro.
One did not have to travel far on this road to experience the full spectrum of Malian culture and economy. Brand-new, shiny Land Rovers shared the road with bush taxis, mopeds, bikes, an occasional chicken, and many, many pairs of shuffling feet. Read more »
li, last month, I sat in on a workshop about training health workers to comprehensively care for victims of sexual and gender-based violence. From the heated debates going on around the room—including when and if a husband has the right to beat his wife and whether or not the wife considers it acceptable—it was clearly a topic not often discussed openly. 
Mali is currently experiencing the most severe crisis of its existence. When heavily armed Tuareg rebels and Islamist rebel groups poured in from Libya on January 17, 2012, they quickly defeated the underequipped, disorganized Malian army. Now they have seized the country’s vast northern regions and are working to force sharia—or Islamic law—on the people there.
Many Americans are unaware of the disaster that’s been unfolding in Mali for the past eight months. The northern region—a tract of the Sahara Desert that’s vaster than the state of California—became a warzone when radical Islamist rebel groups invaded in March 2012. The rebels are now enforcing sharia, or Islamic law, and their so-called justice is brutal and shocking. (It would be hard to believe it was real, if the rebels didn’t make a habit of posting photographic and video evidence of the atrocities—such as stonings and dismemberments—to Facebook and YouTube on a regular basis.)
The temperature is stifling, red-tinged dust seems to coat every surface, and the whir of many fans fills the air with a rhythmic pulsing. I am seated on a bench in a small community center in Kati, 
