Aid Workers Keep Getting ** & It's Being Covered Up (The Data Is Scary)

In this episode of Based Camp, Simone walks through a question most humanitarian orgs would rather leave off the annual report: how often are aid workers, Peace Corps volunteers, and refugee-support staff sexually assaulted — and why do official databases, NGOs, and political tribes treat some perpetrators as unspeakable?The episode starts with a 2024 r/rapecounseling post from a high-school volunteer who said she was assaulted by a man she had been helping at a refugee organization, then deleted the thread. From there Simone stacks official sources against what workers say to each other when they think no one is compiling a press release.

Show Notes

A July 2024 Reddit post in r/rapecounseling by a user identifying as a high-school-age female volunteer describes being raped for several hours and nearly killed by “one refugee guy” she had been helping weekly at a refugee support organization and temporary accommodations.

* She wrote that she had been assisting families, talking with them and their children, and helping with integration; “uncomfortable things happened from some guys” but she continued because she felt she was doing good.

* After the assault she lost her virginity to him, faced blame from some family/friends for volunteering in the first place, and questioned whether she had given “wrong signals” or dressed inappropriately relative to “their culture and religion.”

* The post is unsubstantiated and received little engagement.

OP ultimately deleted her post.

Ultimately, when it comes to aid work:

* Organizations seem to be systematically under-reporting cases of rape

* Sometimes refusing to report it entirely

* Most cases that get coverage have to do with organizational reporting, perhaps because it’s the one thing orgs think they can control

* When it comes to attacks by outsiders, the only place you see people opening up candidly is among volunteers on places like reddit

* And the craziest thing about women’s own accounts is both:

* How universal and distressing the women find harassment to be

* How ultimately dismissive they are of it, in a way that reminds me an awful lot of colonial-era texts I’ve read

Let’s get into it.

Scant Reporting

The Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD) has tracked major violent incidents against aid workers since 1997, records rape/serious sexual assault as a category.

* Here’s their 2025 report

* The report does not provide a number of reported rapes in 2025. Its provisional mid-year figures report roughly 230 aid-worker deaths through 30 June 2025, but it does not publish a rape or sexual-assault total for that period.

* The report does not say that rape was unreported, nor does it give a reason for omitting a 2025 rape total.

* Rape and sexual assault are within AWSD’s tracked incident categories, but the report’s 2025 discussion and tables present only killings, serious injuries, kidnappings, and arrests/detentions—not a separate sexual-violence count. Therefore, no defensible 2025 rape total can be extracted from this report.

* The report’s compilers explicitly flag underreporting as big problem in several contexts, especially in Sudan and with organizations refusing to report incidents because they might be nervous about losing funding

* They also have criteria that make many genuine incidents not get counted

* E.g. if someone was not kidnapped or detained for at least 24 hours, IT DOESN’T COUNT

* If someone was assaulted and not “seriously injured” IT DOESN’T COUNT

* Their full criteria

* Killing

* Kidnapping lasting more than 24 hours

* Serious injury

* Rape or sexual assault

* Arrest or detention lasting more than 24 hours — a category AWSD began tracking distinctly in 2025.

Known Cases

SOMETIMES THEY ARE AMERICAN: In late 2014, Sarah Pierce (pseudonym), a U.S. aid worker with the Carter Center in a remote South Sudan field site, was raped in her tent by an American colleague. She reported it the next day. After speaking about the incident and criticizing the organization’s support, her contract was not renewed; she described feeling she was effectively punished for reporting. The organization stated it provided medical care and counseling and acted out of concern for her welfare.

In February 2015, Canadian aid worker Megan Nobert was drugged (cocktail including morphine, codeine, oxycodone, and cocaine) and raped by a Syrian UNICEF contractor colleague on a UN base/Protection of Civilians site in Bentiu, South Sudan—an IDP/refugee-style camp setting. She woke up naked and ill with no memory of the assault. Toxicology confirmed the drugs. Her organization’s and UN response was described as dismissive; there was no meaningful investigation or accountability. Nobert later went public and founded Report the Abuse to collect other testimonies.

The most prominent public incident occurred in July 2016 at the Terrain Hotel compound in Juba, South Sudan—a site used by foreigners and aid workers during the civil war. South Sudanese government soldiers killed a local journalist, looted the compound, and raped several foreign women. One Western woman reported being raped by 15 soldiers after being given the choice of sex or being gang-raped and shot. Associated Press interviews with eight survivors (three of whom described rape) and reporting by Human Rights Watch, NPR, and The Guardian documented the attack. UN peacekeepers stationed nearby did not respond to calls for help. Many survivors requested anonymity to protect themselves or their organizations’ ongoing operations.

Underreporting, Reluctance, Cover-Ups

Report the Abuse (founded by Megan Nobert, the woman who was raped by Syrian UNICEF contractor) collected over 1,000 self-reports from aid workers (mostly international).

* Roughly 72% identified as survivors of sexual violence; around 13% of reports involved rape in some analyses. 87% knew a colleague who had experienced it.

* Perpetrators were frequently colleagues (one analysis put this at ~64% of cases).

A 2024 academic analysis of 62 public survivor testimonies found that in 45 of 60 cases the assailant’s behavior was described as condoned by supervisors or the organization.

* 54 out of 60 indicated that no legal or even internal complaint process was pursued after the incident

* Many victims were isolated or received no meaningful support. Shame, fear of career damage, not being believed, and “cowboy culture” in remote field settings are repeatedly cited barriers.

* See: #AidToo, or when situation permits rape: sexual violence among humanitarian aid workers

* They found that Incidents most often involve colleagues within the same organization; the next most common alleged perpetrators are staff from other agencies, peacekeepers, or armed groups. Assault by members of the local population is described as least common.

Where They Talk About it Without Talking About it

We do get a picture of reality when volunteers vent or trade advice online

E.g. a post on /r/peacecorps titled “It’s Hard Being a Woman in PC”

* “As I near the end of my two-year service I gotta say, I’m proud of myself. Because being a woman volunteer in certain host countries is freakin’ hard. I know male volunteers have their share of issues, but this post is for the women.”

* “During my training, I feel my team did the best to educate me about the reality of being a woman during service. They highlighted the help lines offered, the numbers of safety & security, and assurances of therapy should we need it in the future. And they warned us on how the men acted differently than what we’re used to. They even acted out scenarios and how to approach them safely. But guys, I think it’s impossible for us to fully be prepared even with having the knowledge beforehand. The hissing, whistling, and catcalling is a type of harassment we’re not used to in the United States. Yes, we have our share of pervs, but it’s not as normalized.”

* “While serving in Latin America, I’m always on edge. Waiting to be howled at, waiting to be approached by a sleazy male trying to hit on me. I can’t take a walk alone or do errands without men catcalling. It bleeds into professional situations as well where counterparts, teachers, and community members will proposition me during working hours (most married or with partners!). I need to adapt because the reality is that it’s a part of the culture. What I see as sexual harassment isn’t viewed the same way in my host country. Yet, I somehow need to set my boundaries while not alienating myself from my community. While I don’t feel unsafe, it’s simply an exhausting obstacle I need to overcome daily.”

* “It can be challenging because you don’t want the actions of some to overshadow your whole experience as a volunteer. But it can be so damn hard. When I went home for vacation, the tension wasn’t there... It was...Quiet. I could walk with my friends in peace. Wear whatever I wanted, such as shorts. No men tried to get my attention or block my path to flirt with me. I could wait in line for a meal and not have a man ask for sex or a kiss on the lips in broken English. I felt like a human instead of some object to be pursued as an American trophy or a visa ticket. The United States is by no means perfect, but there’s privileges I never realized I had until doing service.”

* COMMENTS

* It is important to tell recruits to many, many countries (especially young, “conventionally attractive” women who are only known to host communities through “blue movies” and perceived to be loose):

* You will get catcalled, proposed to, hit on, touched inappropriately on a DAILY basis by multiple men. Sometimes those men will be in your community and it’s difficult to navigate. Sometimes you’re in a good mood and can laugh it off and everyone thinks the joke is funny....And some days, it’s the 10th proposal of the day and you’re just done with the dehumanization of the interactions. Sometimes you will upset a drunkard by saying no and he may become violent- here’s how to stay safe. Sometimes the threat will come from inside the host family (multiple volunteers I know had host relatives overtly state “I will rape you”). You may be stalked to the point of needing to leave your site. You must ALWAYS dress on the side of conservative. You must strictly follow the rules of host country when it comes to men crossing the threshold of your doorway (inviting someone inside= an invitation for sex in my host country). Even having an older male friend or counterpart sit on your porch and talk to you can start rumors that you’re having an affair. I know so, so many female volunteers who were raped, stalked, or had to leave their site due to threat of rape. Others, bizarrely, seemed to live in the same country and the same time without these issues that the rest of us had.

* “I totally hear you. I served in West Africa, and my site mate was raped. Because she gave her counterpart an old computer, which apparently in West Africa means “you (perv that raped her) can have sex with me (unconscious volunteer) whenever you want, even when I (volunteer) am passed out asleep”. There was another vol in my country that was raped (from what I understand by multiple people) while traveling to her regional capital. She was based in a really remote part of the province, and had to travel overnight to get to her banking city. Apparently traveling in a car by night is also a welcome invitation to sex. PCs response: “meh. You (rape victim) really shouldn’t have traveled by yourself at night. That’s on you.””

* I’ve also lived all over West Africa and have my share of PC horror stories. I was a teacher at my village high school, and the head of discipline beat a student(13 year old girl) to death. I went to PC about it, and my PM essentially told me to stop being a pussy and suck it up. I still have nightmares about it (this was….12 years ago).

* In another instance, the principal at my school (same school where another admin member killed a student) threatened to beat me to death because he found out I was bisexual. Luckily, PC took that seriously and got me out.

* All that to say: there are a lot of challenges that come with serving, no matter where you serve. And a lot of them stem from some pretty disturbing misogyny.

* “Great post. When I was in service, also in a Latin American country, we filled out a sexual harassment survey every year. I thought- is this a joke? I was the highest possible amount, can’t remember what it was exactly 10+ harassments a day?, for every single question. I was propositioned by the highest local elected official in my host site regularly. I had men follow me to my house at night. PCVs called it the “ice b***h stare” because that is what you had to do as a woman when going out alone. During training the only comment they made on it was for guys to walk the girls around whenever we were out together. No self defense classes or coping mechanisms or support groups offered. It was the worst. I had to compartmentalize- because there were so many amazing adventures and people I met that I loved. But after returning to the US it took as long as my service was to get back to “normal”, which for me was having a male talk to me in public and me not instantly thinking why tf are you talking to me? But I did extend my service when given the chance… I know girls who left early because of it though. The biggest flaw in the system was that there are practical trainings and support that PC could have given, but instead they chose just to ignore it and informally tell male volunteers to watch out for us when they could. That’s it. “

* “I was a volunteer in Lesotho as well and one of our volunteers was raped. It’s difficult, even with all the awareness training to protect yourself. Often volunteers are assigned to places that are remote and because they are from somewhere else can be seen as easy targets, but even in the cities they can be at risk. Also american women are sometimes viewed as ‘loose’ by other cultures.”

* “You’ve vocalized this in a way I haven’t been able to before. I remember feeling so at peace when I visited my friend because I could just disappear into a crowd. The silence nourished my soul. I didn’t have my radar on all the time which is exhausting. I remember arriving to my community during the holidays and I couldn’t do it. I stayed inside for like 12 days straight because I couldn’t handle the constant interaction. I walked to and from work and men would grab me, follow me, the marriage proposals. I never found a great way to deal with that if I’m being totally honest.”

* In East Africa it’s this bad for female volunteers as well. At times I feel a sense of guilt for not being the “best” volunteer - as I always feel hesitant to socialize in my community and am in a constant state of distrust. I find myself always being cold to men in my country...which is sad but also necessary in many circumstances. I can come across as rude to my work colleagues because of this distrust of men - and it sucks to feel misunderstood.

* I feel sad for women in my community who constantly get heckled and looked down on with no ability of fighting back or speaking out. As female volunteers, we are simply told to ignore, ignore, ignore even if men are shouting the most disgusting comments (or racial slurs) at us - and this is absolutely infuriating.

Another examples, also in r/peacecorps: “Heavily considering ETing. Harassment over appearance and being a woman is too much”

* OP: I only have 8 months till COS but idk if i can make it guys. Im a lesbian and my appreance is kinda butch and I dont know if that makes it better or worse. But the sexual harassment in my country is just too much. Staff thinks im making it up and are blaming me for “choosing to make myself stick out” when I dont even think my butchness is what is attracting attention. And im not even that extreme, no buzzcut or chest binding. I had a horrible experiance in the capital just yesterday where a man on the street cornered me and after a short attempt of me trying to get away, flashed his erect dick at me. I really hate it. I just want to go home. My site has no electricity or service so im really isolated and havnt been able to commiserate with anyone. Can anyone talk me out of it? the women here are so great id hate to abandon them. and i do love my job. but its affecting my mental health to the point i dont want to leave my house

* In follow-up comments, she noted: “I havnt had a safety issue personally but other women in my cohort absolutely have and its terrifying. Im paranoid now and paid to have metal bars installed on my windows after a few violent robberies occured at my site (not directed towards me).”

* Comments

* Ironically, most women in this thread encouraged her to tough it out.

* “There seems to be a common thread in a lot of these harassment situations where PC staff is not treating the volunteer’s issues with the importance that they deserve. Obviously that is not going to change in the next eight months, so I will just share my frustration and dismay that they’re being so disrespectful.”

The Good and the Bad

* The good: It seems a lot of these experiences make women grateful for their home countries and societies

* The bad: They seem to sort of dismiss the harassment, threat, and risk, but I think it fundamentally has to do with a colonizing mindset, like: These people just aren’t civilized enough yet, but I’m working to help change that.

Episode Transcript

Hello, Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today, because there’s a problem that people don’t want to admit is a problem, I think, but it’s hard to tell, because it’s one of those problems where if people talked about it, the problem would get out, but they don’t want the problem to exist. Let me, let me set the scene for you, okay?

In July 2024, a young lady in high school logs on to r/rapecounseling on Reddit. It, it’s, it’s a forum dedicated to providing an open forum only for survivors and victims of sexualized violence across the spectrum. Hm. After scrolling for a bit, she starts a new thread. “I was beeped by and nearly killed by someone that I helped at volunteering.”

In this thread, she described how she was beeped for several hours and nearly killed by, quote, “One refugee guy,” end quote, and she had been helping this person weekly at a refugee support organization at, in temporary accommodations. She wrote about how she’d been assisting families and talking with them and their children and helping with integration, saying, quote, “Uncomfortable things happen from some guys,” end quote, but she continued because she felt that she was doing good.

And after the assault, she, and she lost her virginity, you know, she was a young lady. She faced blame from some family and friends for volunteering there in the first place, and then questioned whether she had given the wrong signals or dressed inappropriately relative to, quote, “their culture and religion.”

And this is a post that got very little interaction. I don’t know if people immediately attacked her. I don’t know what happened, but she deleted it. And do, do we know this story is real? Do we know if, if she’s a real person at all? If this story... No. Like, there’s no way for us to know this, but it’s kind of hard to investigate a problem that could be real, that, that’s hitting people who don’t want to admit the problem is a problem, because people who are going to work wi- in, in aid camps, in, in, in refugee camps with migrants are the

same

people who are

like, “These people are blameless.”

So to, for, for caller texts for people who might wonder where she’s going with this, Simone did deep research into the question, because this came up... What were we researching where a similar question came up? Well, no.

So someone emailed us talking about the episode we did on Andrew Tate, and they’re like, “Oh, yes, this whole Laura- Lauren Southern problem.”

Look, guys, I know that she’s slept with other guys. Like, what? But it was, it’s, it, it’s counter to Lauren Southern’s reputation to say that she flew out and went to a club with a guy, and then got beeped by him, and, you know, that’s, it’s just, it, it’s very damaging to her reputation to do that, ‘cause her whole, her whole reputation was staked on women being really stupid if they ever let that happen.

Yeah. That there’s no such thing as rape culture in America, et cetera, et cetera. And someone wrote to us, and they’re like, “You know, this is a similar problem with aid workers.”

Yeah, and so then Timona- And

no one wants to come forward ...

goes into, and she’s like, “Can I find data to show, like, this is happening with aid workers, and it’s not being reported?”

And-

And a lot of it has to do with, like, the positive and negative space of it all. Like, organizations seem to be systematically under-reporting cases of rape to the extent that, like, sometimes they just refuse to report it entirely.

Not under-reporting. W- what we’ll be getting to is a systemic and widespread cover-up of just how frequently aid workers are being graped by the people they’re attempting to help.

And of course, the aid workers don’t wanna talk about it. And it is very interesting to now talk about this happening on a, a left-wing perspective, because the Andrew Tate s- situation was really interesting. There were actually people in our comments who are so cucked, they’re like, “Oh, no, I’m super pro, like, Muslim immigrants graping our women

when they pretend to be like- Well, but also attacking Lauren Southern.

They’re like- Yeah ... “Lauren Southern’s

a liar.”

Like, “Oh, she dated people I don’t like, er.” “Lauren Southern slept with Destiny so she couldn’t possibly have experienced actual sexual assault in her lifetime.” I

d- I, like, I don’t even get how that works. And it’s, it’s wild to me because you have, like, Tristan, like, literally gassing up a guy for bragging about having a woman in his ga- living in his garage covered in- Stop

with, like, rats and cockroaches

and- An un-air-conditioned garage with rats and cockroaches ...

in Texas, right? And, and, and Tristan’s like, “Oh, that’s so cool.” You know if he’s thinking that cool, you know what they’re doing. Like, they’re, they’re signaling to you what they’re doing.

They, they are openly talking about, you know, paying off the police and stuff.

And, but no, that’s,

I think this is- Or the 15-year-old, you know, they literally grape on camera, and then people are like, “Well, if he had done this, he would’ve been arrested.” And it’s like, bro, do you understand? That’s like a progressive who comes to you and goes, “The grooming gangs aren’t real. If they were real, they would’ve been arrested.”

Du- du- du- du- you are letting your women be... You are... Like, I swear, I think the guys who do this actually get off on being cucked. Like, I think they actually get off- Oh my God, no ... on the fact- No, I

think

that- ... that foreigners are sleeping with their women. The

bigger story, in my opinion ... th-

it’s only NTR for these guys.

As soon as a guy comes in there, be like, “I got some NTR for you, my friend.” Mm. Because clearly that is what you are into.

What I meant to say is when a person comes out, quote-unquote, “against the message of their own side,” right? The attack that they get is pretty ruthless. I- it’s, it’s pretty savage.

And I imagine That women, possibly like this high school woman who posted in 2024 about her experience on Reddit, in what was supposed to be a safe place for victims gets completely steamrolled by people in the same way that Lauren Southern was steamrolled by other right-leaning YouTube watchers in our comments because her narrative ran against the narrative of that political camp.

Mm-hmm. And so that’s what we’re gonna look at in this episode. We’re, we’re gonna look at the scant reporting, the reporting that does come out, which is very conspicuous in what’s being reported, and it’s not migrants. No. No. And And then the most important part, which is what you see aid workers saying when they’re just talking to each other in an informal way when they don’t think anyone is watching.

Yeah. ‘

Cause that’s where you really, I think, see stressed-out pervasive.

See just like, “Oh yeah, this is normal. You’re gonna get graped if you keep

working here.” It’s yeah. Well, well, so we’re gonna get into it. And all of my, all of my sources, et cetera, are linked in the show notes you can find on Substack or Patreon, and thanks so much for everyone who’s supporting us there.

You guys are amazing, and also your episode ideas are great. This is from one of you because you’re so great. Thank you. I don’t know. We didn’t get permission to name you, so you know who you are. You rock. Anyway, so let’s talk about the reporting that’s out there because when you look at the surface of it, when I started doing research on this, I was like, “Oh, this is perfect.”

There is this, this detailed record of all violent incidents that have happened to aid workers. You know, people are very concerned about aid workers being in danger, as they should be, because these people are putting their lives on the line to help others. We have to protect them. So naturally, I can just go to this and get all the numbers I need, and either prove or disprove this concern I have.

So there’s, there’s this Aid Worker Security Database, the AWSD, that has tracked major violent incidents against aid workers since 1997. That’s for almost 20 years. And it records, it’s, well, it allegedly, it says everyone says that they record rape or serious sexual assault as a category, right? So on the surface, if you were to ask someone in this industry, “Ah, yes, yeah, we have a, we have a long-standing report that tracks this information.

Don’t worry about it.” I linked to their 2025 report in the show notes, which shows you what you actually get these days. The report does not provide a number of reported rapes in 2025. It, its provisional midyear figures report that roughly 230 aid worker deaths happened through June, June 30th of 2025.

But it doesn’t publish a beep or a beep assault total for that period. So we just know some people died. Yeah, we, we’re leaving, we’re, in, we just didn’t, they didn’t get to the

beep part. Yeah, they, they, they have numbers for how many die during it, but they don’t have numbers for how many it happens to?

We just, ah, it’s

just a type

of death category.

Well, we also don’t know if people died after being beeped. But anyway, the report doesn’t s- it, it actually, the, the, the report states that beep is unreported. It’s underreported, I mean. It, but it doesn’t give a, a reason for omitting the beep total. But they’re, they’re within the AWSD’s tracked incident categories.

It just happens to be that the report’s 2025 discussion and tables only present killings, serious injuries, kidnappings, and arrests and detentions, not any separate beep violence count. So-

Which is wild that they wouldn’t include that when you know it’s common within these communities.

And that the presu- I mean, well, I know actually from- Well, but we

know why it’s not in there.

If it wasn’t insanely high, it would be in there.

I feel, like, I mean, you have to, like- What is, what is the best

There’s no way nobody has no numbers. I know,

like what, I’m just try- I’m trying to, I’m trying to come up with a steel man here of like we’re sitting in the boardroom, we’re putting together the report, we really want people to know these facts.

We have all the killing information, we have the, the kidnappings, the detentions, the, the assaults, the serious injuries, and then we get to the rape section and we’re like, “Hmm, okay, it’s because maybe it’s ‘cause like there’s this super anti-woke contingent of the aid workers where they’re like, “There is no rape culture in aid work.

It, it just, this whole Me Too nonsense has gone too far. These women were asking...” No, that, that can’t... No, that’s not happening. No, I re- I, I really think it, it just, I... Chime in in the comments if you... Some theory as to why they’ve chose to completely-

Yeah, any, any, any conceivable reason you would leave this

number out.

Yeah, because m- the whole, y- you know, Me Too backlash happening in aid worker world is not I’m not buying it for some reason. It would be interesting, but that would be its own story. I would be delighted to cover it I’ve... if someone f- knows about it. Anyway, the report’s compilers explicitly flag under-reporting, under-reporting, as a big problem in several contexts, especially in Sudan.

And with organizations refusing to report incidents, presumably because they’re afraid that if they report incidents of any sort, right, killings kidnappings, et cetera- Mm-hmm ... then they’ll just not receive funding anymore. Because, you know, maybe they’re like, “Look, they’re not gonna send aid workers to us if we tell them how many people are, like, getting killed on the job.

So don’t tell them. Don’t tell them how bad it is. We need help.” I, I think that’s, that’s pretty likely. They also have criteria that make many genuine incidents just not get counted, and I laughed out loud when I first read this. Because if someone was assaulted and not seriously injured, it doesn’t count.

What? So if you, like, show ba- show up with, like, bruises, like a swollen eye or whatever, but, like, your arm isn’t broken, they’re like, “Sweetie, it’s fine. Walk it off.”

Walk it off. Walk it off. It happens with these Somalis all the time. Yeah. What the dude needs ain’t just, like, a punch in the face and a hello.

Yeah, so to make the report to, to make the list, to be one of the it girls you have to be subject to a killing, serious injury, beep, or sexual assault, but no, actually you’re not gonna make the list ‘cause they just choose to not report that. Or kidnapping, arrest, or detention, but only- Only ... if it lasts more than 24 hours.

So if you are you know, someone throws a bag over your head, pulls you into a van, beats you but doesn’t break anything, just roughs you up a little bit, you know, for like 18 hours, you’re deprived of food and water, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re overheated somewhere then you’re, like, dumped in a ditch and someone finds you- Mm-hmm

congratulations, you’re not on the list. You’re fine. Again, walk it off. Okay? Okay. So that kind of got me. I thought that was really interesting. Then what also was interesting to me is there are some prominent known cases but they were all about other aid workers being the perpetrators, and I could see this possibly being, like, from a practical perspective.

Like, from a legal perspective, these organizations have to report these cases due to, like, owners and officers liability insurance or like other, other legal things. Like, from an HR perspective, you have to report and deal with your own employees- Being the perpetrators of crimes. But anyway, in late 2014 Sarah Pearce, this is a pseudonym, who is a US aid worker with the Carter Center in remote South Sudan in a field site, was beeped in her tent by an American colleague.

She reported it the next day, and then after speaking about the incident and criticizing the organization’s support, her contract was not renewed and she described feeling like she was effectively punished for reporting it. She

got fired for being graped? Oh, being graped and telling anyone about it.

It’s supposed to

be like- And, and telling someone. But it, but it was an American aid worker, and then the organization stated it provided medical care and counseling, and then it acted out of concern for her welfare. So, like, they didn’t wanna renew the contract ‘cause she was all sad after being attacked.

After being graped. You’re supposed to be chill about it, lady.

Yeah, like, you’re just supposed to, like, chill and don’t come back ‘cause you’re a bummer. You’re all crying all the time.

Don’t you know we’ve all been raped in this office?

I know. It’s like, geez, just deal with it. Stop bringing the mood down.

But yeah, what, what’s interesting about her case is I, I think that it ultimately got the media coverage it did, and, and, and she was, she was able to step forward and actually get people to talk about it because it was an American aid worker, and it was someone from inside the organization that did it.

Also, in February 5th, 2015, so one year later a Canadian aid worker named Megan Norbert was drugged. This is a drug cocktail including morphine, codeine, oxycodone, and cocaine. I don’t know why we’re putting uppers and downers together. But anyway, she was drugged and beeped by a Syrian UNICEF contractor colleague on a UN base that was for the protection of civilians at this site in Bentiu in South Sudan.

It was, it was a refugee-style camp setting, but she was, she was beeped by a colleague who had given her stuff that made her completely wonked out. She woke up naked and ill, of- obviously, with no memory of the assault, but toxicology confirmed the drugs, and her organization and the UN’s response was described as dismissive.

There was no meaningful investigation or accountability, and Norbert later went public and then founded the Report the Abuse Foundation or, like, organization to collect other testimonies. But what’s weird is when I went to go look it up- It was, like, alluded to i- in some other organization, but for th- the life of me, I can’t find it.

That is wild that you can’t find it recorded

in an organization Yeah, like wait, wait, so what happened to it? You know, she, she wanted to get the word out, you know? Just like that- Yeah ... you know, 20-year long report that annually talks about these instances, but-

But

leaves them

all out ...

God forbid it make the internet.

Yeah, maybe they just, they just print everything on paper- They don’t- ... and I just haven’t found it yet ...

they don’t want to provide more masturbation material to Andrew and Tristan fans. Oh, there it is. Th- th- these guys are so into NTR of Muslim guys raping white women that they’re like, the more of that, make them underage, make them get beaten, like the more of that, the better, right?

Like, and so these organizations don’t wanna feed into their fantasies.

Yeah.

No, I’m joking. I m- but if you don’t know, like, how egregious the stuff that happened is, you can go watch that episode. It’s absolutely wild. It’s,

That’s a lot, yeah. And it’s funny because there are some diehard Tate fans that are like, “Well, sh- well, I’m gonna wait until their, the evidence comes out.”

And I’m like, “Sweetie.”

They’re like grooming gang fans. It’s like, sweetie, it’s worse because we ha- we have their own videos of them saying this stuff, of them saying-

Yeah,

like

the photos exist ... “We do stuff

like this.”

The, the, the birth records, like, you, you, you put, just put them together and it’s,

I love, they’re like, “G- Romanian, b- w- why haven’t a cour- crime gone to court in, in Romanian?”

It’s like, we literally have them bragging about bribing

the police. Paying

off

the po- yeah, for real.

Like- What are they bribing the police for if not the crime?

Yeah.

Oh my God. The p- the more

they’re

reasoning. Anyway,

there are some instances of, of people being attacked that are just so egregious that it kinda- Yeah

can’t not get caught up by the media. Like in July 2016, the, this hotel called the Terran- Terrayne Hotel, which was a compound in Juba, South Sudan, it’s always Sudan which was a site used by foreigners and aid workers during the Civil War, was attacked. One, like, contingent, I guess, or I don’t know if they were, whatever, but a, a group of South Sudanese government soldiers killed a local journalist, looted the compound, and beeped several foreign women, one of, one of whom described being beeped by 15 soldiers after being given the choice of sex or being beep raped.

Oh, sorry. Being gang beeped and shot. So she made a logical choice. But Associated Press interviews with eight survivors, three of whom, of whom described beep and reporting by Human Rights Watch and NPR and The Guardian documented this attack because it was just so- I guess striking that you can’t not.

But I think maybe- Yeah ... another one of the reasons why this made the, why it’s made the media rounds and why people felt like they could talk about it was this wasn’t, they weren’t being attacked by the people that they are trying to protect. They were being attacked by just soldiers, you know, who are like the bad guys in the Civil War.

So like, okay.

Oh yeah, the soldiers. Th- that’s wild

Yeah. So anyway, Report the Abuse, which was that organization founded by Megan Norbert, who’s the woman who was, was beeped by the Syrian UNICEF contractor, allegedly collected over 1,000 self-reports from aid workers, mostly international. Roughly 72% identified as survivors of sexual violence, and around 13% of reports involved beep in some analyses.

87% knew a colleague who had experienced it. And perpetrators were, according to her analysis, frequently colleagues, with one analysis putting it at approximately 64% of cases. So a little more than half. And then another 2024 academic analysis of 62 public survivor testimonies found that 45 of 60 cases involved assailants’ behavior being condoned by supervisors within the organization, which is a pattern that also shows up when I got to comments from aid workers.

They’re like, “Look, the bosses just don’t really feel like, ‘No, you, you shouldn’t dress that way.’” 50 out of 54 out of 60 indicated that no legal or even internal complaint process was pursued after the incident. Many victims were isolated or received no meaningful support, shame, fear, or career damage, not being believed, and, quote-unquote, “cowboy culture” in remote field settings are repeatedly cited barriers.

So they, they found the incidents most often, and this, this works also that, that 60-ish percent from the other re- researcher- Yeah ... Megan Norbert’s research most often found colleagues most... Sorry, incidents most often involved colleagues within the same organization. The next common alleged perpetrators were staff from other agencies, peacekeepers, or armed groups.

And assaults by members of the local population was described as the least common, which is interesting.

Mm-hmm.

When they talk about it- Well,

I, I mean, I’m sure that it’s- Just- ... it’s really hard to talk about when it’s from the local population. I think the underreporting there, when we see the, the, the cavalierness when it’s another staff member do it, I think that this cavalierness is bred by something, and I think it’s bred by it becoming normalized with it happening with the local population.

But you know you don’t talk about it. But most, most so- You gotta keep in mind how woke these people are, right? Like-

Yeah. Yes. The, that’s a really- These people- ... distinct thing within the comments, and I’m gonna read a bunch, Yeah ... that you’ll see among aid workers on Reddit. They don’t describe being afraid of their colleagues.

It’s,

it’s outside- Yeah, so if these grapes are constantly happening from their colleagues, but we’re not getting reports of grapes happening from the other people, like the people they’re working with, but the fear that they show is all towards the people that they’re working with, what that shows to me is there is a systemic cover-up.

And I’m assuming that with most of these aid workers, you know, you get them alone and you talk to them, they’re like, “Yeah, everybody knows that this is a major problem, and we work really hard to cover it up.” Which you can see from the statistics, the way that they’re reported.

Well, yeah, the absence of statistics.

That’s, that’s

a problem. Well, it’s not the absence. It’s even when we have statistics, they’re comical. Like, we’re not gonna include an assault that would be an assault under US or British or any European country’s laws. We only include assault if it like broken bones or something, or it needed a hospital visit.

We-

The 24 hours is what really gets me. Yeah,

the 24-hour kidnapping rule. You

were only kidnapped for 18 hours. You were only kidnapped for 20 hours.

That, th- that to me shows that they couldn’t find a similar way of making grapes like hard to count, right? Like, it was like no matter how much you stretched what an assault was, like even well, they had to have sex with you for at least an hour.

Even that didn’t work, right? Like, Ugh ... they, they, they, even that made it look bad is what that tells me

It’s not great. But yeah. So let’s, let’s look at the comments. So, here’s from one post on r/peacecorps, because this is where people are the most open on Reddit, titled, “It’s hard being a woman in PC.”

That’s the Peace Corps. Quote, this is OP: “As I near the end of my two-year service, I gotta say, I’m proud of myself because being a woman volunteer in certain host countries is fricking hard. I know male volunteers have their share of issues, but this post is for the women. During my training, I feel my team th- did their best to educate me about the reality of being a woman during service.

They highlighted the help lines offered, the numbers of safety and security, and the assurances of therapy should we need it in the future. And they warned us on how the men acted differently than what we’re used to. They even acted out scenarios on how to approach them safely. But guys, I think it’s impossible for us to fully be prepared even with having the knowledge beforehand.

The hissing, whistling, and catcalling is a type of harassment we’re not used to in the United States. Yes, we have our share of pervs, but it’s not normalized. While living in Latin America, I’m always on edge.” By the way, Latin America. She’s, like, doing this on tame mode. Latin America- Yeah,

she- Latin America?

Latin America? Latin America.

Yeah, please, girl.

Anyway. For people who don’t know, we lived in Latin America for years of our lives. Yeah ... so, like, we are very famil- And I’m not, like, just one place. I’ve, I’ve lived in Costa Rica, I’ve lived in Brazil- Well, you’re, you’re not a woman in Costa Rica ... I’ve lived in Peru.

What?

Different. People weren’t... You’re not, like, a woman wearing hot pants or something. But-

I have worked with women in Latin America. That is true. I have worked with you. We had a home in Latin

America.

Yeah, this is true. This is true. A house that we owned in Peru. Yes,

yes.

So, I walked the streets with my wife.

You get some, Mm-hmm ... but it’s really not that bad compared to most parts of the wor- It’s not that bad compared to even Italy and Spain. Italy and Spain- Yeah,

Italy, Italy’s more intense, I will say. But you know what’s worse than Italy?

What?

Beijing.

Oh. ‘

Cause they’ll just grab you which was surprising to me.

Anyway right. Let’s see. Anyway la, la, la. “While serving in Latin America, I’m always on edge, waiting to be yelled at, waiting to be approached by a sleazy male trying to hit on me. I can’t walk alone or do errands without men catcalling. It bleeds into my professional situations as well, where counterparts, teachers, and community members will proposition me during working hours, most married with partners, or with partners.

I need to adapt because the reality is that it’s a part of the culture. What I see as sexual harassment isn’t viewed the same way in my host country, yet s- I somehow need to set my boundaries while not alienating myself from my community. While I don’t feel unsafe, it’s simply an exhausting obstacle I need to overcome daily.”

One person... Oh, sorry, she- the final, her final note. “It can be challenging because you don’t want the actions of some to overshadow your whole experience as a volunteer, but it can be so damn hard. When I went home for vacation, the tension wasn’t there. It was quiet. I could walk with my friends in peace, wear whatever I wanted, such as shorts.

No men tried to get my attention or block my path to flirt with me. I could wait in line for a meal and not have a man ask for sex or a kiss on the lips in broken English. I felt like a human instead of some object to be pursued as an American trophy or visa ticket, and the United States is by no means perfect, but there’s privileges, and I never realized I had during service.”

One thing that I s- I kept thinking when I was reading these comments, by the way, is that, like, really, I would say over-the-top leftist feminism could really be corrected by more women traveling to other countries and realizing that actually we live in a pretty gender egalitarian and respectful culture, and that maybe we don’t

need to be- The, the thing is so many of the feminists I know had done that, and they just didn’t learn anything from it.

Really? Oh.

They didn’t take away anything from

it.

And in many cases it seemed to aff- they’re like, “Well, I didn’t get r- graped at that time therefore it’s not common in these countries.” And it’s like- Mm ... they’re just really blind often to how-

Blase about

it ... in danger they actually are in many circumstances.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, this is true. And, like, people, I think... I did some things, and I, I’ve told you this story way too many times, but, like, there was one time when I was trying to get out of Changsha in China to a much more remote place, and I was just gonna go, like, alone into a train station and get a ticket and figure it out.

And the taxi cab driver, who I had told in, like, p- poorly translated ways that I was g- I needed to go to the train station, was so concerned about me going in there by myself that he went in with me, bought the ticket with me, and then sat me in a place around a bunch of families and was just like, “

Just please sit.”

Because he understood how dangerous. Well, you could have gone through and nothing could have happened to you- Yeah ... and then you think, “Isn’t rural China so safe?”

Yeah. You know, because- No, and that, that was my whole thing. I was like, “Wow, this was just so amazing.”

Because a lot of women are witless, okay? And they don’t properly gauge things, and so they- No,

it’s true.

It’s true. It’s true. Yeah. I, I, ‘cause at the time I was just

like- You’re like, they have to go to these countries and actually be SA’d. Like, that’s the only way they’re gonna learn. Oh, okay. No, I don’t want that. And even then they’ll make up mistakes or, or excuses and be like, “Is it the way I was dressed?

Is, was I not appropriate for their culture?” Because as we’ve, you know, we’ve looked at the studies that show that when a woman sees somebody who did something wrong or cheated in a game being punished, they feel bad. Mm-hmm. Whereas men only feel bad when they see somebody being punished who didn’t do anything wrong, where men feel good when they see the, the person who cheated.

And so, you know, a lot of these organizations are really staffed with women, or even women that are perceiving these things, they just... I just don’t think they see it. I don’t think they process it.

That might be true. One of the people who commented said, “It is-” Important to tell recruits to many, many countries, especially young conventionally attractive women who are only known to host communities through blue movies and perceived to be loose, you will get catcalled, proposed to, hit on, touched inappropriately on a daily basis by multiple men.

Sometimes those men will be in your community, and it’s difficult to navigate. Sometimes you’re in a good mood and can laugh it off, and everyone thinks the joke is funny. And some days it’s the 10th proposal of the day, and you’re just done with the dehumanisa- dehumanization and interactions. Sometimes you will upset a drunkard by saying no, and he may become violent.

Here’s how to stay safe. Sometimes the threat will come from inside the host family. Multiple volunteers I know had host relatives overtly state, “I will beep you.” You may be stalked to the point of needing to leave your site. You must always dress on the side of conservative. You must strictly follow the rules of host country when it comes to men crossing the threshold of your doorway.

Inviting someone inside equals an invitation for sex in my host country. That’s scary what host country is that. Yeah, it- even having an older male friend or your counterpart sit on your porch and talk to you can start rumors that you’re having an affair. I know so, so many female volunteers who are beeped, stalked, or had to leave their site due to threat of beep.

Others bizarrely- I love that

they’re talking about like everybody knows everybody’s about to be raped on these sites, and yet it’s not reported or recorded in any data.

That’s, that’s what’s wild. Others bizarrely seem to live in the same country in the same time without these issues that the rest of us had Which is interesting.

Well,

I, I- S- an- another person said... Oh, yeah?

I think that a lot of people from these countries and stuff like this, you know, they see you as a, a foreigner, an outsider. Mm. So they see you as less able to do anything, and you are less able to do anything. You know, these other women, if they get graped, their brothers are gonna come out and f*****g murder them, right?

That’s true, yeah, and who’s gonna come and get you? Yeah. Who

cares about you? Nobody cares about you. Yeah.

You’ve, you’ve

been left behind. And this is the thing that gets me about the women being afraid of this even in Latin America. It’s like, well then shouldn’t we think again about, like, Latin American immigration waves, right?

Like, shouldn’t we be doing something more about that? If, if you, a worker, are scared of that- A

lot of Americans are very afraid of Latin American immigration waves. And there have been some very prominent cases of assault that are associated with that. So that’s, I would say the conversation is being had, but not by these aid workers, not by people who would choose to do this.

Another person wrote, “I totally hear you. I served in West Africa, and my site mate was beeped because she gave her counterpart an old computer, which apparently in West Africa means you, perv that beeped her, can have sex with me, unconscious volunteer, whenever you want, even when I volunteer and passed out asleep.

There was another vol in my community that was beeped, from what I understand by multiple people, while traveling to her regional capital. She was based in a really remote part of the province and had to travel overnight to get to her banking city. Apparently, traveling in a car by night is also a welcome invitation to sex.

PC’s response: ‘Meh, you, rape victim, really shouldn’t have traveled by yourself at night. That’s on you.’” So I think a lot of people just aren’t reporting it. After being

raped multiple times and the head of the depart- this is why it’s not being recorded. They literally do not care.

Yeah, they’re like, “That was your fault.

We warned you. This happens all the time.” But

I,

I think we

can see this pathologicalization where it, it’s very obvious that Andrew and Tristan constantly rape people. And e- and within our site, there’s people who would literally be like, “Yeah, I mean, I know they jo- and, and they, they, they brag about it all the time, but, like, whatever.

It’s not a big deal.” Like- Well,

right, but th- those same people would be like, “Yes, exactly,” to this episode. “Yes, all these people are being beeped by migrants and by people in these foreign countries.” So, like, the thing is, and you know, again, the people that I heard on social media talking about Lauren Southern’s case with empathy were leftists.

And th- I think that’s a really screwed up issue. You know, if people are attacking other people, I don’t care who they

are. Well, hold on. I wanna, I wanna be clear. In our comments on our Discord, 99.5% of the comments were mortified and thought this was stupid. I, I, I, I, I, I mean, go for it, 99- I was

just shocked to see, I would say eight people-

Point like nine eight.

I, I

think, I know- ... come from Lauren Southern ...

yeah, it might be, like, f- I saw, like,

five or six. I wouldn’t believe a word she said. She slept with Destiny, therefore-

Yeah, out of, out of, like, 2,000 comments, I saw, like, five or six people who, who took this position. So I would point out, within the right, this type of behavior is not as normalized as it is within the left.

It is a minority d- p- amount of voices, an extreme minority amount of voices, and most everyone else thinks they’re weird into our fetishes. Right? Like, the, the most of the community is like, “You, that, that’s so, that is a weird thing to say.” Like, it is, it is gross that you are defending, like, a foreigner graping your women for no re- like the evidence is overwhelming at this point.

And it’s d- delivered from them. But it’s the same thing that we’re seeing here. I think the difference is, within any faction, left or right, you’re gonna have people who just deny reality or say, “Nah, it’s totally okay that those women get graped.” The problem is, is that those people have control of leftist culture.

Those people are the majority of leftist culture, right? Tho- that, that’s the norm on the left right now. And that is where I think y- you get these pro- ‘cause we talk to these leftists and they go, “Oh, well, you have this problem on the right.” And I’m like, “Yeah, but it’s the extreme minority on the right.”

It’s the majority and people with positions of power on the left. And we’re seeing this, “Oh, you go- you went in a car at night? You deserved it. You obviously... Oh, you went to a club with him? You deserve to get drugged.” You know, the, it’s, it’s this, um Uh, yeah. I mean, I, I think, I think the, the fortunate thing is, is that we’re moving in the right direction on our side, and they’re not even, like, not moving in the right direction.

They’re hiding that the problem exists at all.

Oh, yeah. And there’s more. Look, and it’s, it’s not even just violence that is sexual in nature. The same person went on to say, “I’ve also lived all over West Africa and have my share of PC,” again, that’s Peace Corps, “horror stories. I was a teacher at my village high school, and the head of discipline beat a student, 13-year-old girl, to death.

I went to PC about it, and my PM essentially told me to stop being a pussy and suck it up. I still have nightmares about it. It was... This was 12 years ago. In another instance, a principal at my school, same school where another admin killed a student, threatened to beat me to death because he found out I was bisexual.

Luckily, PC took that seriously and got me out.” All that to say, there are a lot of challenges that come with serving, no matter where you serve, and a lot of them stem from some pretty disturbing misogyny. Another person- The

misogyny. That’s not misogyny. That’s f*****g Islam, okay, people? Like, how do you... W- what is...

How-

I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s West Africa. It’s not, like, pervasively Islamic. I, so I just... I don’t know. Anyway, another person said, “Great post. When I was in service, also in a Latin American country,” again, on easy mode, “we filled out a sexual harassment survey every year. I thought, ‘Is this a joke?’ I was the...

It was the highest possible amount. I can’t remember what it was explicit- exactly. 10-plus harassments a day for every single question. I was propositioned by the highest local elected official in my host site regularly. I had men follow me to my house at night. PCVs called it the ice b***h stare, but that is what you had to do as a woman when going out alone.

During training, the only comment they made on it was for guys to walk the girls around whenever we were out together. No self-defense classes or coping mechanisms or support groups offered. It was the worst. I had to compartmentalize because there were so many amazing adventures and people I met that I loved, but after returning to the US, it took as long as my service was to get back to normal, which, for me, was having a male talk to me in public and not instantly thinking, ‘Why TF are you talking to me?’

But I did extend my service when given the chance. I know girls who left early because of it, though. The biggest flaw in the system was that there are practical trainings and support PC could have given, but instead they just chose to ignore it and informally tell male volunteers

to watch out.” This is what I’m talking about, Simone.

You’re like, “Oh, if women just experienced these cultures, they would change their mind about them,” and you’re seeing this woman is putting literally none of the blame-

That’s true. She extended her service and is like, “I had a terrible experience, and it took me as long as my

service-” No, she’s like, “The problem is that the training isn’t good enough.”

Ah. Yeah,

fair point. You know, she- Fair point ... she literally at no point reflects on, should we actually be helping these people? Like, is this- I feel like

she’s bla- she’s blaming the, She’s blaming her organization. She’s blaming the Peace Corps more than she’s blaming the, the culture. But I think, so you’re gonna see this throughout the posts here as, as I read some more What’s really deep and inherent in a lot of this, it’s a theme that we may just do our own podcast on, is that like, immi- immigration support, migrant support asylum support, bring everyone in is imperialism, colonialism 2.0.

It is, “We are going to bring these savage, dumb people into modernity.” You know, they ha- they don’t ha- they, they’re, they’re sort of non-entities now that we are going to civilize. And their agency means nothing now, but we’ll fix them by bringing our culture to them and imp- and, and integrating them into our culture, all seemingly while actually not imposing any form of integration.

It’s very weird, but I do... The, the way that the, the actual misogyny, mistreatment of women, whatever you wanna call it, like Islam of it all is discussed in this context is not even like, they don’t discuss it as a problem. They’re not like, “This culture is pretty messed up. Like, what’s going on with these people?”

Because of course they’d immediately defen- be defenestrated for it. But within that subtext is this basically implicit understanding that, “Don’t worry.” That, that’s kind of a non-issue because the whole point is our work is to civilize them. And that to me- Hmm. That will

make them like the bisexuals?

feels incredibly imperialistic and is, is surprisingly reflective of some older accounts that you’ll see from early, like, Victorian imperialists who talk about being attacked by locals and everything. And it’s, it’s a, it’s a different kind of like, “But we’re here to civilize them. Like, this is the important work we have to do.

We’re, we’re going to-” Hmm. Yeah, anyway, it’s, it’s, the, it, the- their culture isn’t even worth criticizing because it’s so stupid and backward. We’re just going to, like, train these animals to do the right tricks that we will approve of eventually, right? Like, it’s a very ultimately dehumanizing view- Mm-hmm

of the people they’ve gone to help, because they’re not even talking about it. They’re not even like, “Why do

I actually believe this?” They don’t care. They, they don’t have moral agency in these people’s minds. They, they

are incapable of doing this. Right. Right. No, like these people are choosing to harass them and attack them and hurt them.

They’re like, “No, no, no. It’s, it’s the fault that I wasn’t trained by my own people enough. It’s their fault. It’s not the fault of these savages, ‘cause my whole point is to come out here...” Anyway, But

what’s wild to me is you hear these stories that make it seem like it’s the most normal, everyday thing in these countries, and it’s not recorded.

It’s not recorded.

And it’s not recorded. Yeah. No. So another one, “I was a volunteer in Lesotho as well, and one of our volunteers was beeped. It’s difficult, even with all the awareness training, to protect yourself. Often volunteers are assigned to places that are remote, and because they are from somewhere else, they can be seen as easy targets,” just like you said, Malcolm.

“But even in the cities they can be at risk. Also, American women are sometimes viewed as loose by other cultures.” Another person said You vocalized this in a way I haven’t been able to before. I remember feeling so at peace when I visited my friend because I could just disappear into a crowd. The silence nourished my soul.

I didn’t have my radar on all the time, which is exhausting. I remember arriving to my community during the holidays and couldn’t do it. I stayed inside for, like, 12 days straight because I couldn’t handle the constant interaction. I walked to and from work, and men would grab me, follow me, the marriage proposals.

I never found a great way to deal with that, if I’m being totally honest. Another person said, “In East Africa, it’s this bad for female volunteers as well. At times, I felt a sense of guilt for not being the best volunteer. As always, I feel hesitant to socialize in my community, and I’m in constant state of distrust.

I find myself always being cold to men in my country, which is sad, but also necessary in many circumstances. I can come across as rude to my work colleagues because of this distrust of men, and it sucks to feel misunderstood. I feel sad for women in my community who constantly get heckled and looked down on with no ability of fighting back or speaking out.

As female volunteers, we’re simply told to ignore, ignore, ignore, even if men are shouting the most disgusting comments or racial slurs at us, and it’s just absolutely infuriating.” One was interesting because this is, This is coming from a self-described butch lesbian who despite, like, doing everything she can to style herself in a way that she’s like, “Oh,” like, “I won’t get harassed at all.”

It’s, it’s no dice. She’s writing to other fellow Peace Corps people on Reddit, “I only have eight months till COS.” I think that’s cease of contract or something. “But I don’t know if I can make it, guys. I’m a lesbian and my appearance is kinda butch, and I don’t know if that makes it better or worse, but the sexual harassment in my country is just too much.

Staff thinks I’m making it up and are blaming me for choosing to make myself stick out when I don’t even think my butchness is what’s attracting attention. I’m not even that extreme. No buzz cut or chest binding. I just had a horri- horrible experience in the capital yesterday where a man on the street cornered me, and after a short attempt of me trying to get away, flashed his erected dick at me.

I really hate it. I just wanna go home. My site has no electricity or service, so I’m really isolated and haven’t been able to commiserate with anyone. Can anyone even talk to me about it? The women here are so great. I’d hate to abandon them, and I do love my job, but it’s affecting my mental health to the point where I don’t wanna leave my house.”

And in follow-up comments-

That’s the year they get the, “Oh, the women here. The women here are fine.” The women here raise the men there

It’s, it’s true. She, she noted in a follow-up comment, “I haven’t had a safety issue personally, but other women in my cohort absolutely have, and it’s terrifying. I’m paranoid now and paid to have metal bars installed on my windows after a few violent robberies occurred at my site, not directed toward me.”

Can you imagine? You’re in the Peace Corps, people are building... Like, breaking into your building so much that you’re paying to have iron bars put on your window to, like, bar yourself in.

That is wild.

And ironically, in this thread, which I’ve linked to again from the show notes, you can see it for yourself, most women are telling her to tough it out They’re like, “No, stay.

I, I had that moment too. Just stay. You know, how are you gonna feel, you know, when people ask you about your time in the Peace Corps and you say you left early? One, you never have to say you left early. You just served in the Peace Corps. Who, no one cares how long

you did it.” It’s not like the military.

I know.

So it’s not like a college where you get a degree

for lasting a certain-

Dishonorably discharged. I know, for the- Rank too much ... anyway. They’re like, “No, girl. Like, you had to put bars on your room just to feel safe at night, and you still don’t feel safe, but tough it out.” One person says in her, in her comments, “There seems to be a common thread in a lot of these harassment situations where PC staff is not treating the volunteers’ issues with the importance that they deserve.

Obviously, that’s not going to change in the next eight months, so I will just share my frustration and dismay that they’re being so disrespectful.” Again, the problem is not the locals. The problem- Yeah ... is just the staff.

Well, the staff has learned to not care. If the locals do it to you, it doesn’t matter because you don’t matter.

Well, and also because you’re the colonizer, and they’re the savage, and, and you have vastly less

human- Well, and actually these women, and the, the reality is, is these women who are having these b***h outs, right? That they, you

know-

Well, but no, I think they’d be your legitimate grievances ... that the moment...

No, listen,

listen.

You know that this is exactly how they feel about the women who are grieved by, like, rape gangs in Britain and stuff like that. If, if it was brought to them that some refugee raped someone in Britain or something like that, they wouldn’t care. They’d be like, “Oh, I hope that community’s

okay.”

Well, and I think that’s why that young woman, that young high schooler that I mentioned at the top ultimately took her post down, people being like-

Yeah, they’re feeding their other women to these people already, you know?

It’s, it’s screwed up. It’s screwed up. It’s screwed. The, the, the, but the dual nature of the screwed up-edness is that they are, one, serving themselves up to victimization.

I guess, two, learning nothing from it. But three- taking this very dehumanizing approach to the very people who are attacking them And I don’t know what to think of it. I guess I, I was just thinking about that guy who, like, went out to Alaska or whatever to live with the bears, and then the bears ate him.

And just being like, ju- they were bears But I think he was humanizing the bears, and I think that they’re dehumanizing the men.

Yeah.

It’s just like the, the recurring theme, the bears.

Anyway, continue.

That’s, that’s it. I’m fed up. I-

I’m fed up too. I’m fed up. We gotta g- shut down aid work. I think the whole idea is silly.

It doesn’t... It makes things worse. It’s mostly it’s a

self-indulgent- Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Let me, let me be clear that that, that aid report that neglected to put in the RAPE stats for the year- Mm-hmm ... was like, oh, it’s all because of USA funding being cut. Not, not the, not why they left the beep out, but like in terms of

just the report being half- Oh, this came up for a different ep- episode that we’re gonna do, where in many places, like in Egypt where we have good numbers, after the US aid money was cut, the death rate dropped.

And in the regions where the death rate appears to have increased, there were active conflicts like- Hmm ... IG genocides going on- Yeah ... that weren’t going on before the USA cut. And it’s like, wait, did cutting USA to make things better in these countries? Like all of these like I remember like effective altruist types were like, “Think of all the people who will die of AIDS.”

Oh,

yeah. Yeah.

And then it didn’t f*****g happen. And I’m like, okay. Okay, people. So like, this was all fake, right? What these organizations fundamentally are is they are a way for white rich women to jack themselves off to feel cool about themselves, to feel like they’ve done something meaningful, to have something to do after college because they’re lazy to start their real life and they don’t wanna take responsibility for their real life.

And I, I think that fundamentally, like if I could choo- I would shut down almost every aid organization. I think that they are hu- hugely deleterious to the world. And they don’t... Like, you don’t need that. You, you... What these people, and you see this from the way that they’re going in, they’re going in and they’re trying to get these places to be more like where they are.

It’s the, it’s the modern colonization wave. If you are against colonization, you are against these orgs because that’s fundamentally what their end goal often is, is to make these places culturally more like our place.

Yeah. And

that’s why, that’s why they don’t mention that the problem is the culture, because implicitly they expect to change

the culture.

The plan is cultural erasure, so it doesn’t matter. Yeah.

Yeah. That’s why the culture doesn’t matter, because they don’t want to preserve the culture. They don’t respect the culture. They want it gone, erased.

Yeah. It doesn’t sit... None of this sits well with me. I, anyway... But I, I’m glad that someone had me look into it, ‘cause I guess I should’ve figured it’d be a problem.

But what shocked me was how little people were talking about it in the end. So there you go.

Well, not, not a lot of motivation to on the left

Yeah.

I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers are there somewhere, if somebody has these numbers.

Although I- Well, I mean presumably the people who made that annual report that they, they have the numbers, they just chose to not publish them.

And I-

The, the, the w- they might not. You know,

I think- The, the Aid Worker Security Database. No, they’ve gotta have... No, I mean if they’re- No,

here’s why I don’t think they have the numbers. Okay. The the PC who said to the one girl, you know, when she was raped five times in one trip to the capital in her car,

Oh, I don’t, no, no, no, that it wasn’t five.

Hold on.

Yes, it was. And she’s like, “Oh, he was just like, ‘Don’t do it. Don’t go.’ ‘Don’t, don’t do the trips.’” That is not somebody who’s taking down records of what happened. That’s somebody who’s just like, “Ah, yeah, whatever, you idiot white girls.”

She was based in a really remote part of the province and had to travel overnight to get her, do her banking, so apparently traveling in a car by night is also a welcome invitation to sex

Yeah, and then, but is that the whole thing?

It turns into five-

Yeah. Yeah. Then r- the PC’s response was, the Peace Corps’s response was, “Meh, you, rape victim, really shouldn’t, should have not have traveled by yourself at night.” Yeah.

Yeah.

And- But yeah, but, but you were thinking about the earlier example. There was another volunteer in my country that was raped, sorry, beeped, from what I understand, by multiple people while traveling to a regional capital.

So you’re thinking of that one.

Oh, yeah. That’s what’s holding me up. That’s what I’m thinking of. I thought that that’s what she was... Okay.

Yeah, so- Oh, never mind. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I, I read it wrong. The, I, again, I’m o- on, like, ambient hormonally.

But yeah- So

I was right ... she, yeah, you were right. I’m sorry.

Well, it wasn’t five. It was multiple. That could be anything. I don’t know what multiple means. I mean, it means three or more. Minimum three.

Anyway, love you.

I love you too.

Glad you’re not an aid worker and, and you were never seduced by that nonsense. You went to help f*****g turtles. You’re-

I can’t believe my...

So I’m 13 years old, right? 13 years old, and I just tell this, like, turtle refuge thing, this eco center in, in the, the city of Akumal in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, like, “Hello, I would like to volunteer for a month with your organization.” And they said, “Okay, that would be great.” And so I show up And I am the only minor there, and it is a co-ed- That happened to

me too.

Yeah.

Yeah, when I was in- And listen, it’s good. It’s good. I hope you can

still do that ... when I was in Costa Rica and Brazil and I was working for those scientists, I was the only minor. Everyone else was an adult.

And I was sleeping in a co-ed dorm with a cold water shower. And it was delightful, and everyone was so nice to me.

And there was this one New Zealand couple of, I think it was Alicia and Nick, and Nick painted me a Studio Ghibli painting that was really sweet, that I think I still, I still have. I treasure it. It’s of Chihiro looking angry in the forest before her parents go in, ‘cause she’s so mad about them exploring something spooky.

And they were all really sweet. There was, there were the Italians who I, I saw one of them- Well, I love

that both of you and I were precocious about, like, early, like, environment and nature ... and, and

no one, no one ever attacked me, not once. But there was this one... It was so funny, actually. Yeah, there were the Italian guys.

There was this one older man who had a CPAP machine. Like, it was everything. There was this one woman and I actually had an argument with her, and I just, I, I really... She was the one I didn’t like, and she was one of the two female American biology- Wh- ... college students. And she was like, “You can’t just go into the city.

Like, you’ll be attacked. People are attacked all the time.” I’m like, “No one, no one beeps anyone. Like, that never happens.” She’s like, “What are you talking about?” Mm-hmm. And I remember getting, like, actually mad at her, 13-year-old me, growing up, from, like, from my progressive background, right? She’s

actually trying to help you.

She was trying to help me, and I’m sitting there. I remember how pissed I was at her. I was like, “What is, who is this delusional, backward woman who thinks that everyone’s out to get her?” You know, and here I am wa- wandering around, my little 13-year-old self, my little 13-year-old bikini, just being like, “Erp-a-derp derp derp-a-derp derp.

I’m just being in my co-ed dorm with my...” Whatever, like, walking around,

oh my God, you are so lucky you made it through all

of that. But that’s the culture, and at least I can relate to it, right? Like, I, I, I can remember the anger I felt when someone tried to explain to me

You wanna go to Africa, the land of rapists?

Yeah, like you’re not safe. And- this is not good. Like y- you are, I’m worried about... Everyone took such good care of me, though. Like, I think that’s what’s really inspiring, like the flip side of this, is that I probably was in incredibly dangerous times, like so many, at so many points in my childhood and, and young adulthood as a single woman traveling solo.

However- Mm-hmm ... people constantly protected me.

Well, we, we rescued you from all that nonsense, b- me and the Base Camp listeners, so thank you

again. See, and well, also, like to everyone out there who has seen a young, foolish grul- girl like out there traveling and you’re like, “Oh, I don’t know if she should,” and you stepped in, on behalf of my younger self and all of these young women, thank you.

For all those people who convinced a young woman to actually just maybe not volunteer for the Peace Corps in a dangerous country, thank you. They’re gonna be mad at you. I was mad at you. I’m so sorry. Thank you. Okay. Simona out. Love you, Malcolm.

I love you, too.

Did you know, by the way, people are putting a lot of requests for, are discussing the Zoroastrian heaven.

Interesting.

Yeah They’re like, “Do Zoroastrianism. Do that.”

I remember Zoroastrianism- There’s gonna be at least three requests ... being pretty chill the last time I looked into it. Like, they’re the reason why I included it in my canon of d- true and divine inspired religions.

Oh, yeah? Hmm. Well, we’ll have to... Maybe we’ll have to check. Maybe it ain’t so chill. Maybe it is chill, and people are saying, “Check it out,” ‘cause it’s so awesome. There is only one way, my friend, we are going to find out. But what’s disappointing for me is I have not seen many answers. There was one, one ex-Muslim woman who deconverted.

I’m glad she did. Yay. ‘Cause she wasn’t having it this, this stuff.

I’m sorry. Sorry. Look, I’m basically on permanent Ambien for the next four weeks, so-

Due to the stage of the pregnancy.

Yeah. You’re, you’re gonna have to put up with this a lot. If it’s not right in front of my eyes, I am not going to recall anything, which also means you really have to stick with the marriage contract rule of, like, if it did not get emailed, it never happened.

The request was never made of me. I have no idea.

Well-

We’ll see. Another day I really don’t want dinner ‘cause I ate lunch.

Okay, I understand. Yeah, this is the problem of, of if, how do people who eat out every day Get through all their leftovers, ‘cause they get full from the amount Yeah, ‘cause

I gotta get to the leftovers next

Yeah, and there’s still the really good steak that I

thawed out for you Then the thought steak.

I know, Simone

Oh, it’s very stressful. This is very stressful, ‘cause we can’t let any food go to waste, and that, that would be a crime.

I will eat them each in turn. Stop stressing out. You

will. You will. I, yeah. Okay.

And, , we’ve made a number of improvements to the rfab.ai, that is R-F-A-B.AI. , It’s our like role play game AI website, , auto story generator and narrative engine. So if anyone wants to try that out, especially if you haven’t in a while, I think it’s in a really fun place right now. , And if you’ve played other things like say Janitor AI or Sakura or, you know, God Character AI, if you’re playing on like dumb mode, , this is-- allows you to use all the frontier models and has the most transparent pricing in the industry and the, the, the lowest pricing for anything that’s advanced in the industry.

So you can really try out like the limits of what you can do with AI role-playing companions.

Yeah? I can’t remember what I said Granddaddy. Yeah. His name is Michael

Are my daddy’s dad? That’s exactly right. That’s right. Your daddy’s dad It’s granddaddy. You can see the resemblance. You especially, Octavian. You especially, my buddy. What about you, Indy? Yeah, you too, Indy. You look like granddaddy. I want- What about your smoothie? Octavian? Friend

Well, now clean it up, friend, before Professor eats it all. She’s gonna get sick Yeah, those are fake eggs. They’re decoy eggs. They’re decoy eggs. Do you like them?

Yeah, they’re like toys