New Delhi:
Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte has yet again courted huge controversy as he asked Philippine soldiers to shoot female rebels in their vaginas.
“Bring that. Tell the soldiers. ‘There’s a new order coming from mayor. We won’t kill you. We will just shoot your vagina, so that …’ If there is no vagina, it would be useless,” Duterte said in Cebuano last week during a gathering with former rebels at the Presidential Palace.
This has caused a huge uproar in international political circles and the remarks have been widely criticised as violent and strongly prejudiced against women.
Duterte had in July 2017 made a rape joke focusing on Miss Universe participants.
“You can mess with, maybe a Miss Universe. Maybe I will even congratulate you for having the balls to rape somebody when you know you are going to die,” he had said after the Miss Universe 2016 pageant was held on January 30, 2017, at the Mall of Asia Arena, Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines.
Duterte had also told Muslim fighters in Marawi that they could rape up to three women without fear of punishment. “Just do your job. I will take care of the rest. I will go to jail for you. If you happen to rape three, I will own up to it. If you marry four, you will get clobbered,” he said.
In the run-up to the presidential election, Duterte had impudently said that he, as mayor of Davao, "should have been first" to rape an Australian missionary in jail in 1989. "I was angry because she was raped, that's one thing. But she was so beautiful, the mayor should have been first. What a waste," he said.
