There is a modest rush to bring humanitarian aid to the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). After weeks of escalating conflict, during which hundreds of thousands have been displaced, hundreds more women raped, and many civilians slaughtered, there is now the possibility that three thousand additional peacekeepers will be sent to DRC. There have been high-level meetings with militia leader Nkunda and Presidents Kabila of the Congo and Kagame of neighboring Rwanda. There is a new element of care and concern.
But why does the world behave as if there is suddenly a new war in the DRC? For thousands upon thousands of women, the war that began 12 years ago has never ended. Each day, women have been threatened with rape, torture, abuse and violation. Many of us have been calling for intervention on their behalf for years, especially the last two years. We have spoken at the Security Council, we have met with European governments, we have pushed the U.S. administration, we have made countless speeches. We have launched a worldwide campaign: "Stop Raping our Greatest Resource; Power to the Women and Girls of the DRC". We have begged, cajoled and pleaded for triple the number of peacekeepers to protect the women, for an end to impunity, for shining a light on the connection between the sexual violence and the plundering of Congo's vast resources my militias and multi-national companies. We have worked with brave and resilient women and men in the DRC who are building movements from the ground up to break the silence, demanding an end to war.
It is acknowledged across the board that the sexual atrocities perpetrated on women in the DRC are without a doubt the worst atrocities in the world today. It may seem extreme to call what is happening a Femicide --- the violence may not fit the exact legal definition of the Genocide Convention -- but for the women facing such systematic destruction, targeted precisely and only because they are women, Femicide is a word whose time has come. The numbers are appalling. More than a quarter of a million women have been raped in the last decade. The crimes are shocking: gang rapes; the raping of three-month-old infants and eighty-year-old women; the dispatching of militias who have AIDS and other STDs to rape entire villages; women being held as sex slaves for weeks, months and years; and women being forced to eat murdered babies.
At Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, over ten women who have been raped and tortured arrive daily. Their vaginas are ripped apart; for some that means that their reproductive organs are permanently destroyed. Many have fistula -- a hole in the wall of tissue between the vagina and the rectum or the vagina and the bladder. These wounds are most often inflicted by militias who attack using sticks, knives or guns, or through the merciless vaginal penetration of mass rape.
What makes it all so appalling is that everyone in power knows what is happening. On December 10, the founder of Panzi -- Dr. Denis Mukwege -- was awarded the United Nations Prize in the field of Human Rights, an award which Nelson Mandela and other esteemed leaders have received. There are Security Council resolutions, dramatic visits by western Foreign Ministers, increasing news coverage, coalitions of UN agencies, statements by humanitarian NGO's, 17,000 peacekeepers on the ground, and yet the sexual violence never ceases.
The missing piece of the analysis is that peace and war have always been measured in gun blasts. When men take up arms, and other men fight back, war is declared; when men agree to a ceasefire, the war is said to have stopped. Now we've come to the point when the world has recognized that in conflict after conflict, a gruesome, sadistic dimension has been added to modern-day-war, a widespread strategy employed by men to achieve their military and political ends: the rape of civilian women and girls.
All the parties to the war in the DRC may agree in theory that rape is being used as a 'weapon of war', but when they sit around the negotiating table and work out the terms that will end the fighting, they consistently forget to include for discussion just one weapon in the arsenal: rape. And so sexual violence has continued unabated, never letting up during the periods of so-called 'peace'.
And it will continue, because although we claim that rape is a weapon, committing a rape has never constituted a breach of any peace accord.
Enough of the lip service. If rape is a weapon of the Congo's war -- and we know that the threat of rape is a terrorist tactic, causing communities to flee their homes and farms, causing millions of deaths by starvation, making rape the single most deadly of all the militias' weapons --- then treat it with the gravity afforded every other weapon. Insist that the militias lay down their weapons AND stop their raping. Until the sexual violence ends, the world has no right to speak of peace.
Eve Ensler is a writer and activist, and the founder of V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls.
Stephen Lewis is the Co-Founder of AIDS-Free World and the former UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.
Rape is a SYMPTOM of that problem not the root cause. Treating rape without treating the governments that foster rape is like giving someone with pnemonia a nasal decongestant. Its like treating aids without treating unsafe sex. Its a reactive and ridiculous approach that will solve nothing.
Why am I the only person on these forums willing to place the balme squarely on the organization that deserves the blame. THE UNITED NATIONS. The primary reason this organization exists is to prevent or remedy lawless governments that are a threat to their own citizens and/or a threat to their regions of the world. BILLIONS of dollars are provided to this worthless organization and what does the world get for it? Nothing but worthless, impotent reactive measures that are always late and always lacking.
Until you people are smart enough and willing enough to treat the real problems you really have no business whining about the symptoms.
Self defense training and possibly arming of the women is the best defense:
http://www.danecountyrcc.org/chimera/index.php?category_id=3920
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=yyI&q=teaching+women+to+resist+rape+assault+congo&btnG=Search
"Her organization has responded by training 36,000 children to resist rapes and teaching parents never to let their daughters go anywhere alone or be alone with a man, even a teacher. "
Get a volunteer group of Females soldiers from around the world to come and train the women.
Of course the world could do a lot with economic and political pressure.
Read The Coltan Wars Pt. 1 and The Coltan Wars Pt. 2 for more details.
http://globalinvestmentwatch.com/2008/12/08/the-coltan-wars-pt-1/
http://globalinvestmentwatch.com/2008/12/15/the-coltan-wars-pt-2-the-business-of-war/
This article doesn't mention the husbands and only briefly mentions the death of the children, we should try and focus on the root causes of these attacks of innocent villages instead of just one of the horrible things that happens during them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/georgianne-nienaber/witness-to-rape-in-congo_b_116555.html
In the "God's" Testimony section of the article called Witness To Rape In Congo it tells the horrific story of rape of Mya, in it gives a single brief sentences about the killing of her two brothers and the rape of her mother, then continues for the rest of the section about effects of her rape. Reading this article I tried to imagine the absolute horror being that family’s mother during the attack. Then reading this it struck me how angry I would be at a reporter who said how horrible it was that I was raped that day, but who seemed not to be concerned that I just watching my sons killed and my daughter raped in front of me.
The observation I trying to make was that the killing of a child seem to be at lest a bad a raping of one, why doesn’t the article give equal focus on the deaths?
I wasn't joking when I suggested Arm and Train the women.
Send female soldiers from around the world, under the UN, could go in make any rapist think twice.
However, I think what should be done is to find a global solution to this crisis through a concerted effort among the United States and the European Union to impose sanctions and warn the political power there. It is, in my sense, the carelessness of the West, broadly speaking, that gave a leeway to those criminals in Congo to perpetrate such exactions. So, Barack Obama and his counterparts in Europe should swiftly urge officials in Congo to put an end to these human rights violations.
Could these kinds of problems just be the result of earth or a countries inability to provide sustenance to their populations and therefore more of what we just need to be prepared to expect as we go into the future? If so, can we prepare and find solutions that work. Or could it be that the best people can really do is kind people opening hospitals in hell, nations presenting awards and decisions on who will, or wheather to, send in peacekeepers is okayed by inefficient or uncaring leaders.
I think the short answer (vs "the answer") would be "yes".
Firearms have been called the great equalizers. If you can shoot straight and you have plenty of ammunition, doesn't matter how many muscles or how much testosterone you have. These men and boys are being armed by someone. Why not the women?
In attacking and violating women and girls, these men and boys are indulging in a form of self-hate. They know they are destroying their own communities, their own people, their own country, their own future. I suspect they feel they have no future anyhow.
Also, in all human cultures, female chastity and reproductive health has been a prized commodity. A form of intrinsic wealth; a currency, typically traded only by men to men. To these Congolese, seemingly indiscriminate raping and brutalization of females is probably the equivalent of burning the towns and houses so the enemy has no quarter, no resources, with which to regroup and fight again another day.
I think the most expedient and immediate, albeit very sad answer is to arm and train the women and girls in the most basic and simple methods of self-protection. It's really not that hard, and I suspect, much less expensive than sending enough UN troops to guard every remote settlement and refugee camp.
If females move in pairs or tight groups, least one woman can wield the weapon while the others tend to business. No, every attacker will not be killed or stopped, and at first, many women willdie fighting, but if most women were able to kill or inflict severe defensive wounds on at least a few men in these ravaging groups, the word would soon spread that targetting women and children in this manner is too costly.
And there's no need to aim a shotgun, militant. It sends out a spray of pellets. A sawed-off shotgun (illegal in US) sends out an even wider spray. Very effective weapons.
plot summary:http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-lysistrata/sum.html.
Women close to powerful men could do a lot to help other women. Powerful women on their own -- and we're all powerful -- can refuse to play the male dominance games.
Let's revive the Lysistrata Project.
http://www.lysistrataproject.org/aboutus.htm.
Put me in the Chorus of Old Women:-)
We need articles like this to force our eyes open. To be reminded of what's on stake. To be reminded of the unspeakable hell these people are living through. Or being killed in. And we also need to be reminded that our own humanity, our own value as people, are tainted by the fact that we know and do nothing. This isn't about the humanity of the victims and pulprits of the Congo. This is about the humanity of us all.
Thank you for not letting us forget. Keep writing about this. And know that it has some effect. After reading this for the first time (this is my second) I informed my friends that their Christmas presents are going to the Congo this year. The money I would have spent, I give to the refugee council instead.
Who allows this to happen ? Are we too passive towards evil ? Are innefficient leaderships responsible ? Are these things the result of insufficient resources and overpopulation, and an indication of what will get even worse as we go forward ?
Blaming it on colonialism and finding the root causes that are a hundred years old and impossible to change seems like the way to focus on a red herring.
If they don't survive, they won't be there for a (hopefully) peaceful future. Donating money is what you and I can do for now. That, and continuing to listen to Eve Ensler & comany, and to comment on stories like these, directing attention to them, demanding action from the UN and the world's governments.
I have long been critical of anti war movements as being "war-selective", inferring that some wars are "bad" some are "honorable" (witness Bosnia vs. Iraq, and yes, rape occurred en masse in Bosnia). Anti war movements choose individuals as scapegoats for the "bad war's" causation and then euphemistically stone them, which is childish and insignificant.
All wars are bad.
Speaking of violence, I found the in The Vagina Monologues seeds of female violence. Plus childish and insignificant. Plus yucky. Women have to do better than that if they are to rise above human nature's baser instincts, for the purpose of saving lives and energizing the moral compass at large. A woman's spiritual nature is more inspiring and powerful than women often realize.
Perhaps UN Peacekeepers should separate out every last female (and boy under 16) and guard them, out of harm's way. In luxury, as befits a woman. Men would respond to that. But then how can we trust the Peacekeepers? They rape, too. Women in the military as Peacekeeper guards maybe?