In the latest installment of the hellish nightmare that Congolese women face, the AP reports that last month, Rwandan and Congolese rebels gang-raped nearly 200 women during four days in Luvungi, DRC. This took place 10 miles from a UN peacekeeping camp. It is in the area Hillary Clinton visited last year, where she promised $17 million to help stop sexual violence in the Congo.
Some women are still hiding. Some are only now coming out of the forest, naked and terrified.
The DRC continues to be known as the rape capital of the world. Eastern Congo has huge mineral reserves that help support the rebel groups in the area. The UN peacekeeping force has been asked to leave by the government, which points out that it has not protected civilians.
A recent study, "Now, the world is without me," by Oxfam and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative shows that while the majority of rape victims surveyed were gang-raped by armed men, there was a 17-fold increase in rapes perpetrated by civilians between 2004 and 2008. The rapes, tortures, beatings, and maimings carried out by armed soldiers have created a culture of rape within a formerly peaceful society.
Nobody knows how many women have been raped in the DRC. Over 5,000 people were raped in South Kivu only in 2009, according to the UN. The International Rescue Committee stated in The Lancet in 2008 that it had assisted over 40,000 Congolese rape survivors since 2003 in the province of South Kivu alone. The UN reported 27,000 sexual assaults for the year 2006. Most women do not come forward in time to receive HIV treatment, other medical treatment, or legal protection, which is in short supply in any case.
The media has filled reams of newsprint with details of guns and sticks in vaginas, mutilated bodies, sexual slavery and more. This is important to report. But why is there so little written about who is responsible for letting these atrocities go on and on and on?
When an individual rape occurs, there is a clear villain--the rapist. This is true for these mass rapes as well, of course--the ultimate culprits are the men who rape and nobody should deny that. But when there is a unified campaign of rape and hundreds of women are attacked in one vicious swoop as their supposed protectors sit helplessly by a few miles away, then it is much too simplistic to talk about rape solely in terms of individual men and women.
A recent documentary film features Congolese rapists talking about what they did. One repentant soldier approaches his victim and offers her a pig as proof of his remorse. The UN has not offered even a pig; on the contrary, it remained stonily silent for the last month, and has now decided to send two envoys to investigate. There has not been a word from the Secretary-General's office.
Perhaps UN Women, the new UN women's agency, will ensure that such inertia and ineptitude will be things of the past. In the meantime, writing this column seems as futile an act as anything else that is or isn't being done. Women are living in terror and pain. Cruelty and barbarism reign in Congo, and nobody is doing a thing to stop it.
Sohaila Abdulali is Director of Communications at AIDS-Free World, an international advocacy organization that works to promote more urgent and effective global responses to HIV/AIDS.
Civilians caught in the fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo have told Al Jazeera of atrocities committed by government troops.http://www.newslook.com/videos/151373-congolese-civilians-talk-of-war-atrocities?autoplay=true
Maybe if the Human Rights discourse in the UN was not hijacked for one case only something would have been done.
Maybe if they had oil something would have cared.
Maybe if they were not African someone would have thought they have hope and are worth saving.
Maybe if they held another religion others would have found it easier to sympathize.
Maybe if only one of them would have been raped by a citizen of a certain small middle eastern country we had the UN agenda on it, supermarkets boycotting it, and millions raised to help these poor women.
All these did not happen, though, so this is the result. .
If as many people cared about the DRC as care about Justin Bieber, Lindsay Lohan, and Miley Cyrus things might actually change over there.
Thank you so much Sohaila for reminding us that this has been going on for YEARS, and the UN's response has been anemic since the beginning. They are spending billions of dollars on their soldiers and these women don't even have anywhere to go to get potentially life-saving post-rape treatment that could decrease their chances of pregnancy and contracting STIs, including AIDS.
And then there is the issue that only a handful of nations have military forces trained and equipped for out of area fighting. Those nations, of course, are generally the same one's whose forces are already over stretched in fighting in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. And these are typically former colonial powers, which presents other issues to having them invade and pacify local conflict zones.
All this death and suffering is barely reported.
If it is reported, it is ignored.
If it is not ignored, than no action is taken.
If action is taken, it is totally ineffective.
This is a horrible crime, which just like the millions before it will not be addressed. Only crimes that kill westerners (9/11), or hurt Western interests (Iraq's invasion of Kuwait), or are caused by Westerners (Israel/Arab conflict) get any attention.
"Perhaps UN Women, the new UN women's agency, will ensure that such inertia and ineptitude will be things of the past."
Sohaila Abdulali, you are wrong. Crimes like this need change on the ground - political, structural, cultural, military. The UN peacekeepers cannot accomplish any of that. The UN as an organization does not have the will nor the capabilities to make this change happen. The only way the UN can help is to change the borders of the DRC and the surrounding nations to reflect the local tribes.
After that, if change is to happen in the Congo, there must be involvement of a Nation or a MegaCorporation capable creating sustainable employment, massive infrastructure investment, and a true culture of Law.
Since none of the outlined is on the horizon, atrocities will continue, no matter the attempts.
Africa will change when Africans decide to change it. They apparently haven't done so. More mass killings, more mass rapes, more population displacement, and no, it's not a simple matter that can be tritely summed up because "Whitey is bad".
The UN doesn't exist to save people from themselves, and when people CHOOSE to take responsibility for their own actions and figure out that some third party isn't driving their train, real change will happen.
Well, that would be your misunderstanding of my logic - police in the US and in every country that has them are domestic police. The UN forces in question are mixed foreign forces, not a domestic police force. Mischaracterizing my logic then arguing with the false the false characterization you've made doesn't amount to a point worthy of consideration. And you may take the view that "people are criminals and sinners by nature". That depends on whom you keep company with and just how cynical your view of humanity is. Some are, but interestingly, the folks I choose to keep company with are not. No matter what part of the world, all of the UN troops possibly available aren't going to stop mass violence in societies that are determined to have sectarian/tribal/ethnic battles.
Oh, no we don't! I am appalled by this too, but we cannot be the world's policeman, and our forces have quite enough to do as it is.
I sure don't know what the answer is though. I *do* think that if we started to boycott all imports from the area (ie "conflict" minerals) it might have an effect, as it did for South Africa 20 years ago.
Thank you Sohaila for not blaming the white man or colonialism for these outrages.