The young woman from south Kivu province went into the forest outside her local village to fetch wood for her family's stove, as women across the Democratic Republic of Congo do every day. But, like scores of other women in her country, she was accosted by rebel soldiers and raped.
"When I returned home, my husband kicked me out," she said in an interview with the Voice of America (VOA). "He said I had probably gotten AIDS. I lost my child, and now I've given birth to another child from the rapes."
While the world aches for Japan and sympathizes with freedom seekers in the Middle East, it averts its gaze from another crisis: the epidemic of sexual violence in the Congo, where hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been intimidated, harassed, and tortured for the last 15 years.
Rape is a tactic of war in the Congo. In their fight against the Congolese government, rebel soldiers in eastern Congo use rape to coerce the allegiance of the local population.
Monitoring groups such as Human Rights Watch document the tragedy. World leaders, including Secretary of State Clinton, decry it. High-profile advocates including Eve Ensler, Ben Affleck, and John Prendergast campaign to stop it. The United Nations has 20,000 peacekeeping troops on the ground in the Congo, yet even this force is overwhelmed by the scope of the violence.
We see an opportunity to offer help and hope to the women of the Congo through a breakthrough media initiative called "Congo Story: War, Women and Rape". A joint initiative between VOA and the social media company CitizenGlobal, "Congo Story" is an entirely new online platform to document the violence in the Congo and create a forum for discussion of solutions.
For millennia, African women have shared information by word of mouth through informal social networks. Today, technology is accelerating this exchange. In urban Congo, 70% of adults own mobile phones and over half use them regularly for sending text messages while nearly 17% use the Internet at least once a week. "Congo Story" connects tradition and technology trends to provide a ready-made channel for the Congolese to share their stories with one another and the world.
"Congo Story" will carry VOA's on-the-ground reporting as well as testimonials from rape victims (as young as 2 and as old as 80), husbands and families, village elders, NGOs, peacekeepers, and the rapists themselves. This co-generated content may come in any form contributors wish to use: video, audio, or text.
We're joined in this new project by partners equally committed to addressing the violence against women in the Congo, including The Enough Project, Eastern Congo Initiative, the Hirondelle Foundation, and United Nations-sponsored Okapi Radio. We will work together to sustain coverage of the crisis in the Congo and enable conflict resolution.
Indeed, "Congo Story" is about the reach and impact of a new social network. What it can bring to bear on the problem of violence against women in the Congo is far greater than what one organization can do alone.
Social media have helped drive the historic change we have witnessed across the Middle East. In less visible areas of the world, like the Congo, they can do the same. In the face of one of the vilest crimes against humanity in our day, they can spur awareness and support healing.
Susan McCue, former Chief of Staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Dana Perino, former spokesperson for President George W. Bush, serve on the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the independent federal agency that supervises all U.S. government-supported, civilian international broadcasting.
Here is a great organization founded by my friend, Andrew Briggs:
" Freedom in Creation (FIC) empowers war-affected or at-risk communities through increased access to the therapeutic qualities of art, international education, and fresh drinking water. By providing therapeutic art classes for at-risk children and exhibiting their artwork internationally, FIC raises funds to provide participating communities with water and educational infrastructure. Having taken part in the process, the children are credited with bringing the water and infrastructure projects to their community. "
http://www.freedomincreation.org/
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You can join FIC or donate using causes.com:
http://www.causes.com/causes/283502
You can like FIC on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_62907884584&id=10150198566129585
There is a Virtual March on the White House this wk on a new Facebook page: Special Envoy Now. (www.facebook.com/pages/Special-Envoy-Now/109321615823077)
This has been a huge month for Congo:
- a study finding 400,000 rapes in 1 yr alone, 2 million raped in the course of the conflict.
- 35 Congressional Representatives & 16 Senators wrote to Pres. Obama asking for appointment of an African Great Lakes Special Envoy.
- 77 NGO's sent a letter to Sec. Clinton presenting a comprehensive approach for an internationally cohesive Congo Plan (their first item: a Special Envoy, Now!
-NOW a Virtual March on the White House can add your voice to the cry for Congo and a Special Envoy.
To participate:
1) make 5 signs requesting a Special Envoy NOW and post them on the Facebook page;
2) request that your friends do the same, and that they share it with 5 of their friends. (PASS IT ON.)
Why a special envoy? Regional issues are involved and issues are entrenched. We need a boots-on-the-ground expert who will know what strategies will work and what won't. For more information, read the first few paragraphs of the ltr to Secretary Clinton: http://bit.ly/k5dNl8
I have not noticed the public drive to develop a green or to free us from the desire to control human resources. Talk about that.
Both words have multiple definitions and multiple use ages. So sticking two words together that are each ill defined ends up making a phrase that has no specific meaning.
Since Perino has extreme political biases, as she has a right to have, I can only assume that the phrase is just another Republican dog whistle. So I thought I would ask in case it isn't.
The lack of attention to this is a shame, a sin of our world. We should pay more attention to this and do everything we can to stop it.
Our 'solutions' haven't solved a damn thing there.
which of course leads us back to why those foreign troops or client dictatorships are there in the first place...
People have been taking advantage of the African resources and governments for centuries. Destroying any hopes for infrastructure and stable governments for the selfish benefits of Corporatism.
We have destabilized the region for cheap oil, diamonds, cold, platinum, zink, copper... you name it. If they have no stable government then we can pretty much take what we like.
The United states has been influencing political and social strife in Africa since the beginning of this country.
Many of the worlds natural resources come from Africa and no one is about to give that up. The instability in African governments has been perpetuated by the US and many of our allies for literally centuries.
The culprit is not one person or company or even a hundred.... its mass consumerism. The demands is what fuels the companies that cause these things.
I'm aware of all of that. I'm angry that I've been made an unknowing accomplice in mass rape. I'm not at all satisfied with saying "Oh that dang mass consumerism!" and leaving it at that. Why don't you rail about futility somewhere else? Your defeatist & accusatory post amounts to nothing more than righteous whining.
To the countless women to whom this atrocity has occurred, my sincere regrets and sympathies. May your spirits be strong. Your faith enduring. May your outlook be bright. Your compassion is what will sustain humanity even in the worst of times.
(THANK YOU)
They round up their own people and sell them as slaves.
They mutilate young ladies vaginal areas.
They just need a string of beads to have incest or sex with anyong they want.
They have sexual intercourse with babies.
They run around killing and maiming each other with machettes.
They hunt and kill aid workers.
They kill and run the land owners off, then ask them to come back when they get hungry.
They have a high drug usage problem.
They spend their time attempting internet scams.
They breed and train terrorists
What are we going to hear about next?
Why isn't Hillary doing something to fix the problem?
☮