Portraits of three women in Congo: Their lives, their rapes, their recovery
By Lauren Wolfe/Director — March 6, 2014
There were so very many stories. Stories of women physically torn apart, leaving stains of urine on chairs from fistula they suffered from violent rape. Stories about sexual enslavement that left teenage girls hysterically crying and unable to finish speaking. Stories of erasure—of women who had been left by their husbands and shunned by their own children because men had raped them.
Over a few weeks in February, I traveled with the Nobel Women’s Initiative through the Democratic Republic of Congo to meet with survivors of sexualized violence and the groups working to help them—as well as with the politicians and UN representatives who are doing varying levels of work to assist and/or hinder the efforts.
During the course of a lunch one day with survivors in Bunia, eastern DRC, I spoke with three particular women about their lives and what changed for them once they were attacked. Next to us sat a 14-year-old girl who held a six-month-old baby born of rape by her own father. At a table nearby sat yet more women with stories equally as abhorrent. Each woman has a lifetime of suffering and recovery and life outside of rape to impart and many of them traveled from far away—up to 48 hours of journeying—to do so.
Most of the survivors of rape I met have no idea where to go for help. They rarely go to the police to report: They usually see zero justice for what was perpetrated against them—so why bother? Either they don’t know the identities of the men who attacked them or the perpetrators are caught and then freed, or even sentenced and serve no time and/or don’t pay damages delineated by a court. There is also the very real issue of community shunning or stigma if word gets out.
More at: http://www.womenundersiegeproject.org/blog/entry/portraits-of-three-women-in-congo-their-lives-their-rapes-their-recovery
Getting their stories told is a tiny step, but justice is pretty far away.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Two dozen men in the Democratic Republic of Congo have launched a group to fight for women's rights in the region, which has been called the worst place in the world to be a woman. "Women's rights don't just affect feminist movements," the members of V-Men Congo said in a statement announcing the group's formation.
"The stakes are global. It's about our common humanity and the future of our society." The group, led by Denis Mukwege, a celebrated doctor known for founding a clinic for rape victims in eastern DR Congo, was launched ahead of International Women's Day on Saturday. Its mission is to combat "shameful" discrimination and misogynistic attitudes, which impede economic development, it said.
"Let's break the silence, let's change the mindset of our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, our fathers and mothers, and let's put an end to impunity and to sexual violence," it said. The group takes its name from the V-Day movement aimed at ending violence against women and girls, started by activist and playwright Eve Ensler, the author of The Vagina Monologues.
The V stands for victory, valentine and vagina. The cradle of back-to-back conflicts that devastated the country from 1996 to 2003, DR Congo's resource-rich east continues to be ravaged by rebels and militia that rights groups say use rape as a weapon of war. Every day, 1152 women are raped in DR Congo, found a 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/03/08/congolese-men-launch-feminist-group
Dr Mukwege is an amazing man and he has risked his life helping Congolese women. A bright light in a very dark place.
