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How to Help
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Everyday women of the Congo are brutally gang raped, tortured, and taken into sexual slavery. Often they are left to carry their assailant's child and/or STD. Their husbands typically abandon them for fear of catching an STD or because they are overwhelmed with shame.
According to Women for Women International (an aid organization in the region) this is happening because of "a complex web of local, regional, and national conflict has devastated much of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC; formerly Zaire) for the past several years.
Ethnic strife and civil war began in 1997, but had been brewing since 1994, sparked by a massive inflow of refugees from the fighting in Rwanda and Burundi. Rebel groups from neighboring countries entered the conflict in 1998.
The country's most recent conflict, which has been called "Africa's First World War," has roots in a struggle for power and resources, both among domestic and foreign interests. Mortality surveys estimates that 3.3 million people have died as a result of this war since 1998. The majority of these deaths were due to preventable causes such as infectious disease and malnutrition. Involving seven African nations and many groups of armed combatants, this is the deadliest war in documented African history, with the highest civilian death toll in a war since World War II. The war has been marked by gross human rights violations, with a particular toll upon women who face epidemic levels of sexual violence. An estimated four-fifths of rural families have fled their homes at least once during
the conflict, and more than 2 million people are currently displaced within the DRC's borders. Despite the country's enormous mineral wealth, several years of war, on the heels of thirty-two years of corrupt, dictatorial rule under Mobutu Sese Seko, (1965-1997), has shattered the country's infrastructure, economy, and ability to provide basic services such as health and education.
A fragile transitional government of national unity has been in operation since June 2003, with the hopes of holding general elections in 2005. This fragile peace agreement was undermined by renewed clashes between government and militia troops in late May and early June of 2004, resulting in a number of civilian deaths, rapes, and the departure of thousands of refugees for Rwanda and Burundi."
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Research Links:
Women For Women International
Women's humanitarian aid organization working for change in the Congo, detailed reports from journalists and personal stories from women.
Personal Testimonies
These personal stories are from women in the Congo. They are currently featured on Oprah's website.
Wikipedia, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Online encyclopedia of the history, politics, geography, demographics, and culture of the Congo.
AllAfrica.com: Congo News
This site features daily reports from many sources that keep up to date with the latest news from the Congo.
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"Jesus repeatedly identified with the poor and forgotten. It is our
heritage to champion the cause of the oppressed, witness to their
misery, and call for justice. Some of us are even to plead their cause
before the powerful. We are to be the voice of the voiceless and the
face of the faceless." (quote taken from Richard Foster's Freedom of
Simplicity)
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