| International News

During 12 years of conflict in the Congo the most significant victims are women and girls who 'are shot from the inside'.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) – A different form of terrorism is ravaging the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo – rape. According to United Nations estimates, over two hundred thousand women and children, some as young as 3 or old as 70, have been raped in 12 years of conflict.

With more deaths than Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sudan combined, victims are the highest in number of any conflict since World War II, numbering more than 5 million from fighting, disease and starvation.

Congo's eastern provinces became lawless as fighters from neighboring Rwanda escaped during their country’s genocide over a decade ago.

Rich in diamonds, copper and coltan, a black metallic ore used in the production of computers and cell phones, government forces have tried to regain control. The conflict, however, has spawned a number of other problems for the people, particularly in rape and violence.

Typically gang-raped, physically abused and mutilated, women and girls are afraid to work in the fields or gather firewood from the jungle - even in a group. They have also been carried away as sex slaves by soldiers or forced to be "bush wives" for officers.

Anneke van Woudenberg, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, told Christiane Amanpour of CNN, "Rape is being used as a weapon of war in eastern Congo.

“We have documented that when armed groups walk into town, they will rape the women and girls, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately, in order to punish the local population," she said. "It's the easiest way to terrorize a community."

Earlier this year the Washington Times spent six weeks in the Congo investigating this devastating tragedy. At one shelter for victims they interviewed a 5-year-old girl, Antoinetta Borauzema. “They dragged two of us into the bush,” she said quietly. “He lay on top of me. It hurt.”

In 2007, Emmy-award winning filmmaker Lisa Jackson travelled to Congo to produce a documentary “The Greatest Silence, Rape in the Congo” about the situation. As a rape-survivor herself, she felt that by telling her story women who had experienced sexual abuse, slavery and violence would open up to her.

While in Melbourne, Australia for the screening of her film in 2008, Jackson told reporter Maris Beck of The Age Newspaper, “When you rape the women, you strike at the heart of the society.

“It's cheaper than guns. It's cheaper than bullets.”

The Age interview also revealed that Jackson even journeyed deep into jungle war zones, tracking down and questioning the rapists.

“I interviewed about a dozen but I could have interviewed two or three times that number,” she said.

“They were completely unashamed and were bragging about having raped dozens of women. They would never be court-martialled, or spend any time in prison.” One soldier talked about there being a “magic potion” used to fend off enemy bullets — the spell, he said, was activated by raping a woman.

Jackson’s documentary, which won the special jury prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, was just the beginning of Jackson’s involvement. She has continued to call for action by individuals, groups and governments on behalf of the people of the Congo.

Even though the Congo now possesses the largest U.N. peacekeeping force present anywhere in the world, this has had little effect.

CNN’s Amanpour talked with Jean-Marie Guehenno, the former head of U.N. peacekeeping, about the situation, wondering why the deployment wasn’t working. The answer: too few troops place in the vast and largely inaccessible landscape of eastern Congo.

“What needs to be done is to have a state in Congo that can control its territory and that has the confidence of the people,” Guehenno said.

“The violence in the Kivu, the violence in Ituri, it is the result of a vacuum, the fact that there is no administration, there is no credible state, there is no justice. And so, that vacuum is being occupied by various militias.

“And, unfortunately, when the Congolese army integrates a militia without sorting between the killers and those who could be integrated, it just adds to the problem.”

According to CNN, Van Woudenberg, from Human Rights Watch, has called for international pressure to force the Congolese army to bring abusers to justice.

“My worst fear is that we're going to continue to see those individuals responsible for rape being promoted. My hope is that the women and girls of -- of eastern Congo in particular -- will continue to speak out. I think we've seen immense courage from those women and girls to say, ‘No, we've had enough.’”

This past summer Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to the Eastern Congo particularly to call attention to the issues of rape and violence in the region. Unfortunately, her rebuff of a Congolese student, over a question, was the primary news story taken away from the visit.

Lisa Jackson and others who are deeply moved by the plight of the women in Congo are still hoping that the cause will begin to receive some of the same outcry and attention as other world issues.

-----

Randy Sly is the Associate Editor of Catholic Online. He is a former Archbishop of the Charismatic Episcopal Church who laid aside that ministry to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church.