Michelle Faust of the Associated Press reports on how Congolese survivors of rape shatter local taboos around talking about violence against civilians.
On 5 March 2009, Eve Ensler spoke to a packed lecture hall at Toronto Women’s College Hospital about violence against women, the bravery of the women in the Congo and the work of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women.
Global Witness reports there is a direct causal link between the metals trade in eastern DRC and atrocities perpetrated by armed groups against Congolese civilians. Recent work by Global Witness and the UN Group of Experts revealed that all of the main armed groups involved in the current fighting in eastern DRC finance themselves through the trade in high-value minerals. These minerals are processed into metals such as tin and tantalum, which are used in the manufacture of mobile phones.
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert writes, “For years now, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, marauding bands of soldiers and militias have been waging a war of rape and destruction against women. This sustained campaign of mind-bending atrocities, mostly in the eastern part of the country, has been one of the strategic tools in a wider war that has continued, with varying degrees of intensity, since the 1990s. Millions have been killed.”
It is with enormous sadness that Human Rights Watch announces the death of our beloved colleague Dr. Alison Des Forges, who was killed in the crash of Flight 3407 from Newark to Buffalo on February 12, 2009. Des Forges, senior adviser to Human Rights Watch’s Africa division for almost two decades, dedicated her life to working on Rwanda and was the world’s leading expert on the 1994 Rwanda genocide and its aftermath.
Our book partners, Stephen Lewis and Eve Ensler, were in Toronto last week speaking about the horrific sexual violence afflicting the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
