A very heavy topic, I know, but one worth sharing as the 2007 V-Day approaches.
For more information on V-Day, try http://www.vday.org/main.html or www.myspace.com/eveensler.

A Conversation between Eve Ensler & Dr. Denis Mukwege: Sexual Violence in the Congo

A discussion on Healing the Wounds of War: Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was held at NYU's School of Law on Friday, December 1, 2006.

I want you to imagine being pulled by your hair from your home by an armed militia into the street where you are raped repeatedly, violently and publicly. After being raped the soldiers shoot you in your vagina. Your neighbors turn away in fear and in shame. They all leave you lying broken in the mud. You can barely stand but you force yourself to not only stand but to walk 300 kilometers to the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu. You are only a few days away from your 15th birthday.The scenario is so horrific that it almost defies belief.

Unspeakable things are occurring in the Congo even as you read this. The DRC is a country strife with war and conflict. You may believe that the ongoing conflict has nothing to do with you. However, if you use a cell phone or a laptop computer you would be wrong. Many of the conflicts are over coltan, a heat-resistant mineral (80% of the world's coltan reserves are in the DRC). Often women and children are caught in the crossfire and are raped and tortured by conflicting militias including children as young as 12 months old.

Age, Dr. Denis Mukwege explains to Eve Ensler, is no protection from rape. Dr. Mukwege has offered medical treatment and a temporary refuge for rape victims ranging from 12 months to 70. Rape, he explains, has become a defining characteristic of the five-year war in the DRC. So, too, has mutilation of the victims. As the rebels constantly seek new ways to terrorize, their barbarity becomes more frenzied. The Human Rights Watch (HRW) estimates that over 25,000 women and children are raped and victimized in the DRC each year.

Dr. Mukwege originally trained as a podiatrist went back to university to study gynecology after he witnessed that within the DRC there were no maternity wards and sometimes not even a mid-wife that was not a three-day walk away. Once he began his work with pregnant women he was faced with the even more startling revelation of gross sexual violence.

Every day women reach the clinic requiring urgent care. Some of whom must wait or be turned away because the Panzi Hospital can only care for 10-12 women a day (30% of those women requiring major surgery). The Panzi Hospital is one of the few clinics that is trying to cope with the explosion of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Based on personal testimonies collected by HRW, it is estimated that as many as 30 percent of rape victims are sexually tortured and mutilated during the assaults, usually with spears, machetes, sticks or gun barrels thrust into their vaginas. Increasingly, the trigger is being pulled. About 40 percent of rape victims, usually the younger ones, aged 8 to 19, are abducted and forced to become sex slaves. "The country is in an utter state of lawlessness; it's complete anarchy," says Woudenberg. "In this culture of impunity, people know they can get away with anything. Every armed group is equally culpable." The rape is systematic and there is near total impunity for the offenders because the laws pertaining to sexual violence are not being enforced.

Dr. Mukwege explains that in the Congo, rape is a cheaper weapon of war than bullets. Rape destroys the woman's spirit and then tears apart the community where the violence occurred. Eve Ensler aptly points out that the stigmatization resulting from the rapes is not unlike the stigma attached to victims in every other country especially those countries with ongoing conflicts. Although it appears that the women in the DRC may be more stigmatized than others because of the resulting injuries such as fistulas. Fistulas are a kind of damage that is seldom seen in the developed world. A fistula is a rupture of the walls that separate the vagina and bladder or rectum, which causes the person to frequently urinate and defecate on themselves.

Further, many of the women who have been the victims of the rape contract HIV/AIDS as a result of the attack, which without access to the proper medication can be a death sentence. Dr. Mukwege estimates that 30 percent of the rape victims being treated at the Panzi Hospital are infected with HIV/AIDS. And nearly 50 percent are infected with venereal diseases like syphilis which greatly increases their chances of contracting HIV.

Rape as a weapon of war is as old as war itself. In the DRC, rape is used to terrorize, humiliate and punish the enemy. Frequently husbands, fathers and children are forced to watch and even participate. Women sexually assaulted by members of one rebel organization are accused of being the wives of that group and raped again as punishment when a new militia takes over the area. Visibly distraught Dr. Mukwege explains to the audience that the rapists are trying to make the damage to the women as bad as they can. They gang rape these women and then they insert objects into her vagina and rectum. Sometimes they even shoot the women in the vagina.

The militias use the violence as a kind of weapon of war, a kind of terrorism. Instead of just killing the woman, she goes back to her village permanently and obviously marked. He continues by saying, "I think it's a strategy put in place by these groups to disrupt society, to make husbands flee, to terrorize."


Dr. Mukwege explains that the hospital still has nowhere near the number of doctors and resources that they need to be effective, or even to stay safe themselves. In response to a question from an audience member, Dr. Mukwege hesitantly talks about retaliation to the clinic and to himself for working to heal the injured women and children. He admits that the clinic has been shot at, the hospital has had to be evacuated and that he himself has received threats to his safety. It is a miracle that he is still operating the clinic and providing the care that so many women desperately need.

One of the most difficult things the doctor has had to do is to return these women to their villages, to their communities because they cannot remain in the Panzi Hospital indefinitely. Many of these women return to the hospital after having been victimized again. Dr. Mukwege says, "What we fix today is broken tomorrow." Sometimes when the return to his clinic the injuries are far worse than they presented to him previously. The problem, according to the doctor, is fivefold:

1. Medical: many women need care for starvation/malnutrition, treatment for infections resulting from the violence & surgical care
2. Psychological: long-term care is needed to help heal the emotional wounds of rape and war
3. Social Exclusion/ Stigmatization: the women & children need to be welcomed back into their community after an assault
4. Economic
5. Legal: the offenders and the government need to be held accountable

One audience member seemingly overwhelmed at the problem asked, what could young people who may not have money to donate do to help? Ms. Ensler answered you can create an awareness of the problem because it is through international awareness and pressure that the problem can begin to unravel. High school and college students can organize and stage their own production of the Vagina Monologues.

The UN, humanitarian agencies and human rights organizations have amply documented the systematic nature of the assaults. Dr, Mukwege has not only documented it but has given those stories names and faces that each of us can relate to. Yet for the most part the media look the other way. It is our duty as activists to expose and denounce these crimes as human rights violations and demand accountability. Society at-large needs to hold the offenders accountable.

In 2007 V-Day will spotlight Women in Conflict Zones. I urge you to organize a production of the Vagina Monologues in your community to open up the dialogue concerning the violence that some women and children face every single day. Because it is only through identifying a problem, naming it and then gathering the international community together to demand accountability will we ever be able to stop the sexual violence occurring right now in the Congo.

To donate funds to directly to the Panzi Hospital you can write out a check to V-Day: Panzi Hospital and the monies will be sent directly to the hospital.

You can also support or join like-minded groups:

.. Panzi Hospital, Bukavu: www.panzihospitalbukavu.org; email contact: info@panzihospitalbukavu.org
.. V-Day: A global movement to stop violence against women and children: www.vday.org
.. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA): Undertakes work in the DRC against sexual violence www.unfpa.org/support

If you live in the United States, write to your Representative and Senators urging them to pass the International Violence Against Women Act in 2007. For more information about this Act please go to, www.womensedge.org