War Against Women in (DR) Congo

Last night CBS' famed 60 Minutes weekly newsmagazine aired an excellent segment by CNN's Anderson Cooper, "War Against Women in the Congo." It concerns the systematic use of rape against women and children in the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The tragedy of the Darfur region of the Sudan is horrid and should not be underplayed, but it gets far more coverage in the U.S. than the horrors in the DRC--even though both the United Nations and Human Rights Watch conclude that what is happening in the DRC is the worst human rights tragedy in the world, currently. Further, although women have been raped in all wars, this is the most systematic use of rape as a weapon of war anywhere--making even the rape camps during the Balkans civil war which broke up Yugoslavia in the '90s or the rapes in the Darfur refugee camps now look small in comparison. DAILY GANG RAPE is now the norm--and reaches children as young as 3 and women in their '90s--and is leaving entire villages traumatized.

The video is disturbing and not for the squeamish. We need to make ending this a high priority of the U.S. State Dept. and the U.S. and international human rights groups and campaigns. The blog, Texas in Africa, run by a Texas poli-sci grad student whose dissertation is on Congo's health system and who has spent considerable time in Africa, has regular updates on all matters African, especially Congo related.