The top UN official for humanitarian affairs is traveling through the war-ravaged eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo today, where nearly 900 people have been killed and unknown numbers of women raped since the beginning of the year.
After visiting a hospital, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes expressed his shock at the large number of rapes that continue to take place. According to the United Nations, tens of thousands of women in the Congo have been brutally raped as part of the ongoing war.
Last fall, Eve Ensler worked with UNICEF to organize events in two cities in the DRC, where survivors of sexual violence publicly spoke out against violence and about their experiences for the first time. Seven women told their stories in front of community members and government and UN officials:
SURVIVOR 1: [translated] They took my husband and hit him and tied him and tortured him and took him I don’t know where. They went and killed him wherever they had taken him. And then all seven men raped me. Then the neighbors heard what happened and found me unconscious. They looked at me and saw all my insides outside of my body.
SURVIVOR 2: [translated] They started taking the clothes off my children, and I told them, “Please, excuse me, you can’t do that. Instead of raping my children while I watch, just kill me first.”
SURVIVOR 3: [translated] A woman is supposed to respected. We are not objects. Women get pregnant and breast-feed you. How come you disrespect me today in public?
SURVIVOR 4: [translated] The authorities of this country, how do you look at this rape issue and remain silent?
SURVIVOR 1: [translated] We are suffering because of rape. Rape should stop. It must stop.
SURVIVOR 5: [translated] I am speaking so that women who are hiding and others who have AIDS can come out, so they can be taught how to live.
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