Senators Reiniforce Dedication To End Rape In Congo And Sudan

By Celia Canon- Talk Radio News Service

Top Senate Democrats and State Department officials reiterated their intent to help Sudan and the DRC with its rape problem.

According to Melanne Verveer, the U.S. State Department Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues, “36 women are raped daily” in Sudan.

"This must stop," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). "As colleagues we must come together - across all the lines that normally divide us - to end this madness...If raping an infant is not a crime against humanity, I don’t know what is.”

The attention of lawmakers was piqued after the release of reports by Human Rights Watch, which said that “the number of women and girls raped since January has significantly increased in areas of military operations by armed groups and soldiers of the Congolese Army.”

Boxer explained the need to intervene immediately as one representing more than a humanitarian crisis. “If raping an infant is not a rime against humanity, I don’t know what is” she said.

According to Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), “The United States has an important role to play, in helping to facilitate such initiatives and ensure sound policies are implemented”.

DRC-based journalist Chouchou Namegabe Nabintu said that “The rapes are targeted and intentional, and are meant to remove the people from their mineral-rich land through fear, shame, violence, and the intentional spread of HIV throughout entire families and villages.”

Verveer said that the problem can not be resolved by attempting to prosecute perpetrators. “The law enforcement personnel and magistrates continue to treat rape and sexual violence in general with a marked lack of seriousness,” she said. But, "a solution must be found to stop the war and restore an order that will have to be completely reshaped in order to reduce the power the soldiers now have,” she said.

”Ending the conflict is the most important direct and certain path to ending the violence. Peace negotiations ... should remain our highest priority” said Verveer.

Rape with impunity a part of every day life in the Congo

On his visit to Goma, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) today, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reiterated the UN's commitment to ending sexual violence throughout the country. At Heal Africa, a holistic center set up to provide psychological and medical healing to rape victims --some as young as two years of age, he spoke about the every day ills women in the country suffer.

Many women and young girls have suffered at the hands of Ugandan LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) and FDLR (Revolutionary Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) rebels who have fought over ownership of land thick with natural resources like gold and minerals. MONUC (The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo) is dealing with these cases on a day by day basis as the increase of incidents citing brutal rape and other forms of sexual violence continue. TRNS sat down with Virginie Mumbre, a counselor at the Heal Africa center to find out the latest on these sex crimes.