Sexual terrorism in eastern DRC

By ACAS | 12 August 2009

Today Democracy Now! spoke with Christine Schuler Deschryver, who met with US Secretary of State Clinton to discuss sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As Democracy Now! reports,

The staggeringly high number of rapes in the country has doubled and in some cases tripled since the deployment of a US- and UN-backed Congolese army force in the eastern Congo this January. The United Nations estimates at least 3,500 women and girls have been sexually brutalized this year, adding to the 200,000 cases of rape recorded in the country since 1996. In a report released Monday, a coalition of international humanitarian and human rights groups blamed the army for the recent spike in violence and warned that the UN-backed peace effort was becoming a, quote, “human tragedy.”

The Congolese President Joseph Kabila has declared a policy of “zero tolerance” for sexual violence, but only a handful of soldiers have been convicted of rape so far.

Watch the segment here:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/12/congo

Democracy Now! also explores how African Development Hindered by Vast US Corporate Interests in Continent’s Land, Resources.