In a war that has already killed over 4 million people, women continue to be
the victims of "sexual terrorism" in the Congo. John Homes, the UN
Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, called the sexual violence in
the Congo “the worst in the world.” Between 1997 and 2004, up to four
million people died in the conflict. The IRC also estimates that today,
three years later, 38,000 people continue to die each month. Christine Schuler
Deschryver is a Congolese human rights activist. She lives in Bukavu in the
eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the violence against
women is the worst. "In Congo, since ten years ago, the war started in
’96," she said. "After the genocide in Rwanda in ’94, all the one who made
the genocide arrived in Congo and stayed there in camps. And in ’96, when the
war started, they went out from the camps and went inside the forest, and then
they started killing and raping the Congolese population." 

"The ones who are doing this, 60% is committed by these people who made
genocide in Rwanda, by Rwandans, the Hutu, the one who made the
genocide. So 60% of these rapes are made by these random Hutu who made the
genocide in their country. It's a femicide, because they are just destroying the
female species, if I can talk like this, because can you imagine now -- in
Africa, woman is the heart of family. She is doing everything, babies, looking
for food, looking for the whole family. And now they're destroying this
resource. Also, can you imagine with this massive rape, AIDS? How will be the
population, for example, in ten years? And these children who are teenagers now,
who just know violence, seeing murdered the family, raped sister, the mother,
what's the next generation?"

"So, for me, the most important thing now, it’s that the international
community to realize that there’s an holocaust, to wake up and try to change
something, because even the war we had in Congo was like an African world war,
because so many countries were involved, but it was not a Congolese war,
Congolese against Congolese. It was some countries who came and invaded Congo
with the help, of course, of the international community to come and steal
everything out from Congo. And now we are asking for the international community
reparation, not for money, but to be involved to try to find solution, Rwanda to
take back these people, these genociders, and also Congo to prioritize security
of the population."

SOURCE: Democracy Now