Two comments on this - first, as much as we're rarely hearing about this in the news anymore compared with a year or more ago, there's no evidence that the situation is getting any better.  And this merely accounts for rape, not the other gender based violence that women, girls, boys and even men experience here.  I wish I knew what the solution ( Read more... )

January 4, 2011, 3:51 pm Notes From a Young American in Congo: A Good Man…
By AMY ERNST

Paluku was standing at the edge of a patchwork field of sugar cane when it happened. “I saw the soldiers catch my wife,” he says, recounting what he saw, while in his daughter’s small pharmacy in a North Kivu village, which is still over-run with soldiers. The ( Read more... )

Yesterday, Radio Okapi reported that an 18-year old girl was raped by fifteen men in the Kasai-Occidental province, which follows Okapi's news story from the previous day, citing Congolese authorities in Katanga who indicate 2,000 rapes were reported in the region in the last five months.

Rape: Rights Group Calls Test to Determine Sexual Activity a ‘Second Assault’ in India
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., The New York Times, September 13, 2010

An international human rights group urged India last week to ban a “degrading and unscientific” test commonly performed on rape victims to see if they have previous sexual experience.

In the test, a ( Read more... )

U.N. Officials Accuse Congo Soldiers of Rape - NYTimes.com

U.N. Officials Say 500 Were Victims of Congo Rapes By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

UNITED NATIONS - Approximately 500 women were raped in eastern Congo in July and August, demonstrating that both rebel militias and government troops used sexual violence as a weapon, two senior United Nations officials ( Read more... )

Gunmen Fire on Plane Carrying aid Workers in Congo - AP

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iG17jdiWAbnOevWNozIEii_VPk5AD9HV2KEG0

Damning DRC Report not Altered -UN - IOL
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=136&art_id=nw20100831125413337C405648
Notes from a Young American in Congo: Rape Continues - The NY Times
http:// ( Read more... )

In case you missed it, at least 179 women were raped in a 4-day attack on an isolated village in eastern DRC.  The UN mission (now MONUSCO) is receiving a lot of flak for not doing anything to stop it, and in fact for not knowing about it for days after the event, although UN civilians were warned to steer clear of the area.  The UN's response is ( Read more... )

BBC News - UN official calls DR Congo 'rape capital of the world'

"If women continue to suffer sexual violence, it is not because the law is inadequate to protect them, but because it is inadequately enforced."

-Margot Wallstrom, the UN's special representative on sexual violence in conflict

A photo essay from BBC with photos by Cassandra Nelson / Mercy
Corps

The photos take a look at an energy efficient stove construction that
reduces the need for firewood and therefore helps reduce the need of women
to leave IDP camps in search of fuel, which can put them at risk for
assault.

African Heroes: stories of brave badasses - Post Script: 9 foreign reasons why there's war in Congo (and women are subsequently raped so much by rebels and soldiers)girl