V DAY and the City of Joy

V-Day in Conjunction with UNICEF local non-profits in the Congo have opened up a center in the Congo for women who have experienced sexual violence known as City of Joy. It just opened on February 4, 2011 See how they built it
here:

Building the City of Joy from V-Day Until the Violence Stops on Vimeo.

Visit the V-DAY Congo Campaign site for more information: http://drc.vday.org/

Congo's Lastest Horrors

News regarding rape in the Congo rarely lets up. This article from Salon details the new allegations of the rape and murder of Congolese women at the hands of Angolan government officials. It also gets into the failure of the integration of women into the peacekeeping process on the 10 year anniversary of the U.N. resolution that was supposed to make it so.

Margot Wallstrom and the Security Council

Margot Wallstrom, the United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict informed the United Nations Security Council this week regarding the mass rape of men, women, and children in Kampal, Democratic Republic of the Congo that occurred this summer in areas patrolled by United Nations peacekeepers. Wallstrom has spent much of the last month touring the DRC taking testimony from victims. Wallstrom and others have found fault with the lack of resources devoted to the U.N. DRC Mission and response of the peacekeepers involved in it. While it seems like, a far away problem the Congo is becoming an increasingly important supplier of rare earth minerals to the United States.

Gang Rape in the Congo

Two weeks ago it was reported that several hundred women were gang raped, sometimes in front of their families by rebel militia groups in an area patrolled by the United Nations. This came at a time when Margot Wallstrom was touring the region. It is just another sad chapter in the history of this conflict. Today the U.N. Undersecretary for Peace Keeping apologized for the incident. I have spoken about the appalling lack of resources devoted to the problem in the past and their is current little indication that the United Nations will be able to change the situation in the future.

Margot Wallstrom is putting focus on the Problem of Rape in Combat

Margot Wallstrom, U.N. Special Representative on Sexual violence in Conflict has been touring Africa this summer to uncover the level of rape occurring in five conflict zones. In a CNN article she discusses important issues such as the socialization process that child soldiers are forced to endure that makes them more easily molded into a rapist. Wallstrom has been documenting the use of rape in combat as it has been supplanting other methods of violence on the battlefield.It is incredibly important work that will pave the way towards war crimes trials and assistance for the victims of these crimes.

Peacekeepers in the Congo

The U.N. Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Margot Wallstrom was in the Congo two weeks ago to advocate for an extension of the U.N. mission in the country. All though peacekeepers have been linked to some atrocities in the country, it is widely believed that if the U.N. is forced to leave conditions for women and girls in the country will worsen. Wallstrom has an uphill battle to fight in a country whose conflict has been the deadliest since World War II, which was characterized by a recent article in Foreign Policy magazine as being less of traditional war and more akin to "organized banditry".