Playwright Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer-Prize winning work, “Ruined,” was staged on the evening of November 9 at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC with the cooperation of The Enough Project. A powerful depiction of the plight of Congolese women during ongoing war, “Ruined” is the product of Nottage’s conversations with various women in the Democratic Republic of Congo during her travels to the state. Told in a bar in a remote mining town, the stories of Mama Nadi, Sophie, Salima and others illustrate the effects of a war waged largely upon women’s bodies. Sophie, portrayed by Condola Rashad, is damaged, the mark of war left on her body, she has been cast out from her family and community –she is “ruined.” Mama Nadi, read by Portia, agrees to take Sophie in as one of the many girls who work her bar, presenting a unique dialectic and provoking all to consider instances in which the oppressed might become an oppressor. As Nottage explained in a panel discussion following the staging, she intended to provide an accurate representation of the reality in Congo, of ethics blurred by conflict and the remarkable resilience of the women she has encountered there.

Chouchou Namegabe of the Democratic Republic of Congo

Vital Voices honoree and internationally-recognized journalist Chouchou Namegabe was also featured in the panel discussion, alongside Enough Project Co-founder John Prendergast. Chouchou shared her perspective of the war and ongoing violence, speaking on the use of rape and sexual violence as a tool of war. Chouchou is the 2009 Knight International Journalism Award Winner, recognized by the International Center for Journalists, she called for the guarantee of freedom of the press in Congo. She went on to insist:

“Our voices must be heard. Silence must come to an end…Change must come from the women. Change can come to Congo, and it must come from the women of Congo.”

John Prendergast spoke on the role of conflict minerals such as coltan, used widely in the production of electronics including cell phones, in fueling and perpetuating the war in Congo. Prendergast urged that American consumers voice their concerns to corporations that benefit from “the human misery” that results from the illegal mineral trade.

To take action on Congo, visit: Raise HOPE for Congo –The Enough Project

To support Chouchou Namegabe, visit: Vital Voices Women of the Congo Training Fund

Cuzco, Peru is an ancient capital of the Incan empire and a city where two out of three women suffer from sexual or physical violence, according to the World Health Organization. In fact, Cuzco retains one of the world’s highest rates of violence against women.

In 1999, one group began amission to turn back this trend. Today, CODECC (Coordinadora Departamental de Defensorías Comunitarias del Cusco) boasts over 500 members and volunteers, 25 percent of which are male.

CODECC advocates and empowers victims of violence by helping report incidents and by offering support through the legal process. The group currently has 65 units throughout six provinces.

Volunteer Elsa Mamani told IPS that in many cases where, “[Victims have been] threatened by aggressors, the police are not very sympathetic, and they’ll just write anything they want in the report. If a woman is beaten by her husband, they sometimes write up the report as if it were a case of mutual physical aggression.”

CODECC has gained international recognition and received awards from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

“CODECC offers us an opportunity to better ourselves, to open up new spaces, give our opinions and say what we feel. This helps us recover our self-esteem. [This is the only way we] will win the battle against violence that is as ancient as our culture,” Mamani told IPS.

Cuzco Women Stand Up to Violence-IPS

On Wednesday October 28^th, Physicians for Human Rights convened a briefing on Capitol Hill to address sexual violence in Sudan and Chad. Physicians for Human Rights, a 1997 Nobel Peace Prize winning organization, mobilizes medical professionals to protect human rights. The organization partnered with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative to assess the level of human rights abuses against Darfuri women.

The organizations sent three physicians: Dr. Sondra Crosby, an Internist from the Boston University School of Medicine, Dr. Linda Piwowarczyk, a Psychiatrist and Director of the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights and Dr. Julia VanRooyen, a urogynecologic surgeon, along with a human rights researcher, to conduct interviews of eighty-eight women in the Farchana camp in eastern Chad. The camp was built to house 2,000 refugees but it now holds over 20,000 and has only one functioning latrine for all 20,000 inhabitants. Of the 88 women interviewed, twenty women had been raped and twelve had a high probability of having been raped. Seventeen of these rapes occurred in Darfur while fifteen occurred in Chad, demonstrating an almost equal number of rapes happening in Darfur and the supposed sanctuary of the refugee camp in Chad.

After seven teenage girls were publicly beaten until their arms were broken, within the confines of the camp, eight women of the camp decided to write a manifesto to express their frustration with their treatment. The Farchana Manifesto was published on June 10^th, 2008 with the women of the camp “[hoping] to achieve freedom for women in the whole world.”

In her efforts to compel us to understand the struggles of these women, Dr. Piwowarczyk pushed the audience to “imagine [that] you are one of these Darfuri women, whose hair has been cut off, who was stripped naked because you were raped”, to realize that these “women’s nightmares [were] not new” and had been happening since many of them were young.

The panel concluded that it is our moral obligation to end the rampant impunity surrounding violence against women because for the women in the Farchana camp “there is nothing post-traumatic, their suffering is palpable.”

A recent report released by the development organization Oxfam International found that sexual violence is rampantly used as a weapon of war in Colombia “to the extent that it has become an integral part of the conflict.”

Colombia has faced armed conflict since the 1850s and has been engaged in a civil war between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a leftist revolutionary group (FARC), and the National Liberation Army (ELN), a Marxist guerilla group, since 1964.

As a result of ongoing conflict, the report found that, “between 60 and 70 percent of Colombian women have suffered some form of sexual, physical, emotional or political violence.”

Women have struggled to achieve legislative measures that recognize sexual violence as a crime, but many believe that legal reforms will not change societal norms that tolerate these atrocities.

The biggest potential remedy is ending impunity for those who commit these crimes. One study found that 97 percent of these crimes go unpunished today.

Colombia: Sexual Violence as Weapon of War- IPS

The military suppression of the September 28 political demonstration in Guinea, which is said to have led to the deaths of between 56 and 157 people, included several instances of rape, according to accounts of witnesses cited in The New York Times. The demonstration took place in a stadium, where close to 50,000 people may have gathered in a show of opposition of the military junta, led by Captain Moussa Dadis Camara. As details continue to unfold and footage surfaces from cellphone recordings and photographs of the military action, the Times reports:

“women were the particular targets of the Guinean soldiers.”

In the Muslim nation, documentation of the rapes of unknown numbers of women is being met with “particular revulsion.” Photos depict women lying in muddy ground as they are assaulted by soldiers wearing military fatigues and red berets. Despite the stigma associated with rape in the nation, some women have chosen to speak about the violence they suffered, including whippings, beatings, knife wounds, and the brutality of gang rape. Violence in the form of mass rape has not previously featured as a tactic of government repression, said former Prime Minister Sidya Toure:

“This time, a new stage has been reached. Women as battlefield targets. We could never have imagined that.”

Another former Prime Minister, Francois Lonseny Fall, said of the sexual violence perpetrated by Guinean soldiers: “They especially tore into the women. They were seeking to humiliate them.” He went on to add: “We want a force of intervention to protect us from the ferocity of the Guinean army.”

Foreign Minister of France Bernard Kouchner has called for “international intervention” and declared that his country could no longer work with Captain Camara. As recently as 2007, security forces in Guinea shot dead several hundred antigovernment protesters, who were demonstrating in opposition to the regime of Lansana Conte, predecessor of Camara.

In a Guinea Seized by Violence, Women Are Prey- NYT

October 1 – Presiding Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Senator John Kerry (D-MA) joined Senators Ted Kaufman (D-DE) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in holding a hearing entitled ‘Violence Against Women: Global Costs and Consequences’, marking “the first time that violence against women, on a global scale, has been the subject of a hearing of the full Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” Senator Kerry said. On this “ground-breaking occasion,” as described by the Chairman, Senator Kerry announced that he plans to introduce the ‘International Violence Against Women Act’ (IVAWA). This bill intends to extend the principles of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), a bill with domestic focus passed in 1994, to the global sphere. Kerry explained:

“[IVAWA is] designed to put the machinery of our government to work on reducing global violence against women.”

Testimonies were heard from two panels, the first of which included Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer and Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues Stephen Rapp. In her comments, Ambassador Verveer insisted, “the momentum is building for us to be able to make a clear and concrete difference in the lives of women and girls who are affected by gender-based violence.” Ambassador Rapp spoke on violence perpetrated against women and girls in conflict zones, suggesting that “internationalized mechanisms” are needed for prevention efforts and stating adamantly, “rape itself can be an act of genocide.”

The second panel consisted of various experts including Major General Patrick Cammaert, Deputy President of the International Crisis Group Donald Steinberg, President of the International Center for Research on Women Dr. Geeta Gupta, and President and Founder of the Family Violence Prevention Fund Esta Soler. Major General Cammaert, who has firsthand witnessed the brutality in conflict regions such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, said that sexual violence is “cheaper than bullets, more silent than bombs,” and thus increasingly a choice tactic for warring rebels. Mr. Steinberg shared his experience of peace negotiations in Angola, expressly stating that peace agreements have and will continue to fail if women are not included in peacebuilding processes. Dr. Gupta and Ms. Soler both noted the critical importance of engaging men and boys in a global effort to eradicate violence against women and girls. Domestic initiatives such as Coaching Boys into Men, which has proved very effective, must be scaled-up as part of a global commitment, said the experts. Ms. Soler urged that it is essential that a comprehensive, cohesive plan be implemented to address violence against women:

“It is time for a bold and transformative initiative…violence against women is an emergency every day.”

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Yesterday, September 30, Amnesty International released a report on the current condition of violence against refugee women in eastern Chad. Titled “No Place for Us Here”, the report found that women in the region face high levels of sexual violence inside and out of refugee camps.  Among 88 women that were interviewed there were 32 instances of confirmed or highly probable cases of rape, with one woman assaulted twice. Displaced from conflict in Darfur, there are about 140,000 women living on the Chad border in refugee camps, yet many still face the constant threat of violence even though they have relocated from war-torn regions.

The report found that one of the explanations of widespread sexual violence is a culture of impunity toward these crimes.  In addition, many women expressed that the social stigma of rape prevents many victims from seeking justice.

The report recommended the government of Chad as well as international organizations create, “a clear and comprehensive plan that makes it clear that rape and sexual violence are unacceptable crimes [that] should be put in place immediately. The plan should address the range of circumstances that put women and girls at risk of rape and other forms of violence.  The strategy should ensure that women and girls have a voice in making the plans to secure their own safety that they are effectively protected and that individuals who are responsible for acts of rape and other violence against women and girls are identified and brought to justice in a reasonable time. Survivors of rape as well as their family members should be provided with full and effective reparations to address the physical, psychological and other harm they are suffering, including adequate treatment, support and assistance.”

One Chadian interviewed said, “It is not yet safe to be a woman here.  It won’t be safe until there is justice and until violence against women is taken seriously.”

Full Report

On September 30, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chaired a United Nations Security Council session on sexual violence in conflict, during which Resolution 1888 to end the use of sexual violence as a tool of war was unanimously passed by the body. Sponsored by 61 countries, the resolution related a “demand for the complete cessation by all parties to armed conflict of all act of sexual violence with immediate effect,” as AFP reports. The measure further affirms the link between safeguarding women’s rights and the promotion of peace:

“effective steps to prevent and respond to such acts of sexual violence can significantly contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security.”

Clinton chaired the meeting, entitled ‘Women, Peace and Security’, as part of the rotating presidency of the council, currently held by the United States. She noted that the resolution focused on an issue that “has received too little attention.” President Obama commented on the passing of the resolution:

“Today, the United States joins with the international community in sending a simple and unequivocal message: violence against women and children will not be tolerated and must be stopped.”

Resolution 1888 urges that states undertake “comprehensive legal and judicial reforms…without delay and with a view to bringing perpetrators of sexual violence in conflicts to justice.” Additionally, the measure creates a high-level UN special representative position to spearhead efforts to eradicate sexual violence in conflict.

UN demands end of sexual violence as tactic of war-AFP

On August 14, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer held a press conference and question-and-answer session on gender-based violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ambassador Verveer recently accompanied Secretary of State Clinton on a visit to eastern Congo, where in Goma she commented that she “had an opportunity to assess the seriousness of the conflict there, particularly with the ongoing use of rape as a tool in that long-time conflict, and the toll that it is taking on the civilian population.”

In response to a question from a rape counselor in Congo, Ambassador Verveer addressed the checks and balances to be put in place for the $17 million plan to address sexual violence, announced by Secretary Clinton during her visit. Ambassador Verveer informed that the funding to be provided will reach international and grassroots organizations, particularly mentioning the Heal Africa and Panzi Hospitals in Congo as needy recipients.

A representative from the Enough Project, which addresses genocide, relayed a question to Ambassador Verveer about the plans of the United States, and Secretary Clinton specifically, to tackle the root causes of the decade-long conflict in Congo, said to be connected largely to the illicit trade of the mineral coltan, used in the production of cellular phones and other technologies. The Ambassador acknowledged that the “conflict minerals” in question “have fueled the conflict to a great extent and resulted in both the profiteering and that by the armed groups, as well as the contributing, ongoing brutality.” With “basically no regimen of regulations, accountability mechanisms, [or] transparency” in place, Ambassador Verveer commented that such a regimen is sorely needed, and noted legislation that has been introduced in Congress to address the accountability of U.S. companies in benefiting from conflict minerals.

Fielding various other questions, Ambassador Verveer expressed a willingness and need for continued engagement and vigilance of the conflict in Congo, particularly as it relates to the widespread perpetration of sexual violence against Congolese women and girls.

Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer on Gender-Based Violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo- U.S. Department of State

U.S. Secretary of State Clinton in Goma. Vital Voices Honoree Chouchou Namegabe first from left. (Photo: U.S. Department of State's Photostream)

In the realization of a pledge to address pervasive sexual violence in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Secretary of State Clinton unveiled a $17 million initiative on August 11 to combat the gender-based violence that she referred to as “evil in its basest form,” as The New York Times reports. Through the plan, the American government will “help train gynecologists, supply rape victims with video cameras to document violence and dispatch military engineers to help train Congolese police officers to crack down on rapists.”

During a meeting with doctors and human rights advocates in Goma, Secretary Clinton commented:

“This problem is too big for one country to solve alone.”

The Secretary further added that in discussions with Congolese President Kabila, she pressed the leader to take necessary steps to protect civilians and facilitate the safe return of internally displaced persons.

John Prendergast of the Enough Project, a group addressing genocide, praised Secretary Clinton’s visit and said that U.S. engagement with the conflict in Congo must also address the root causes of the war, believed to be tied with economic interests and the illicit mineral trade of coltan: “The U.S. should work with the electronics industry to trace audit and certify this trade, and pressure neighboring states like Rwanda to stop smuggling. Like with the blood diamonds that fuel wars in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Angola, until the economic driver for conflict is addressed, there is no chance for peace.”

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