Nel disinteresse generale continua, in Congo, la mattanza di orrore che va ben oltre la violenza sessuale.

Sono personalmente "infastidito" che tutto ciò non abbia lo spazio che meriterebbe nei media. "Merito" di quegli uomini e anche di quelle donne che sono nelle varie stanze dei bottoni e che decidono quale notizia vale la pena sia pubblicata. Non commento oltre e mi limito a fornirvi materiale informativo in merito.

http://newsite.vday.org/drcongo

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/end-the-humanitarian-crisis-of-violence-against-women-in-dr-congo

http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/about

http://humanitarianrelief.change.org/blog/view/violence_against_women_in_the_congo

Ci sono diverse iniziative tese a migliorarre le condizioni di vita delle donne sudanesi, in particolare quelle del Darfour. Tra la guerra civile, la violenza, la povertà e l'estremismo islamico la situazione per queste donne è decisamente drammatica. Eppure c'è speranza per il cambiamento.

Si può sostenere una delle iniziative che segnalo o, per chi lavora nei media, srivere articoli ed editoriali sull'argomento.

An example of how our small-scale projects can translate into large-scale impact is evident through the experience of Rajaa. Rajaa was a determined young woman whose goal was to start a business--an International calling center. When she met Sudan-Reach in 2005 she was given a grant to start taking classes and soon thereafter she started a small business selling cosmetics. By the following year, she had almost saved enough money to start her calling center.  With an additional grant from Sudan-Reach in 2007 she purchased the equipment needed to start her business and today she is the proud owner of Manshia Telephone Communications Center--which enables clients to place long distance and local telephone calls. 

Rajaa's success would not have been possible without the generous support of Sudan-Reach's donors who fund the Empower-a-Woman campaign which makes employment and business opportunities available to women. Donor's to this campaign give $5, $10, or $20 a month to help us continue our work. Rajaa's story is proof that these contributions really do make a difference.

http://www.sudanreach.org/campaign.htm

 By UN statistics, about 1.8 million southerners were forced by the prolonged strife to desert their villages and townships and flock to refuges in the north as displaced citizens. The majority of these are innocent women and children.

In Sudan, a girl is more likely to die in childbirth than complete primary school. And yet, education in Sudan is desperately needed to break the cycle of poverty.

• 86% have no formal education
• 96.5% cannot read or write than their name
• 99% have no electricity
• 98.5% have no access to running water
• 93% have lost at least one family member
• 68% of married women live in a polygamous marriage

Literacy is the key to their future Once a woman learns to read, write and do simple addition in our program, she can take the next step to run her own business, join a woman’s cooperative and pass her literacy skills on to her children.

A woman's value in Sudan is based on the number of cows paid for her dowry. To divorce, a woman must pay back those cows - a nearly impossible task.

http://www.womenforwomen.org/global-initiatives-helping-women/help-women-sudan.php

Facilitating recreational and social activities in two IDP camps to improve the psychological and social well-being of children, youth and women, and build community leadership.

Decreasing women's dependency on aid through livelihood initiatives directly tied to health programs and ensuring strong collaboration between host community and IDP families.

 Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), in partnership with Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), has published a report documenting the scope and long-term impact of rape and other sexual violence experienced by women who fled attacks on their villages in Darfur and are now refugees in neighboring Chad. This scientific study, corroborates women’s accounts of rape and other crimes against humanity that they have experienced in Darfur, as well as rape and deprivations of basic needs in refugee camps in Chad.

http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/sudan/news/nowhere-to-turn.pdf

Vorrei sapere quanti articoli vengono dedicati a questo argomento....

Congo must crack down on rampant sexual violence perpetrated by military generals and other top officers, a prominent international human rights group said Thursday.

Congolese authorities have failed to prevent widespread rapes, Human Rights Watch said in a new report, citing U.N. data showing 7,703 cases of sexual violence by the army were reported last year. Most victims were adolescent girls.

While soldiers now face legal action for rape, senior officers "continue to be untouched," said Juliane Kippenberg, Africa researcher for the group.

"Their own crimes and their command responsibility for the crimes of their soldiers must be investigated and held to account," she said.

 Tens of thousands of women and girls in Congo have suffered from abuse, including gang rape and other violent sexual acts that have led to unwanted pregnancies, serious injuries and death.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_CONGO?SITE=TXDAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Per chi avesse un minimo di interesse per la sorte di queste donne riporto sia il comunicato stampa che la ricerca di Human Rights Watch.

 http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/07/16/dr-congo-hold-army-commanders-responsible-rapes

 http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/07/16/soldiers-who-rape-commanders-who-condone-0

V-Day’s latest V-Moment comes to us from eight Congelese who are working every day to end violence against women and girls in the DRC. We are honored to have Jeanine Gabrielle Ngungu, Justine Masika Bihamb, Kongosi Onia Mussanzi, Chantal Moboni, Drocele Mugomoka, Nounou Booto Meeti, Lydia Masimango and Kenneth Enim Ampi share their words of strength, determination and faith with us.

http://www.vday.org/vmoment/congo

Ma ovviamente nella stampa italiana la notizia ha poco spazio. Già, evidentemente gli stupri brutali contro le donne sono inezie, cose di poco conto...

Eyewitnesses told New York-based Human Rights Watch that security forces stripped female protesters and raped them in the streets. The rights group, citing eyewitness reports, said soldiers also stabbed protesters Monday with knives and bayonets.

  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/29/guinea-protest-soldiers-r_n_302633.html

“They raped me. I went out of the stadium naked, naked, naked,” said one political activist, recalling the brutal clampdown by the soldiers of Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, Guinea's new strongman.

Another eye-witness told FRANCE 24 that she saw a group of soldiers gang-rape five girls. "I went back behind the gate, I found another soldier there. He took his gun (…) and he forced it into the vagina of a girl,” she said.

Around 30 women have given testimonies to human rights activists corroborating these accounts, saying they were raped and beaten during a massacre of opposition supporters in a Guinea stadium on September 28.

They are a horrifying array of claims. Unable to run and escape soldiers’ shots, the women say they were beaten and raped, their clothes stripped off with knives and their genitals mutilated with guns.

  http://www.france24.com/en/20091005-harrowing-tale-rape-bloodbath-guinea-conakry-africa-violence-women-massacre-rights-activists

Some 5,400 women have reported being raped this year in one province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

"Night-time attacks against civilians by unidentified armed elements, and rape against women, remain widespread," Byrs said, describing in particular an Oct. 5 rape of five women "by armed men believed to be members of the national army".

"One of the victims was killed, while the four survivors are being treated in a health centre," she told a news briefing in Geneva, where most U.N. aid agencies are based.

At least 5,387 cases of rape against women have been reported in South Kivu in the first six months of 2009, Byrs said, calling for the violations to stop and the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the biggest U.N. aid operations. Hundreds of thousands of people in the east of the country have been driven from their homes due to government fighting, many of whom need protection from violent attacks.

http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSLK397891._CH_.2400

E, come al solito, nessuno ne parla....

Rape victims in Sudan's Darfur region have lost vital medical and psychological support since Khartoum expelled aid agencies working against sexual violence this year, the United Nations and aid workers said.

A Sudanese minister on Wednesday dismissed the reports as "propaganda" saying there was no widespread rape in the region and that foreigners were free to come and investigate.

Ten out of the 13 expelled foreign groups were doing work related to protection and sexual violence, said an official from one of the ousted organisations who asked not to be named.

"Women are now feeling a lot less safe in reporting rapes and there's been a resurgence of the bad old days when women victims are treated like criminals if they report it," the official said.

Rights groups say women who report attacks risk prosecution for having sex outside marriage under Islamic law in Sudan.

A U.N. report this month said sexual violence was "rampant" in Darfur. The conflict surged in 2003 when mostly non-Arab rebels revolted, accusing Khartoum of neglect.

Even before the expulsions, aid workers in Darfur say authorities harassed them if they spoke openly about abuses.

Ma tanto questa notizia non è considerata cosi' importante....

 The number of women raped in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where sexual violence committed by warring factions has become endemic, topped 8,000 last year, according to fresh estimates released by the United Nations Population Fund

 http://www0.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33703&Cr=democratic&Cr1=congo

Dove sono le manifestazioni? Dove sono le condanne? Dove sono le navi cariche di aiuti umanitari che partono alla volta del Sudan? Dove è lo sdegno?

Perchè a solo a pochi interessa la sorte delle donne del Darfour?

A group representing women from Sudan’s war-scarred western Darfur region has denounced the nearly two- year-old conflict, and called on the UN to act against those responsible for war crimes and human rights abuses in the region.

The fighting between the government troops and the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in Darfur has claimed some 70,000 lives and left 1.6 million people homeless, according to figures from relief groups.

In the name of all Darfur women, the widowed and those who have lost their children, the orphaned, displaced and refugees, we appeal to the government and the armed groups to stop hostilities and commit themselves to signed agreements and UN resolutions concerning the ceasefire and delivery of humanitarian assistance," the women said.

Members of a Rwandan militia and other rebels raped at least 154 women in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo three weeks ago and then tried to keep them from spreading word of the attack, the United Nations said.

A joint UN human rights and peacekeeping team reported that elements of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, or FDLR, and the Mai-Mai Cheka group committed the rapes in the village of Bunangiri during the last week of July and first week of August, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters in New York today.

The rebels blocked a road connecting the village to a company of UN peacekeeping troops 18 miles away, preventing the villagers from reaching the nearest communication point, he said.

“Victims are receiving medical care and have also been provided psycho-social care,” Nesirky said. “Gathering of information continues. We still don’t have a full picture.”