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Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo

http://www.womenforwomen.org/silence/

Excerpt:

For over ten years now, a war has been raging in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). To date, over 5.4 million people have been killed, and many more have been tortured, beat, and raped – most of them women. Through kidnapping, mutilation, rape and torture, the soldiers of both foreign militias and the Congolese army are holding women hostage in their own country.

In 2006, Emmy Award winning producer/director Lisa F. Jackson spent the year in the war zones of eastern DRC. She documented the tragic situation women and girls are forced to deal with as they stand in the middle of a countries conflict they did not create, and cannot control.

Jackson was given privileged access to not only the horrific realities of life in the DRC, but was also shown the resilience, strength, courage and grace of the people of the DRC. With the help of Women for Women International’s Country Director, Christine Karumba, she interviewed participants in our program. As a rape survivor herself, she felt that the women of the Congo opened up to her to share their stories. In the Greatest Silence, Jackson shares them with the world.