Blog in Solidarity: Congo Rape Epidemic

I cannot improve on what Melissa McEwan has written at Shakesville, so I won't try. I do encourage you to visit her blog and read this important post. The war on women must be stopped, and you CAN help make a difference.

Inspired in large part by Lisa Jackson's film, The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, which is airing this month on HBO, SheCodes at Black Women Vote (via Elle, Marcella, and Anxious Black Woman) exhorted other bloggers to participate in a blogswarm "to raise awareness by blogging about this issue on April 13th."

The prevalence of rape in the Congo has been described as the worst in the world:

The prevalence and intensity of sexual violence against women in eastern Congo are "almost unimaginable," the top U.N. humanitarian official said Saturday after visiting the country's most fragile region, where militia groups have preyed on the civilian population for years.

John Holmes, who coordinates U.N. emergency relief operations, said 4,500 cases of sexual violence have been reported in just one eastern province since January, though the actual number is surely much higher. Rape has become "almost a cultural phenomenon," he said.

"Violence and rape at the hands of these armed groups has become all too common," said Holmes, who spent four days in eastern Congo. "The intensity and frequency is worse than anywhere else in the world."

Hundreds of thousands of women have reportedly been raped in the Congo, with sexual violence "so widespread that the medical aid charity, Médecins sans Frontières, [said in November] that 75% of all the rape cases it deals with worldwide are in eastern Congo." (more)