Human Rights Day

December 26, 2007

In eastern Congo the bodies of women and girls have become a vicious battleground. Figures are vague in a country where armed rebel groups, criminal gangs, and government troops rape women and children with near impunity. The United Nations speaks of 32,000 cases since 2005 in South Kivu alone. But most agree that the real number is much higher. “The sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world,” says John Holmes, United Nations under secretary for humanitarian affairs.

International Medical Corps condemns the sexual violence in Congo and calls for action to stop this epidemic while assisting its survivors. IMC is one of several humanitarian, development, and human rights organizations that have signed onto a Call to Action against Sexual Violence in the DRC, released on Human Rights Day, December 10, 2007.

The rapes terrorize and destroy whole communities. They are done in public, often in front of family members and include severe mutilations like shooting and stabbing the genitalia. Women and girls are abducted by armed groups and forced to become sexual slaves. The children born as a result of rape are often rejected by their mothers, who are ostracized by the communities.

Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, treats victims at Panzi hospital in Bukavu and trains colleagues in obstetric care with the support of International Medical Corps. He told the New York Times that his oldest patient was 75, his youngest three. Fifteen thousand victims have been treated at Panzi hospital since 1999. One third of them were children. These are the ones who reach out for help. “Who knows about those who wait and cannot speak and are left to die slowly,” says Mukwege.


IMC provides health care training and surgical support at Panzi Hospital in eastern DRC.
PHOTO: Margaret Aguirre

For more information
on IMC’s work in DRC:

Watch this video about rape as a weapon of warfare in Congo

Read a profile of Dr. Denis Mukwege’s efforts in healing rape victims

Learn how IMC’s income-generation projects help women recover

Read our blog

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Stephanie Bowen sbowen@imcworldwide.org 310-826-7800