Only $17 million....

[femrap]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-29/battling-congos-rape-crisis-the-slow-pace-of-progress/

This is like me giving a penny to a charity. The women of the Congo deserve better than this.

Oh, and the fistula the article mentions results from the rapers sticking a gun up the victim's vagina and shooting her just in the right place so she ends up with fistula.

Why don't they take the remaining $8 million and buy the women some guns?

[ismnotwasm]

1. A cross post

From LBN
Canada requests delay in Congo debt relief
Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, June 29 - The World Bank on Tuesday postponed a decision on writing off the debt of the Democratic Republic of Congo at Canada's request, a board official told Reuters.

A World Bank spokeswoman confirmed the delay, which comes on the eve of Congo's 50th independence jubilee.

Congolese President Joseph Kabila had wanted the debt canceled before the June 30 celebration to show the world his country was putting its painful past behind it following a brutal 1998-2003 war in which some five million people died.

"A short postponement of the board discussion was requested by one of the executive directors," the spokeswoman said
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N29182093.htm

Not one word about the plight of Congolese women. It would be nice huh? Oh by the way President Kabila, before we go any further what exactly are we doing to stop the horrific abuse of women in your country? How can we help? Where are the women and men we can talk to who could be empowered to help stop the atrocities?

What works is women educating women and strengthening women's economy. Money for survivors is nice but doesn't address the underlying causes. Women need to be empowered emotionally, spiritually and economically. (There was a TV show on how the women of Rwanda had started to rebuild themselves and the economy and were becoming represented in government, but I forget the name of it)



I found this site. Stunning, tragic pictures. I linked to the 'why' page

http://congowomen.org/why/

And another great activist site (I was just browsing)

http://drc.vday.org/

[BlueIris]

2. These are the parts of the article I find most disturbing:

"In many ways, activists’ criticisms of the Obama administration’s Congo record reflect their high expectations for the first African-American president. Obama has long been interested in Africa, both personally and politically. As a freshman senator in 2005, he sponsored legislation, later signed into law by President Bush, empowering the secretary of state to withhold aid from neighboring countries that play a role in destabilizing Congo...

But that prerogative was never exercised, under either Bush or Obama, even as both Sweden and the Netherlands de-funded Rwanda because of its support for armed rebel groups active inside Congo."

&

"The remaining $8 million has yet to be distributed..."

:wtf:

[BlueIris]

3. On a related note, I get to see the play, "Ruined" in Ashland, OR, later this summer.

"Ruined," by Lynn Nottage, is about rape in the Congo, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009. I've read it, and it's good. Wraps up a little too neatly for my taste, but still good.