Africa: rape epidemic in Congo war worsens

Each day, at least ten new women and girls who have been raped show up at one hospital in the Congo. Many have been so violently assaulted "from the inside out, butchered by bayonets and assaulted with chunks of wood, that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair," according to this piece by Jeffrey Gettlemen in today's New York Times:

According to victims, one of the newest groups to emerge is called the Rastas, a mysterious gang of dreadlocked fugitives who live deep in the forest, wear shiny tracksuits and Los Angeles Lakers jerseys and are notorious for burning babies, kidnapping women and literally chopping up anybody who gets in their way.

United Nations officials said the so-called Rastas were once part of the Hutu militias who fled Rwanda after committing genocide there in 1994, but now it seems they have split off on their own and specialize in freelance cruelty.

Honorata Barinjibanwa, an 18-year-old woman with high cheekbones and downcast eyes, said she was kidnapped from a village that the Rastas raided in April and kept as a sex slave until August. Most of that time she was tied to a tree, and she still has rope marks ringing her delicate neck. The men would untie her for a few hours each day to gang-rape her, she said.

“I’m weak, I’m angry, and I don’t know how to restart my life,” she said from Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, where she was taken after her captors freed her.

She is also pregnant.

Link. Photo: Honorata Barinjibanwa. (Hazel Thompson for The New York Times / Thanks, Susannah Breslin)

• [MoogleLally]

  This is so awful. I’ve heard about it on NPR a couple times now… Women being raped so badly, the wall inside them that separate their vagina and anus is damaged beyond repair. While the article talks about the physiological warfare and the immediate hospitalization of these women, they’ll have a lifetime of infection and pain because of these injuries.

  Does anyone know of anyway people could help? Jesus, I know this is a problem so much bigger than myself but I feel like I want to do something.

• [danipark]

  very dark.

• [BlackAndy]

  “I just don’t think we should.”

  No. Just no. When this sort of thing happens in the world and you have the ability to stop it, YOU SHOULD. Damn the consequenses.

  If these good intentions pave the road to hell, then to hell we must go; but I can’t believe that they do.

• [Scott Lenger]

  For this and similar issues I personally recommend the following organizations:

  World Vision

  International Justice Mission

  Also, David Batstone’s book Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade—and How We Can Fight It provides a thorough overview of these incidents occurring in all 7 continents as well as a wealth of resources to get involved. You can also watch the author summarize the book on youtube

• [JB Lavin]

  Me too. Xeni, what can we do?

• [Anonymous]

  The International Medical Corps are another group working to help these women.

  http://www.imcworldwide.org/content/blog/detail/1290/

  http://www.imcworldwide.org/content/donate/

• [comebhappy]

  1. “What is the What” a biography from a Sudanese Lost Boy.

  2. Sherrlyn Borkgren’s blog is personable and cuts through the c—– http://www.lovesimplyhappens.blogspot.com
  she did a moving story about a young girl and her family in the Congo. My wife and I have been following this journey.

  3. Heal Africa seems to be one of the few aid groups really making a difference there in Congo. the rest seem to be doing as much harm as good. there is a good article out (can’t find it) it’s about the rebels presence providing jobs for all the overly paid aid groups in the E. Congo. Hate to be cynical but aid groups are pretty cush and don’t seem to change much.

• [Anonymous]

  From the article, it looks like you could donate to Malteser International, an aide group providing counselors and medical care. I went to their site (google them) and there is a way to donate, only the page comes up in German. Whew. This is heavy stuff.

• [mattyd]

  This is awful.

  I voted for President Bush twice (I am voting Democrat- Hillary Clinton this time around) and I supported the Iraq War (note: supported, past tense); this sounds like a very good mission for our Special Forces– hunt down and capture\ kill the “Rastas” for such vile crimes against humanity. Bloody horrible.

• [Tits McGee]

  Thank you for posting this.

  I read this article last night. After I stopped crying, I started searching for more information. Amnesty International has an excellent article here. If you are moved, as I am, to do something, I think a good place to begin is with a letter to your elected representatives in the House and the Senate, encouraging them to take action in providing aid to victims and in pressuring the DRC government to make this issue a priority. If you can, donating money to organizations like Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders is another way to make a difference.

• [noen]

  I’m sure this administration would have a place for the Rastas. Thy snd lk thr knd f ppl.

• [Anonymous]

  This story makes me want to vomit. This is sick and wrong. I recently started tobelieve that only god that exists is within us all. Now I am realizing the devil is inside us too.

• [noen]

  These are horrible horrible things but let’s get a little perspective. There is nothing new or unusual going on here. People have been doing this and more, far more, since the dawn of time.

  Do you really want a one world government that could prosecute such crimes? Just who do you have in mind as a world wide police force? The US military? Blackwater? The United Nations?

  Do you want the US military to go in to Miramar or the Congo and occupy their country? Hell, we can’t even police ourselves very well. The Jena 6 are not atypical, they were just lucky enough to get some media attention.

  Do you know what it’s like to work in a public ER and watch the infant girls come in time after time with torn vaginas? It happens more than you want to know. Right now, in your city, the odds are fairly good that a woman is being beaten or raped, or a child, boy or girl.

  Of course we should try to do something, I’m just sayin’.

• [noen]

  BlackAndy, while it a bit late for this story, I wasn’t responding to you. I just wanted to raise those questions for consideration. I was hoping to spur the discussion. Nothing more.

• [Xeni Jardin]

  Susannah Breslin, the BB pal who pointed us to this story, has reached out to its author at the NYT to see if he has recommendations of what concerned folks can do.

  @Tits McGee, those suggestions seem to me to be excellent.

  A small footnote: I couldn’t help but think how bizarre the name of the roaming Congolese death squads is. They’ve co-opted the term “Rasta,” and I wonder how many Americans or others reading the article (or other news about Congo) now might imagine that this is in fact how actual Rastafarians behave.

  Whatever you think of the *real* Rastafarian Movement, and their lifestyle and their faith (few outside it take the time to understand it, many white folks in particular romanticize it, others have dismissed it as a “stoner cult”) — they’re not death squads.

  (shakes head sorrowfully). What an incredibly horrible story this is, so very awful. And even more sad, the fact that systematized sexual violence against women is not uncommon in other wars around the world.

  If the face of this 18-year-old girl isn’t the face of abiding, inextinguishable strength, I don’t know what is.

• [Stu Mark]

  As a feminist, I ask that the Unicorn Chaser be placed after this post, not the post about the poor woman with what must have been awfully bad menstrual cramps. Yeah, cramps suck, and puke is less than pleasant, but rape is in a different category for me.

  And bless you, all of you at BoingBoing, for effecting the planet’s sense of balance, of justice, of right and wrong. You are all a contribution to society in a way that will never be able to be fully or even adequately measured.

• [zuzu]

  @MattyD

  “I voted for President Bush twice (I am voting Democrat- Hillary Clinton this time around)”

  GdDMNT, y’r mkng t vn wrs!
  lthgh wth th lkly Dsstr Scnr f Hllry vs. Gln-Tm, nt t mntn th Prfct Strm f wr nfltn sn t b cmpndd by _prtctnsm_ frm th fls-thrt f Chns nd Db nvstrs (th nly thng hldng hyprnfltn t by), th S s fcng ttr slf-dstrctn frm ts wn grnc.

  VT RN PL fr S Prsdnt!
  Dmcrts: VT BM n th Prmrs

  @BlackAndy

  “What I am saying is: To say that nothing should be done is wrong. Morally.”

  NO, often doing something is MUCH MUCH WORSE than doing nothing. morally.

  two wrongs don’t make a right.

• [Anonymous]

  I can’t believe all the narcissistic comments to this posting.
  “…blast this shitty blue rock to pieces”, et all. Ridiculous, come on now.

  “If these good intentions pave the road to hell, then to hell we must go; but I can’t believe that they do.”

  What God was saying is that without Him good intentions will have little effect of working and often lead to other atrocities, and that all good acts must be performed with Him in mind and in His name.

  Just take a gander at communism, socialism, and all the other “isms” often justified as solutions to problems offered up by secularists to solve our problems…and their track record of success. This is what God was referring to.

  Go ahead, flame me as a right wing God – bag now ;)

• [togetherless]

  Dear God how can we help?

• [agoodsandwich]

  Oh my god, how horrifying.

  But isn’t this indicative of severe societal problems that couldn’t be solved by simply “going over there and doing something”? We have a wonderful life over here in the western hemisphere, but we seem to have this idea that we can go to where there’s trouble, fix it, and the world will see how wonderfully we live and do as we do.

  But I hope what we learn from our current fiasco is that other societies are different than us. They have different problems at their core that we don’t understand, and can’t fix by solving some superficial problems.

  I wonder if there’s a way to influence a society at it’s core, to develop in a more healthy way. Could it be done in less than a full generation? Is what we’re doing in Iraq pushing their society in a healthy or unhealthy direction? Is there anything we COULD do from here, other than swooping in and shooting the culprits? Or is that really what needs to be done?

  Just wondering aloud.

• [Anonymous]

  Eve Ensler, author of “The Vagina Monologues” and director of the V-Day movement to end violence against women and girls, has visited The Congo and has posted information and donation opportunities at this site:
  http://www.vday.org/contents/drcongo

• [BlackAndy]

  noen, you’re reading a lot more into my post than what I said. I didn’t call for a worldwide government, or for an invasion. I didn’t say that rapes don’t happen, that children aren’t abused, be it where I am or elsewhere.

  I said if you are able to stop someone from being raped, or a child from being taken advantage of, or anything else like this from happening, then you should. Saying that “We shouldn’t get involved” is not a healthy response to this situation.

  I’m well aware of man’s capacity for inhumanity to his fellow man. I don’t shirk from the many, many other stories that have paraded through the news like this, not since I learned about what occured in Rwanda. I’ve also been in situations where someone I know is being physically abused by someone they love, and has asked for help. I’ve done what I could for them, even when people close to me advised me to not get involved. From their perspective I’m sure they thought it was the right thing to do, but I still think that if you are in a position to help or protect someone who desperately needs and wants it, you have a responsibility to do so, and “don’t get involved” is wrong.

  I’m well aware that this can be read as an endorsement of a certain recent disastrous U.S. policy; that is misrepresenting what I’m saying. I also don’t think another invasion is wise at this point, either for the invader or the invadee. Nor do I think that I have the answer to this horrible situation.

  What I am saying is: To say that nothing should be done is wrong. Morally.

• [Anonymous]

  This is so very very distressing.

• [Perla]

  This is really truly awful. The pain in this girl’s eyes is just so tragic, and it will be with her for the rest of her life.
  I read the rest of the article at NY times and the Rwandan war still has ramifications. The only thing I can think of is to give the women in the area guns. Those Hutu militias have become sociopaths and have no sense of right or wrong. A gun seems to be the only way.
  I remember a couple of years in Afganhistan where the women were suffering from violent rapes as well, they were armed.

  Poor poor women.

• [Splash]

  Clrly wht ths ppl nd r $100 lptps frm th LPC prjct.. myb slght nm chng wll d th trck “LPW” – “n Lptp Pr Wr-trn ndvdl”.

• [Anonymous]

  How is it that in the US, you can’t even name the rape victim,
  and when the victim is in Africa, it’s ok to even have a
  photograph for the world to see? I admit that these women
  have been horribly wronged, but showing their face to the
  world is only making it worse.

• [rationalist39]

  For the god people above, don’t forget that most of todays worldly problems are a direct result of religion…yes Christianity too. Maybe you didn’t know this but your Christian buddys are in Africa feeding AIDS victims, BUT, because of silly religious beliefs they can’t tell non-infected people to use condoms. Thats right, god dosen’t believe in using condoms. So in response to post #22 “What God was saying is that without Him good intentions will have little effect of working and often lead to other atrocities, and that all good acts must be performed with Him in mind and in His name”.
  We can see what good intentions do with god in mind. Stop your ranting about secular society! I’m an atheist/rationalist and I can assure you that we would never do something like that. Face this: thousands if not millions will die because of your primitive, horrible beliefs. But hey thats nothing new because religion of any sort is always connected to and in support of just about any atrocity in recorded history. Thats true.

• [cthrnvl]

  One reason the girls are vulnerable is because they have to leave home to find firewood. You can help by supporting programs that buy solar ovens and teach the girls how to use them.

  Here is a solar cooking wiki.

  I wish I could send them solar ovens with uzis attached.

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

  Splash, that was neither constructive nor charitable.

  Zuzu, please don’t drag Ron Paul into it.

• [Anonymous]

  Westerners are so schizophrenic… Films like Hostel 1 & 2 are huge commerical successes. Musicians sing all day long about rape and abuse. A culture that produces films like “American Psycho” chooses to be entertained by the rape and murder of women.

  But you see the reality, and you ask “what can I do?” Look at yourselves for a moment… because you’re not so different.

  If the power went out for a month across the US, these stories would be from America instead of Congo.

• [Anonymous]

  How is showing a rape victim’s face making anything worse? It’s giving them power over their rapists.

• [Kyle Armbruster]

  cncr, Splsh. Wrd prcssng fxs vrythng! Jst lk t th S: Nt bd plc t lv, ND w hv wrd prcssrs! Cncdnc? thnk nt!

  In all seriousness, though, I don’t think there really is much we can do without making things worse. Our meddling in such affairs has always been a disaster. That doesn’t mean I don’t wish we could do something, but that I just don’t think we should.

• [Anonymous]

  i’m an atheist, but sometimes i wish god would come down and vaporize this shitty little blue rock.