Women, Rape and The Congo

I've just watched the BBC's 'The World's Most Dangerous Place for Women'.

This programme follows a woman going to the Congo after leaving when she was three, she visits her family and then moves on to visit the war-stricken East.

This programme has stunned me.

I've been utterly shocked at the inhumanity of some human beings.

One woman told her story of when soldiers broke into her house; she explains how her husband was attacked with a machete - they cut off his limbs, then his intestines, and he was still pleading with them until they cut out his heart - she was then forced to chew and eat his penis before being laid onto him and raped by 12 men.

Another woman's story was shared of how she was raped and impregnated with twins. When they were 3 years old she was raped again, one of the twins were murdered, and the other also raped. Children as young as 6 months have been raped in the DRC.

When a woman is raped, due to the stigma carried with rape, she is sent out of her home, unwelcome everywhere.

I don't understand how we can sit back and allow this to happen. Civil war has been in the DRC for over 10 years, and yet the UN hasn't intervened.

With such brutality, something must be done...

Forgotten Oppressed

The oppressed and persecuted are much more than just statistics;
they are real people with individual faces, voices, hopes and dreams.
No one should be forgotten. (HART UK)

We have a responsibility as human beings to remember the oppressed and the persecuted.

In the midst of the current crises around the world, especially in the Middle East and North Africa, we must remember those facing oppression and persecution.

We need to remember also that there is conflict elsewhere that isn't being reported on our news.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been in a state of conflict for several years now and there have been over 5.5million deaths since 1998 and there have been thousands of mass rapes.

There is so much going on that we are unaware of all over the world, in countries that are currently on our TVs and in countries that aren't. We must be responsible to not forget those oppressed and persecuted. The 'real people with individual faces, voices, hopes and dreams'.