According to UN figures, some 250,000 people in the provinces of North and South Kivu have been displaced since mid-January following a military operation targeting the FDLR rebel group. This is the equivalent to the numbers displaced last autumn when intense fighting broke out, with the newly displaced hidden in far and remote areas, the international aid agency said.
Marcel Stoessel, Head of Oxfam in the Democratic Republic of Congo said:
"The war is far from over for ordinary Congolese. These terrible human tragedies are happening in remote areas far away from television cameras, but this does not make the suffering less real for those concerned.
"Homes and shops are being looted and ransacked, women and girls are being raped, and civilians are being forced to flee, many for the third or fourth time. We are helping them pick up the pieces by increasing our emergency work. It is tragic to see Congo's civilians caught up in this awful violence yet again."
There also have been reports of armed men committing reprisal killings of civilians, blocking off roadways, in some cases burning down houses and chasing people away. In parts of Lubero, where most people are subsistence farmers, civilians can barely access their fields to harvest due to widespread insecurity and looting.
With the operations against the FDLR set to expand to South Kivu, there are mounting concerns for civilians there, several tens of thousands of whom have already been forced from their homes. Although, according to the UN, some 300,000 other people have returned to their homes in parts of the North Kivu, the calm in some areas, such as Rutshuru, has been accompanied by renewed insecurity in others, such as Lubero and Walikale.
Oxfam is developing a flexible response to the new crisis that can provide water, sanitation and life-saving hygiene promotion to dispersed groups of people on the move, as well as larger groups of people sheltering in specific areas. Fighting and insecurity has hampered humanitarian access this year, and a quicker and lighter response is required to reach people during windows of opportunity. Throughout eastern DRC, Oxfam is already assisting half a million people, and as a result of the scale up the agency will reach 650,000 people, despite ongoing security challenges. Teams have been sent to Lubero in North Kivu and Bukavu in South Kivu to plan the scale-up. In Lubero, Oxfam is already providing clean water and basic sanitation to 40,000 people newly displaced by the fresh fighting, especially to combat epidemics.
Stoessel continued:
"All parties to the conflict—including the government armed forces as well as militia groups—have to live up to their responsibility under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and to provide humanitarian agencies safe access to the civilians in need."
Oxfam said a lack of peacekeeping resources on the ground was also hampering efforts to protect civilians.
The Head of Oxfam International's New York office, Nicole Widdersheim, said, "More than four months after the UN Security Council approved 3,000 additional peacekeepers, not one extra soldier has arrived. Until the reinforcements come, MONUC needs to ensure that the troops on the ground are doing all in their power to protect people. Civilians need more foot patrols in towns and along the main roads in order to be kept as safe as possible."
With the UN Security Council set to discuss the MONUC peacekeeping force on Thursday this week, Oxfam is urging world leaders to mark the occasion by rapidly providing the extra troops needed. It also called on them to ensure that existing resources are deployed to the most insecure locations, so as to more effectively protect civilians.
]]>Joy Bryant (now starring in the hit TV series Parenthood) first became involved with Oxfam in February 2009, when she co-hosted a reception alongside Cosmopolitan magazine editor Kate White to raise awareness of Oxfam’s work. Bryant also represented Oxfam America at the 2009 Earth Day event on Washington, DC’s National Mall, where she spoke to over 75,000 people about the consequences of climate change for poor women worldwide. In 2010, Bryant traveled with Oxfam's Sisters on the Planet initiative to Cambodia, where she met women rice farmers who are fighting climate change and hunger in their communities.
Rev. Girton-Mitchell is the Associate General Secretary for Justice and Advocacy for the National Council of Churches of Christ (NCC). She helps provide an active voice for social justice on behalf of the NCC's 36 Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, historic African American, and Living Peace member faith groups, which include over 45 million Americans. Rev. Girton-Mitchell is a life member of the National Council of Negro Women, the NAACP, and the Washington Urban League. She also holds membership in the National Bar Association, Washington Bar Association, and the Women's Bar Association.
Hassan is the founder of Maji Umbrellas, which raises funds and awareness about the food and water crisis in the Horn of Africa. Maji donates a portion of each umbrella purchase to Oxfam’s relief work in East Africa, enough to provide a day’s supply of clean water to 20 people. Hassan's work with Oxfam via Maji Umbrellas was documented in Canadian fashion magazine Flare and awarded a “Genius Award” by Elle magazine. In June 2012, Hassan, who was born in Somalia and spent time in refugee camps in Kenya as a child, traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, to learn more about Oxfam's work and meet with local partners and Somali refugees. Her visit is chronicled in the September 2012 120th anniversary issue of Vogue magazine.
Lappé, a democracy advocate and world food and hunger expert, has authored or co-authored 17 books and was the 1987 recipient of the Right Livelihood Award. She is the co-founder of Food First: The Institute for Food and Development Policy and the Small Planet Institute, which she leads with her daughter, Anna Lappé. Her bestselling Diet for a Small Planet is considered “the blueprint for eating with a small carbon footprint since long before the term was coined” [JM Hirsch, Associated Press]. Frances was named the 2008 James Beard Foundation’s Humanitarian of the Year. Her most recent book is Getting A Grip 2: Clarity, Creativity and Courage for the World We Really Want.
Leonard is the Senior Vice President of Levi’s® Brand Product Management for the Americas region, responsible for managing product sourcing for the US, Canada, Mexico and Latin America. She ensures that Levi’s® brand products not only meet the company’s rigorous quality standards, but are also produced in an environment that protects worker health and safety and meets strict environmental standards. She also serves on the Levi Strauss Foundation Board of Directors, is an Advisory Board Member of the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, and works with the San Francisco Friends School.
]]>The ambassadors' message: Worldwide, it's women who often bear the brunt of the effects of climate change, including more frequent and severe floods, droughts, and hurricanes. The US must invest now in adaptation projects, like elevated flood-proof houses and drought-resistant seeds, to help women and families build their resilience to these new and heightened risks.
"It's important to talk about the cost-effective nature of investing in the world's most vulnerable populations, both for their stability and for global security," said Sisters on the Planet Ambassador the Hon. Barbara Lawton, lieutenant governor of Wisconsin. "Whether it's women and families in the US, in Sudan, or in the Arctic Circle... our destinies are linked."
Joining Lawton on the Congressional visits were Linda Adams, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency; Elizabeth Becker, journalist and author; Rev. Dr. Miriam Burnett, president of the Resource and Promotion of Health Alliance, Inc.; Dr. Kristie Ebi, human health author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Rachel Larson, executive director of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility; Sharon Hanshaw, executive director of Coastal Women for Change; and Mary Wilson, president of the League of Women Voters.
Oxfam's Judith Brackley, a member of the event planning team, said the participants reflect a diverse group of more than 25 Sisters on the Planet Ambassadors, including business leaders, artists, university presidents, and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. (Read a full list of Sisters on the Planet ambassadors.)
"Though they come from different backgrounds, these are all women of influence, who can speak on behalf of women around the world—many of whom have no voice or access to seats of power," said Brackley.
As a result of the ambassadors' visits, 10 members of Congress agreed to sponsor an upcoming bipartisan Congressional resolution on women and climate change. Others pledged to support international adaptation funding in future US climate legislation.
The ambassadors particularly targeted their efforts to women leaders. Representative Anna Eshoo, Democrat of California, joined them for a question and answer session over dinner, while Representative Doris O. Matsui, Democrat of California, signed on as the newest Sisters on the Planet Ambassador.
Brackley said the ambassadors will play an ongoing role as spokeswomen for Oxfam's climate change campaign. Many came away from the event with new connections to one another and new ideas for spreading the word among constituents.
Burnett, a physician and minister, talked about Sisters on the Planet the following Sunday morning—International Women's Day—on her satellite radio talk show targeting the African-American community.
"When I look at climate change and poverty—all the things Sisters on the Planet talks about—I've seen that in the work I've been doing here in the US. When I see the droughts that are occurring where they use trickle irrigation, and I turn around and look at drought in farmland in middle Georgia, I see common ground," Burnett said.
Join the effort: Take the Sisters on the Planet pledge.
]]>As the son of a Sri Lankan fisherman—and the first from his village ever to attend university—Fernando knows well what it means to work hard. That has been one of the defining elements of his life. But little did he know that when he left his position as a deputy director in Sri Lanka's Ministry of Agriculture he would soon become Oxfam's point man in Matara helping to revitalize the local coir industry, which turns the fiber from coconut shells into ropes, mats, and other products.
It was the tsunami that changed all his plans.
After 22 years with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fernando had retired at age 55, as many in government service do—to work longer requires permission—and had found another post, a lucrative one, in the private sector. But within days he realized it was not for him: bribery was one of the job requirements.
"I was shocked by it," he said, and, with the blessing of his wife, promptly gave his notice. Home, with its two acres of land in Kalutara district, beckoned instead.
"I started a little farm," said Fernando. "I had plantains, goats, and chickens."
Then the wave hit. His house was spared—it was far enough inland—but the coastal home he had grown up in, and which he had just restored for other family members, was swept away.
"Everybody got out—thank God," said Fernando, including his elderly father who, at 89, was saved by some youths who scooped him up in a plastic chair and carried him to safety in a church.
Right away Fernando jumped into the relief effort, working with a German organization that was assisting children affected by the disaster.
"I was helping them and I was very happy," Fernando recalled, and that's when he saw an ad Oxfam had placed for a livelihoods assistant in Matara—and applied. He had to convince the hiring committee, however, that he was the right man for the job. Why would a man from the upper echelons of Sri Lankan government service with decades of professional experience want to take the post of an assistant?
The answer was simple and unarguable.
"I want to serve," Fernando remembered explaining. "I have come from a fishing village. I'll help the same people."
They are the people, like his mother, whose early influence on his life set the standard that has guided him ever since.
"My mother was very pious and economical and good with saving," said Fernando. "Even though we didn't have money, she had money. Even today I can't believe my mother, on my father's meager earnings, had money."
Now, engaged with the coir workers, Fernando is helping other women in similar circumstances slowly build some financial security for their families—a mission that speaks to the core of who he is. The coir project, known as the Poor Women's Economic Leadership Coir Program, has helped save its members from exploitation by middle men. It has found them new markets for their coir products and introduced labor-saving equipment. Most of all, it has helped women build unity, through self-help groups and a newly formed federation that will make them a force to be reckoned with.
"I have very good job satisfaction working with these people," Fernando said. "I am happy we have empowered them. They can do anything they wish. And their living standards are becoming better."
What about this project makes him the most proud?
"Having the opportunity to work with the women," said Fernando. "They have the courage and interest to do better in society."
]]>They were featured speakers on a week-long Oxfam America tour, which passed through five US cities on its way from New Mexico to Missouri. Inspired by Oxfam's Sisters on the Planet initiative—and supported by groups like CARE and the League of Women Voters—the tour focused on the human face of climate change here and abroad, with an emphasis the ways the US can help vulnerable communities survive the crisis.
"Pollution, greenhouse gases, they don't respect boundaries," said Voré Gana Seck, the speaker from Senegal. "This is a global problem that needs global solutions."
Sharon Hanshaw, executive director of Coastal Women for Change and one of Oxfam's Sisters on the Planet, spoke about her personal losses from Hurricane Katrina, as well as the storm's lasting effects on her home town of Biloxi, Mississippi.
Speaking at the Kansas City, Missouri, public library, Hanshaw explained that it's not just past hurricanes that concern her community, but the ones ahead, which are predicted to intensify. "This year we've had four hurricanes in the last six months," she said. "Gustav was called a dud, but it still flooded our houses."
In Biloxi, she said, hurricanes not only wreak physical damage, but also add to the burdens of people already among America's poorest.
"Times were hard pre-Katrina, and now it's even worse; prices have gone up," said Hanshaw. "We still have people living in trailers, no healthcare, no childcare, no public library. We don't need a handout from the government. We need infrastructure to help our community live again."
Seck, Executive Director of Green Senegal and president of the international NGO coalition CONGAD, highlighted the common ground between Senegal and the Gulf Coast. In both places, she said, the poorest families are the ones to bear the burden.
At an event at the Omaha, Nebraska, public library, Seck compared the effects of climate change to those of a war: "You can't produce enough food, you can't harvest. You don't have enough money. You can't send your kids to school."
For local farming families, she said, a decrease in rainfall means that staple crops like rice, millet, and vegetables often fail to reach maturity, leaving families with less food to eat and fewer extra crops to sell. To earn a better living, some of these farmers migrate to already-crowded cities like Dakar, where floods and poor sanitation are leading to an increase in water-borne diseases like cholera.
Others join the ranks of the "climate refugees": teens and young adults who leave their villages for Spain or the Canary Islands, looking to earn money to send to their families back home. Hundreds of these young people have died while attempting ocean crossings in small, fragile boats.
"In Algeciras, Spain, there is a burial ground called the "Cemetery of the Unknown People," said Seck. "These are our environmental refugees. They are the unknown."
Despite these hardships, both speakers' organizations are leading efforts to help their communities survive the crisis.
"The first thing we have to do is be resilient," said Hanshaw, whose group distributes hurricane preparedness kits—containing fresh water, food, insurance papers, and flashlights—to Biloxi seniors and families. They're also offering affordable child care options to help women in the community return to work.
Hanshaw's organization also trains local women to go to Washington, DC, and "tell the stories that are not being told." Their message to legislators: "We're still here. We're going to be here. And climate change affects all of us."
Seck's group teaches Senegalese farmers new techniques that help crops grow in a drier climate, like drip irrigation systems and faster-maturing seeds. Seck showed photos of the successful projects in action: first a riot of green seedlings, then tall plants in orderly rows, flourishing beneath a wide blue sky.
So far, she said, these innovative methods are only in place in a few villages. But with the support of wealthier countries like the US, projects like these could help farmers throughout the region.
Many audience members at these events signed up for Oxfam's online climate change action team, which provides ways to directly influence US legislators on the issue.
For some, the speakers' words brought a change in perspective. "I came here expecting to hear about Africa, but I didn't expect to hear Sharon's story, right in our backyard," said Lillian Pardo, a retired physician who attended the Kansas City speaking event. "You don't see this on the news."
Andrew Jameton, a professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, was the last to speak in a question and answer session in Omaha. "I want to fight this, and a lot of people feel the same way, but it will be a tough century," he said, adding that, because of the speakers' words, "I'm not optimistic—but I'm hopeful."
]]>My neighborhood was one of the worst affected by the fighting, which went on all last night. About two kilometers from my house, the gunmen went into a compound and killed seven innocent civilians. Our neighbors were attacked by gunmen who came into their compound and robbed them, taking mobile phones and money. We were okay, but I found some bullets in my compound.
I was in the Oxfam office when the panic started yesterday. People saw the national army troops leaving Goma with their tanks and vehicles, and at the same time they saw the UN troops shifting civilians to a safer compound. No one informed the population about what was happening, and they thought the rebels were going to take control of Goma. People panicked.
Many people took advantage of the panic yesterday to make trouble. They looted shops and robbed families. It was a mixture of people fighting, criminals, and undisciplined soldiers, using small arms like AK-47s. But in other areas there was a deployment of national army units who were disciplined and protected the people. I haven't seen UN soldiers anywhere myself.
Today, it's calm and very quiet. Usually the traffic here starts at six in the morning, but I looked out at 10AM and all I saw was one motorbike. The shops are all shut. Life hasn't started up yet.
A lot of people are displaced and are living in the suburbs of Goma in very harsh conditions, and the fighting is making those conditions even worse because there's no access for humanitarian workers.
In particular, one group of displaced people has now been forced to move for the third time in a couple of months. They are living in schools and hospitals, or with host families in and around Goma. They desperately need water, food, and shelter. There's no health care or medicines. People are living in the open air, and if they do get a little food it's not enough to feed the whole family.
This current crisis has made it harder for Oxfam to respond. We are watching the situation and I'm going out this afternoon to check out our work in the camps.
]]>But if the passerby stopped to listen to the conversation, she would know that this is no ordinary gossip session.
"I need to find a better way to show off my natural vegetables next to the others in the market," says Horng Vary, a 51-year-old farmer and mother. "They might not look as good, but I know they taste better. How do you do it?"
Her friend and neighbor. Van Sou Cheun, 52, tells her to show only the best ones and then when people come to buy tell them about the taste.
"I think it is best to tell them, not show them," Van Sou Korn, 54, says agreeing with Cheun.
This very simple act of exchanging information on ways to better market their products is at the heart of an Oxfam America initiative designed to allow farmers to pool their savings and take charge of their futures. Called Saving for Change, the program allows members in rural communities to save, lend, and pay each other interest while also encouraging them to share new farming and livelihoods ideas with each other. In the process, small farmers like these three women will become better equipped to battle the rising costs that recently hit the world, and Cambodia.
A recent survey done by an Oxfam partner shows that in Cambodia, 2.6 million people are facing food insecurity with the poorest people struggling to deal with rising food prices. More specifically, the survey suggests that villages like Kork around the Tonle Sap Lake will be the hardest hit.
Cambodians spend as much as 70 percent of their income on food, as compared to the US where people spend about 10 percent. This means that to cope with the soaring food prices, people are buying and eating less food—adding to existing malnutrition among people and the country's poor economic outlook.
Unlike some African countries that do not grow enough food to feed their people, Cambodia has produced a surplus of food in the past few years—including its staple rice. But rice is now a 100 percent more expensive than it was last year, making it pricey for the poorest 40 percent of the population. The causes of the increased prices are varied—climate change, rising fertilizer costs, insect infestations, and uninformed trade—but the outcomes are the same: instability and insecurity for the poorest families.
But with 80 percent of the people in Cambodia making a living from agriculture, it would seem that higher prices offer the possibility of a better livelihood for farmers. Unfortunately this isn't the case since small-scale farmers individually have little bargaining power in terms of selling their produce or buying things like seeds and fertilizer.
This is where three women working together and sharing information could change the balance of power.
Oxfam America has taken strides in building human connections in East Asia through Saving for Change. The microfinance program has jumpstarted trust and knowledge sharing in rural areas because it allows communities to be in charge of their own futures and promotes the need for them to work together in order to reach individual goals.
All three women are a part of a Saving for Change program and through it have learned of another Oxfam America program: System of Rice Intensification, or SRI. A process of 12 low-cost, simple practices, SRI helps small farmers increase their yields of rice by 50 to 100 percent while allowing them save on seed and water costs.
They are now SRI farmers.
"When I first heard about this way to grow rice I didn't believe it," Vary says. "But when I saw my neighbors growing more rice, I took a small part of my land and tried it. I have had three harvests, each one producing more rice than the one before."
This is especially important now. The survey results show that many rice farmers are facing a 70 percent increase in production costs, so growing more rice while saving on water and seeds can make a big difference.
"Everything is more expensive now," Vary says. "But at least we have more rice than some of our neighbors."
The Saving for Change program requires that group members formally meet each month to go over financial transactions in the community. That meeting also gives them the chance to talk about other issues such as their agricultural practices or selling tactics.
"When one of us goes to another market in another village, we bring back a list of prices to share with the group," Vary says. "It keeps us competitive."
The three women find time each week to talk about how their SRI fields are doing and share practices and experiments with the methodology. They all agree that sharing information on how to grow more rice or how to better sell their products will help them manage during this time of soaring costs.
"It is important for us to do this now because of the prices," Vary says. "We are not worried, though, because we have each other. We feel supported."
]]>This tree once shaded Hanshaw's driveway and mailbox—but now it marks the place where her house used to stand, before Hurricane Katrina struck Biloxi, MS.
As cars rumble past, Hanshaw maps out the landscape of memory. "That's where we found my daughter's bed, afterward," she says, indicating a red SUV a few rows away. "This was my backyard. This was the front porch."
Hanshaw was out of town on August 29, 2005, when Katrina's winds drove the Gulf of Mexico into her neighborhood. Thirteen feet of water crashed through the streets that day, filling her house with mud, scattering her belongings, tearing the bumper off her car. The waters swept inland to downtown Biloxi, flooding the hairdressing business she'd run for 21 years. Months later, all the homes on her block were bulldozed to build this parking lot for the Imperial Palace casino.
Hanshaw says the storm brought her not just destruction, however, but also transformation. As executive director of Oxfam America partner organization Coastal Women for Change (CWC), she has turned her losses into strength—by becoming an advocate and role model for others, her fellow survivors.
"This is a left-behind community," Hanshaw says emphatically of East Biloxi, the close-knit, predominantly African-American and Vietnamese neighborhood where she was born and raised.
You only have to walk the streets here to see what she means. Many houses in this once-vibrant neighborhood now stand abandoned, their boarded-up windows turning a blank face to the street. Some damaged homes, like Hanshaw's, were razed after the storm, leaving behind only vacant lots. Others are flanked by boxy white trailers, where families live cramped together as they await government grants, insurance settlements, or other resources they need to finish rebuilding.
A few restored houses gleam with new paint, "For Rent" signs propped up on the lawn. But rents have nearly doubled since the storm, and good jobs are hard to come by—so many displaced residents can't afford to move back home.
"We need affordable housing—not projects, but homes that people can pay for on a living wage in Mississippi," says Hanshaw. "But the message right now is, "if you're not rich, get back."
Hanshaw points out that Biloxi's beachfront casinos and wealthier neighborhoods began rebuilding soon after the waters receded. But somehow those funds never reached this mostly low- and middle-income neighborhood.
Today, she can recite a litany of things lost and not yet replaced: The public library. Funds for small businesses. Elder care programs. Playgrounds for low-income kids.
By training women, people of color, and low-income people to make their voices heard in the Gulf Coast recovery process, CWC aims to give people the means to speak out about these and other pressing community needs.
The group has convened a public forum to discuss rebuilding efforts with Biloxi's mayor and city councilors. Several CWC members have since been appointed to the mayor's planning commission. CWC has also sent delegations to Jackson, MS, and Washington, DC, to urge legislators to provide more affordable housing for people left homeless by the hurricanes.
Until they see results, Hanshaw says, they will continue to push for change at the local, state, and federal levels. "This is our community," she says. "We want it back the way it was&mdsah;or better."
Hanshaw's personal transformation—"from cosmetologist to activist," as she calls it—began three months after Katrina. She was shuttling between relatives' houses and a FEMA trailer, which gave off formaldehyde fumes that made it hard to breathe. Though more people fled Biloxi every day, she says she couldn't abandon her lifelong home.
Then a friend asked her to join local women who were meeting together wherever they could: a funeral home, the local NAACP headquarters, a church. The women talked about rebuilding, both their community and their lives. "Those meetings were part of our recovery, emotionally," says Hanshaw.
Among the women was Oxfam's Safiya Daniels, who encouraged them to voice their concerns about the pace of recovery in East Biloxi. Equipped with training and startup funds from Oxfam's Gulf Coast recovery program, the women formed CWC in early 2006. Soon after, Hanshaw was appointed the group's executive director.
These days, about 20 core CWC members still come together at regular evening meetings. They still borrow space—a beige cinderblock room in the Church of the Redeemer, a few blocks from the waterfront—but their discussions now center on community outreach and upcoming advocacy opportunities. Members of Oxfam's Gulf Coast staff often join in to provide advice.
Hanshaw believes that all women in the community should be able to attend the meetings. With prices rising at the pump, and few options for public transit, she'll even buy members gas cards so they can afford to drive over.
"I'm going to train you if it kills me," she says, explaining her passion to empower those around her. "You're all going to be powerful women."
Advocacy remains at the heart of CWC's activities. But as the group evolved, members realized that in addition to advocating solutions, they had to create their own.
"We find ourselves still doing direct service," Hanshaw says. "That's not our mission, but we see there's no housing going up here that's affordable, no library, no activity center, or anything for the children. ... So I have to do what's in my face right now."
Among other activities, CWC founded its own in-home child care program to address a shortage of affordable day care. It sponsors senior appreciation dinners and computer training for East Biloxi's elderly residents. And it's taking steps to help locals prepare for the next, inevitable storm.
Meanwhile, Hanshaw speaks out about the fight against climate change in Oxfam's Sisters on the Planet and served as an official timekeeper at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. But if you ask her what she's most proud of about her work, she'll say that it's "women stepping up," whether in Biloxi city council meetings or on the national stage.
"Throughout this whole process," she notes, "we've created more leaders."
With additional reporting by Steve Greene.
]]>"I'm not famous," said the slogan on his T-shirt.
And that's probably why you haven't heard very much about Milongo's problem'or the problem of countless Congolese women caught in a war that has used their bodies as a battlefield. Rape has ruined their lives. And now, it's creeping into their villages, too, corroding what's left of community life after so many years of conflict.
But since it's happening in a place that's far away, in villages whose names we can hardly pronounce, we don't pay attention. We should—because it's a horror that stalks us, too. About 132,000 women a year in the United States report they are victims of rape, or attempted rape, says the National Organization for Women. That's one of the reasons Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act in 1994—to combat sexual assault.
Now, there's a new protection bill set for debate in Washington. This one would take the first steps toward guarding the safety of women everywhere—even in countries where governments are not up to the task. Proposed by US Senators Joseph R. Biden and Richard Lugar, the International Violence Against Women Act would require the development of a five-year strategy—supported by a $175 million annual investment—to support programs targeting violence against women. Among them would be public awareness campaigns and a strengthening of criminal and civil justice systems.
Additionally, through increased training for aid workers and expanded reporting requirements, the bill would tackle the violence women and girls suffer during humanitarian crises and conflict—times when women are particularly vulnerable. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Democratic Republic of Congo. John Holmes, the United Nations under secretary for humanitarian affairs, told a reporter last October that the sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world.
But what makes these attacks even more insidious is the consequence of speaking out about them: There is danger in challenging Congo's culture of impunity. Justine Masika lives with it daily—behind the barbed wire wall erected around her house to keep her safe. She is the head of a Goma-based group that has helped more than 7,000 women who have suffered from sexual violence. Last year, soldiers punished her for her truth-telling and advocacy. They invaded her house and attacked her daughters.
But Masika is not alone. Others, like Lamia Milongo, are fighting back, too. When the soldier abducted his 12-year-old daughter to claim her as his "wife," Milongo put his own safety aside and went in pursuit. He rescued her and returned her home unharmed. But the daughter of his neighbor was not so lucky. Her rescue came too late. Now, at 15, she is pregnant, shamed, and facing a life of hardship and poverty since in Congolese culture women who have been raped are often cast off by their communities.
Sexual violence is a plague the world should be rid of. Mothers like Masika need our help. So do fathers like Milongo. We took an important step here in the US in 1994. Now it's time to take the next one—into our global community—with passage of the International Violence Against Women Act.
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