Here are Rankin's opening thoughts about the project—and about a place in which he has found "the basic, beautiful business of life."
I first visited the DRC with Oxfam in June 2008. I expected to be depressed. I had done my homework; the statistics were horrific. I could only imagine what the human face of those statistics would look like. The people I met confounded my expectations. I met fathers, mothers, children... all getting on with life, making it through, even having a laugh and a joke. These people didn't see themselves as victims, despite the bad hand that fate had dealt them. They were human beings, exactly the same as you and me.
I wanted my portraits to do something different. The West has been anesthetized to traditional pictures of disaster zones. My style of portraiture is always about bringing people out of themselves, getting them to share something. I chose to photograph the people against a stark white background instead of in their physical environment. The expressions in their eyes and on their faces—their humanity—was what I wanted people to notice and relate to.
It didn't seem morally or politically right to just go and take pictures. So I decided to put on a show in the refugee camp, and give the people prints of their portraits. Give them something back. It was incredible. One guy said to me, 'This photograph is amazing. I wanted to let you know that I will use it on my coffin when I die.' No-one has ever said anything so moving to me.
The overriding feeling I had while I was out in the DRC was one of anger and powerlessness. That taking a few snaps was inconsequential in the face of the insurmountable problems that were being faced there. But when I got back, we put on an exhibition. I pushed the images, did press interviews, raised awareness. I believe that it made a difference to the people I met.
I was inspired to return to the DRC in October 2009. I didn't want to do the same thing as I had done the year before and, as on my first trip, I felt that it was important and right to give something back. So this time I held photographic workshops. I gave out cameras so that the people could have authorship over their own images—show us what was important in their lives. The collection of shots from my second trip builds on those from the first one, but focuses on the relationships that bind people to each other—a mother's love for her child, a husband's love for his wife, two friends. The basic, beautiful business of life.
I hope that these photographs can aid understanding. They are neither ugly images of brutality, nor sentimental images of suffering. The world needs a more sustainable form of imagery that, instead of encouraging pity and powerlessness, promotes understanding, connection, and ultimately action. It's about making people accessible to each other."
]]>Many of the displaced people are now sheltering with host families and often crowded into single-room houses with poor access to clean water and sanitation. To help meet their needs, Oxfam has set up a rapid response office in Bukavu, a city in the province of South Kivu, and is scaling up its work in North Kivu province.
Together with a local organization, Oxfam is now trucking 200,000 liters of clean water each day into major population centers, such as Lubero in North Kivu, where many displaced people have sought refuge. The organizations are also working to rehabilitate the water systems in those communities and Oxfam is distributing essential household items such as soap and buckets.
Though Oxfam is now helping 130,000 additional people, insecurity is making the delivery of this life-saving aid difficult in some areas. Fighters have cut off the roads to places such as Walikale in North Kivu and also to parts of South Kivu. Oxfam is calling on all parties to the conflict to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law and let aid through.
The harsh conditions many displaced people now face follow on the heels of the escalating violence they have endured in the months since the military offensive began. In a recent survey Oxfam conducted, villagers recounted the horrors of rape, torture, forced labor, and reprisal attacks. One woman told Oxfam she had been raped nine times. Other people talked about underground rooms where villagers were beaten and plunged in barrels of salt water. Residents of one community said their entire village emptied out at night, with everyone preferring to sleep in the fields rather than in their own homes. It was safer in the open, they said.
Who is attacking the civilians in Congo? In the survey, which included nearly 600 interviews, villagers reported that both the Congolese army and members of the FDLR were responsible for the atrocities. Earlier this year, members of militia and a rebel group were hastily integrated into the Congolese army, which has led to human rights abuses. Civilians surveyed said that one of the solutions to the trauma they have endured would be to improve the discipline, pay, and training of the Congolese army many of whose members—especially those newly integrated—have not been paid. As a consequence, extortion is widespread.
The UN's peacekeeping force—known as MONUC and the largest of its kind in the world—has a broad mandate in this conflict. While MONUC is reportedly providing rations and logistical support to the Congolese army, Oxfam maintains that the force's main priority should be to protect civilians, and it's concerned that there are not enough safeguards in place for that protection. Oxfam is calling on MONUC to set conditions for its involvement in these operations which, at the moment, are having a devastating impact on civilians.
For example, Oxfam says that MONUC should ensure that the Congolese government is taking clear steps to minimize the impact of this military initiative on civilians by not deploying officers with a documented record of human rights violations and by punishing violations committed by its own forces. The peacekeeping force should withhold its support of the operation if abuses continue, says Oxfam.
The organization also says that the international community needs to recognize that military action alone will not provide the answer for the insecurity that has plagued eastern Congo for so long. In the Oxfam survey, the vast majority of communities affected by the FDLR called for peaceful dialogue, and only two favored forced disarmament. Time and investment need to be put into non-military methods of disarming militia. And there needs to be a widespread recognition that sustainable peace will come to Congo only when the root causes of the conflict have been addressed.
]]>The survey of 569 civilians living in 20 conflict-ridden communities across North and South Kivu shows that the Congolese government's military operations against the rebel Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) are resulting in escalating insecurity for civilians, who are being attacked by all sides. Many in the Congolese army are committing abuses, with the FDLR increasing its retaliation against civilians for the offensive, the agency said.
Some 800,000 people have been displaced in North and South Kivu since the offensive was launched at the beginning of the year, according to the UN.
"The war is far from over for ordinary civilians. Over 80 percent of the people we interviewed said that security is worse now compared to a year ago," said Marcel Stoessel, head of Oxfam in the Democratic Republic of Congo. "The offensive against the FDLR was supposed to bring peace to eastern Congo, but our survey shows people are living in constant fear of violent attack. This suffering is not inevitable. It is happening because world leaders have decided that collateral damage is an acceptable price to pay for removing the FDLR. But as the people we met can testify, that price is far too high."
Half the communities surveyed said sexual violence had increased dramatically since the offensive began in January, and it was found to be widespread in all communities. Women were at most risk of sexual violence, but cases of children, some as young as four, being brutally raped were reported in more than half of the communities. Three of the 20 communities reported rape against men, including eight recent cases of male rape in one community in South Kivu.
A quarter of the communities spoke of torture. People were reportedly being buried up to their necks in holes in the ground by the FDLR until they agreed to pay a 'fine' in exchange for their release, with a few communities speaking of underground rooms where people are beaten and plunged in barrels of salt water. In addition, other militias were reportedly carrying out torture, as well as looting and child recruitment.
Abuses by large sections of the Congolese army were reported in every community. Half of communities spoke of forced labor, with mostly men and adolescent boys made to carry goods for the army. Communities in North Kivu reported particular aggression by newly integrated units made up of ex-rebel soldiers from the disbanded Mai Mai and the National Congress for People's Defense (CNDP), who have not yet been paid and justify extortion as "contributions" to their up-keep. In North Kivu, the Congolese army was identified as the main perpetrator of sexual violence.
All communities with an FDLR presence reported an upsurge in attacks on civilians by the militia in response to the recent government military operations, with one group describing the operations as "like waking a sleeping devil." In Mwenga region, South Kivu, communities taking part in an earlier survey in March 2009 had reported that violence by the FDLR had diminished, but just two months later they were reporting high levels of death threats, sexual violence and violent looting. People had reportedly been killed for saying the rebel group should return to Rwanda. Many of these villages have now been abandoned.
All communities feared reprisal attacks, and looting and extortion were widespread. Both the FDLR and large parts of the Congolese army were reported to force civilians to hand-over money and possessions. When opposing forces arrived, the civilians were then branded as collaborators for this and subjected to attack.
All communities surveyed asked to be protected better by the Congolese army and peacekeepers. More foot patrols by MONUC peacekeepers were requested, especially in the fields and small roads where violence was a great threat. The majority of those surveyed supported dialogue and peaceful repatriation of foreign armed groups, and in four communities, respondents went so far as to call for the military action against the FDLR to be abandoned. Only two communities supported forced disarmament.
"The results of this survey should be a wake-up call to those in the UN Security Council supporting the current military offensive, said Stoessel. "In only five communities, people said the Congolese army was keeping them safe. Many interviewees said they feared the army and the FDLR equally. The Congolese people need an army that protects on them, not preys on them. Oxfam welcomes the Congolese government's recent announcement that there will be zero tolerance of abuses in the army, and urges them to keep to this bold commitment. The peacekeeping force should withhold support from the operation if abuses continue or go unpunished, and must insist that known human rights abusers are removed from participating in the operations."
]]>According to Oxfam, while a solution is needed to halt appalling levels of human rights abuses committed by armed rebels, the answer cannot be action that knowingly increases levels of human suffering.
Marcel Stoessel, head of Oxfam in DRC, said:
"Four months ago an offensive against the FDLR set in train a spiral of violence against civilians which has forced 250,000 to flee their homes and caused untold death and suffering that continues to this day. By any yardstick it has been a humanitarian disaster, and one the world has ignored. The UN force's top priority in Congo must be to protect the lives of innocent civilians. The UN needs to be aware of the full implications of continuing to support military action in the present circumstances."
Oxfam said any military action should ensure that risks to civilians are kept to an absolute minimum and, in accordance with international humanitarian law. The agency also called for appropriate sanctions for any violations of international humanitarian law noting that for too long human rights abuses, including by government soldiers, have gone largely unpunished.
The aid agency urged the UN to set out and stand by clear preconditions, based on rigorous observance of international humanitarian law, for MONUC support to any military action by the FARDC. It also called for greater emphasis on non-military efforts to disarm rebel groups, which present less risk to civilians but so far have not been given sufficient priority.
The previous joint offensive against the FDLR in North Kivu, launched in January 2009, has already created immense suffering for thousands of civilians. An estimated 250,000 people are still unable to return to their homes. Villagers have reported that thousands of homes have been burned to the ground in reprisal attacks mainly by the FDLR. Rape and looting by all sides, including government forces, has also been reported. According to recent reports, 100,000 people have already fled their homes in South Kivu, even before the new offensive has started. Aid agencies are planning for the possible displacement of a further 400,000 people in South Kivu.
Oxfam had to expand its programs in North Kivu after the first offensive, bringing life-saving assistance to at least a further 85,000 people, in addition to those that it was helping already. Oxfam has also opened a new rapid response office in Bukavu, South Kivu, to be prepared for possible humanitarian fallout there. The international agency urged all major donor countries to give sufficient attention to the humanitarian crisis, which has been raging since January.
Oxfam is helping to support more than 500,000 people affected by the conflict.
]]>It was in late March that I started receiving increasingly worrying reports about alleged atrocities in remote areas of North Kivu province. Military operations by the Congolese army against a rebel group known as FDLR—Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda—had continued (Rwandan troops deployed in a joint operation with the Congolese army withdrew in February); and reports suggested that the offensive was likely to expand to South Kivu.
I heard about reprisal attacks, the burning of houses, sexual violence, looting, and people being prevented from accessing their fields—their only source of food. Many of these reports were coming from areas where Oxfam teams had begun carrying out life-saving work with a local partner, helping to provide safe drinking water, clean latrines, and public health education.
I could not believe what I was reading: Up to 250,000 people reported to have left their homes since January.
Some of our senior staff, as skeptical as me, went to the field and came back with a clear report: It is true, they told me; it's just not on TV yet. Our immediate response was to scale up our emergency operations in South Lubero, which is in North Kivu. Water trucks were sent to provide clean water to displaced placed and the families who hosted them. Hygiene items were distributed, and health promoters were deployed to help prevent the outbreak of epidemics.
We also decided to open an emergency response office in the neighboring province of South Kivu where we were getting reports of another military build-up, indicating that a similar tragedy could happen there.
A few days later, I was on a plane crossing this vast country towards the conflict zone to support our field staff and to get a first-hand view of what was happening. After two flights and a trip by road I finally arrived in Lubero. The government representative there told me people needed urgent help.
I continued by road southwards into what the United Nations called the "red zone"—an area where military escorts are recommended. Oxfam refuses such escorts, due to concerns that we may be perceived as supporting a particular side in any conflict. It was one day after an attack on the town of Luofu, where 255 houses were burned to the ground.
We met some displaced people on the road, who were fleeing the fighting, carrying the few possessions they could take with them. They were exhausted and desperate. They were heading to a town called Kirumba, which was also our destination. Several thousand people had gathered there for an Oxfam emergency distribution of essential hygiene items.
Through an interpreter, I heard some of their stories. One woman witnessed another being gang-raped by three armed men. The victim died later, the witness told me. The witness—an old woman—ran away from her village with her children, but had become separated from her husband, who fled in another direction. She told me the few items she had managed to carry with her were taken away by soldiers.
As the Oxfam distribution of hygiene items continued, we travelled further south to a town called Kanyabayonga, where Oxfam was distributing water. The town's population has more than doubled during the recent fighting, and Oxfam is trucking in 180,000 liters of clean water every day.
Village chiefs gathered to tell me their stories. Since the start of the military operations, civilians are seen with suspicion by both warring sides, and accused of being collaborators. People have had no choice but to leave their villages—but they also have had nowhere safe to go.
They arrived in Kanyabayonga, they said, terrified, tired, and in need of protection and help. The fighting had not stopped. One day before we arrived, the FDLR rebels had attacked Kanyabayonga itself.
People were living with host families—in some cases, up to five other families in a house. I tried to imagine how it would be—no clean water, only basic squat latrines, with little money and a war going on around me.
But what really broke my heart was to hear about the systematic burning of houses in these remote areas of North Kivu province. Villagers reported that many thousands of homes had been burned to the ground.
There are about 17,500 UN peacekeepers stationed in Congo—but with little visible presence here to give these vulnerable people any sense of safety. People I spoke to wanted to see UN peacekeepers patrol on foot, to be present in their communities. To protect them.
Now I'm back in the eastern provincial capital, Goma, where Oxfam coordinates its emergency operations in Congo. I am happy that we have managed to scale up our emergency work in South Lubero. More help will come, if the security situation permits. If only the world would not look away.
]]>]]>
We had five staff there when the fighting broke out at 11:30 AM. They were beginning meetings with community members and were starting the digging of latrines. Then it happened. The shelling.
"It was between the volcano and the hill near the camp," said Herman, an Oxfam public health promoter, "about two kilometers away from the camp."
People were lining up to get their food distributions from the World Food Program and they suddenly scattered.
"They wanted to get to their shelters to grab their belongings," said Herman. "They knew they had to flee again."
The team reported that they saw one man in his forties crying. "I fled Kibumba camp and now they are chasing us again," he said. Another was more resigned, "We are used to this," he lamented. And sadly people are. Many people in the camp have fled for the third, fourth, fifth time.
Thousands ran toward Goma town. After a night of hiding with host families and in schools and churches, most have returned to the camp but remain scared and vulnerable. Even before this latest incident, the people in the camp were nervous. I can't even imagine the fear they feel now. The rebels have been pushed back northward, but there are just 700 meters between the positions of the rebels and the Congolese government forces. Oxfam is back there with teams today. These people need our help, but it is far from easy in the current insecure environment.
Last weekend, the UK Foreign Minister David Miliband and his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner visited Goma. They came with much diplomatic fanfare and media attention, and they said good things. They called for urgent reinforcement of the UN peacekeeping troops, but they have failed to follow through and effectively protect civilians. Today, the European Union will meet to talk about the situation in the eastern Congo.
The people of Congo are still living on the edge with little protection. They urgently need the European Union to take action. Even before the fighting around Kibati, people were telling us about being attacked by armed groups when collecting firewood or food from the nearby fields.
While European Ministers are closeted in debating chambers today, hundreds of thousands of eastern Congolese will be eking out an existence in the region's squalid camps. They need real action, not another mountain of words. The EU must agree to send additional troops to support the UN in eastern Congo and must push for a ceasefire, so we can get aid to the people that desperately need it.
]]>Fidel had an 18-year-old brother who deserted the Mai-Mai, one of the eastern Congo's multitude of armed factions. Men from the group came looking for his brother at family home, but he wasn't there. Fidel was. They decided to take him instead.
"My mother begged and cried," he says. "The rebels said they'd spare me, if my mum paid them $100. But we were poor and didn't have the money."
As he was snatched away, his mother screamed. The soldiers said that they would kill her if she didn't shut up.
He still finds it difficult to play, he says. Even though he is now in safe place, he still has the memories.
"I used to carry ammunition for the soldiers as they fought on the front line. One day I saw 60 bodies dead in the battlefield. I knew then I needed to escape or I'd end up dead myself."
After six months of enduring beatings with sticks, Fidel managed to escape one night when the soldiers were sleeping. He ran two miles in darkness of the night until he reached the base of MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission for Congo.
From there, he was taken to CAJED, a Congolese NGO that rehabilitates child soldiers and other vulnerable children, and helps them reintegrate back into the community. I am at the transitional center run by CAJED and UNICEF that aims to help the children come to terms with their trauma.
After they leave the center, CAJED keeps in contact with the boys and helps them adapt to civilian life. This is a difficult stage. In a country with grinding poverty and few job prospects, many child soldiers get re-recruited. CAJED's community work aims to prevent that, and Oxfam supports CAJED at this stage.
Alongside Fidel in the transitional center, I meet Michel. Michel wears a T-shirt with a rhino on it, and has flecks of vibrant green paint on his arms and forehead. He's been painting. But despite the familiar childhood activity he was in the midst of, his mood seems much darker than Fidel's. He spent four years with a rebel group and was forced to fight.
His story starts simply. He was abducted when he left his house to get some milk. He never returned. But then the horror escalates. Michel was taught to fight. He shot people and remembers jumping over bodies in the battlefield. His friend was taken prisoner by another armed group. They discovered him hanging from a tree with blood pouring from his ears and his nose. It is horrible to learn that a 12-year-old child has seen such scenes.
The stories of children like Fidel and Michel painfully underscore why we need to find an end to horrific violence that has plagued the eastern Congo for too long. Child protection agencies have reported that Mai Mai militia in the town of Rutshuru recruited 37 children into military service the week before last. An estimated 150 children have been forcibly recruited since heavy fighting resumed in August.
Congo's armed men need to put their weapons down and find a peaceful solution to this conflict. Five millionfour hundred thousand people have died in Congo's decade-long war. The people of eastern Congo have suffered too much. We need to push our politicians to keep up the diplomatic pressure and find a political solution to this harrowing war. Only then will we be able to confine the stories of Fidel and Michel to the history books.
Names have been changed to protect identities.
]]>Thousands more abandoned their villages and the temporary camps in which some were sheltering when fighting intensified in late October around Goma, the capital city of North Kivu Province directly across the border from Rwanda. The violence culminated in an armed stand-off outside the city on Oct. 29, and CNDP's call for a ceasefire. By November 7, that ceasefire was no longer holding.
The crisis has left the longer-term peace process—and a January ceasefire between the government and 22 armed groups—in shambles. The CNDP has claimed that the January peace agreement, which had been violated numerous times, favored the Congolese government and its forces.
The latest fighting follows more than a decade of conflict in the eastern provinces and stems back to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. But many other factors contribute to the ongoing violence as well: weak state authority, the illegal exploitation of Congo's vast natural resources, and the free flow of arms across porous borders.
The result is disaster for the Congolese caught in the crossfire and suffering from the deprivation constant conflict brings. Humanitarian needs are escalating: The fighting forced some aid groups to suspend their operations, preventing life-saving help from reaching those who needed it. Since 1998, an estimated 5.4 million people have lost their lives to the conflict and the hunger and disease it unleashes.
In early November, Oxfam was already helping about 85,000 people, including 65,000 camped in four temporary settlements around Goma. The organization planned to help an additional 100,000 people in areas to the north and west of the city. Assistance has included the provision of clean water and sanitation services—essential in preventing the spread of waterborne diseases-- to those in the four camps. Oxfam has also been trucking water to 20,000 people in Kanyabayonga north of Goma.
Oxfam is calling for:
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.
]]>In the DRC, increasing violence has forced people to flee from their homes, and led to the deaths of almost 1,500 people a day. Though no other conflict causes that kind of death rate, Oxfam's workers hear similar stories of murder, rape, and displacement from men and women from Colombia to Sudan every day. Sixty years after the main Geneva Conventions enshrined civilians' rights to protection, they are violated in every current conflict.
Some states and non-state actors choose to kill civilians, or pursue strategies in which civilians are too likely to die. Some governments choose to protect their citizens: to keep them safe. Some do not protect all of them, or not well enough. There are, however, successful examples of protecting civilians that show what governments and others can do when they choose to.
They have an interest in protecting civilians, because mass atrocities fuel the conflicts that, in an interdependent world, create security threats that cannot be contained. And an increasing number of governments have a "moral interest" too, because their electorates expect them to help prevent, not just condemn, the atrocities they see beamed around the world through modern information technology.
To do so, they need to make four key changes.
There, on the shore behind what's left of a half-constructed mansion, the chug-chug-chug of a diesel pump holds the promise of clean water for 11,042 people at Buhimba camp. They are just some of more than one million villagers forced to flee their homes as conflict has swept across the eastern provinces of that vast country. A short distance away, a second pump, submerged deep in the lake, provides water for an additional 18,016 people in two other camps known as Mugunga I and II.
Without clean water, without decent sanitation, and without the public health outreach that helps people understand the link between the two, waterborne diseases could ripple through theses camps with devastating consequences. That's what Oxfam, together with its local partner, Action Santé Femme, or ASAF, was determined to prevent when it helped establish the water systems for these three camps—and a fourth, Bulengo—outside Goma, the capital of North Kivu province. Through a network of rigid plastic pipes, storage tanks, and outdoor faucets, water from Lake Kivu now gushes into the jerry cans of thousands of families with the turn of a tap.
At the top of a short but steep hill at Buhimba, where two massive water storage tanks frame the sprawling camp below, Helene Kanyere Ndakas stands ready with a notebook in hand. She is the manager of this storage station—and knows better than almost anybody the importance of making sure the system runs smoothly.
What gives her that special knowledge?
Ndakas herself relies on the water that flows from it. She and her family are among the thousands of people who are now making their homes temporarily at Buhimba.
Flipping her notebook open, Ndakas points to the careful records she keeps each time she opens the valves to refill the tanks with lake water. And she notes the amount of chlorine that goes in to guarantee its cleanliness. Hired by Oxfam, Ndakas is on water duty from 6am to 4pm each day—a job she takes very seriously.
"People are depending on her," says Charles Mampasu, an Oxfam program manager in Goma. "And they're happy with her job."
In a place where there was little or no infrastructure to support a water system, supplying tens of thousands of people with clean water on an emergency basis has been no small feat. And making sure they continue to have access to it when Oxfam moves on to its next project is one of the organization's central concerns. That's why Oxfam is working hand-in-hand with ASAF to help it build its ability to handle the water system on its own, particularly in Mugunga camps.
A tour through Mugunga I shows how important a steady supply of clean water can be—especially when people are struggling with such harsh living conditions. Built on fields of sharp volcanic rocks, the shelters many people now call home are not even tall enough in which to stand. Made from grasses and dried banana leaves flung over a frame of saplings and topped with a plastic sheet, the huts offer only minimal protection from the elements. To keep warm—and to drive the bugs out—many people cook on small wood fires inside their huts, the smoke curling into their lungs and out through the cracks in the shelter walls.
At the health clinic, the nurse on duty reports that respiratory infections are among the most common medical problems he sees. About 150 people a day flock to the clinic with a host of ailments that also include malaria, tuberculosis, and diarrhea. The latter is what the clean water—and scores of latrines that Oxfam has also installed—help to fight.
Snaking across the rocks, over roots, and through the mud, a network of wide black plastic pipes carries the water from Lake Kivu. It's replacing a temporary supply that another agency had been trucking in daily and storing in two plump water bladders—they look like giant egg yokes when full—at a cost of $3,500 a week. Nearby, the water blasts from faucets when kids turn on the taps to fill plastic jugs before lugging them home.
The water jug of choice for many kids has a familiar look: it's the container that once carried their family's allotment of cooking oil, doled out during the regular food distributions that displaced people have no choice but to depend on. Here at Mugunga, nothing goes to waste—not the jugs, and not the precious water they carry.
]]>But it wasn't until an 80-year-old woman from Walikale in North Kivu was brought to Masika that the full weight of what was happening became clear, galvanizing her resolve. In the war that was sweeping the region, rape was being used as a weapon not only to degrade women, but to humiliate their husbands and whole communities, too. Masika realized the women and girls of eastern Congo needed organized, pro-active help—and Synergie des femmes pour les Victimes de Violences Sexuelles was born.
Its mission, says Masika, its director, is threefold: to raise awareness about sexual violence toward women, to take care of those who have been sexually abused, and to push for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. Since 2003, the organization, an Oxfam partner, has worked with 7,018 women—women like the one from Walikale, who so desperately needed help and for whom there was none available. Raped and left dumped in a field, she was rescued by a hunter and eventually brought to Goma, the capital of North Kivu. But she was penniless, and despite her serious injuries, the hospital would not treat her. And there she died.
Hers is just one of too many stories of sexual abuse and abandonment—of violence that is still rippling through the remote hills of the eastern provinces, that continues to torture its victims with shame, and that now, in a newer twist, has begun to corrode the core of traditional communities, too.
In a small mudbrick building propped on the edge of a dirt road in Kilungutwe, a crowd of villagers has gathered. It's dark and sweltering inside, but every inch of every bench is taken, and more people crowd at the door and window. They have come to discuss the troubles in their village—the extortion they face at the hands of soldiers, the difficulty they have in getting enough to eat—and now the talk has turned to sexual violence.
With anger still in his voice, Elisha Ezigobe, one of the local chiefs, describes the abduction of his 12-year-old daughter. A soldier took her for his wife—without Ezigobe's consent. As soon as he learned what had happened, he headed for the soldier's camp, dismissing any concern about the repercussions he might face in confronting armed men. He was determined to rescue his daughter.
"I took my girl and left," Ezigobe said through an interpreter. "I had my machete. I was going to fight back." His outrage scared the soldier off, and Ezigobe returned his daughter—unharmed—to their home.
But the man sitting next to Ezigobe was not so lucky. His daughter, too, was taken by a soldier. A night passed before he was able to find her and bring her home. Now, at 15, she is pregnant.
There are many stories like this, says Ezigobe, and some fathers are afraid to stand up to the soldiers.
But it's not just military men who are the perpetrators, say others in the roadside hut. Community members have turned into culprits, too—with few serious consequences for their crimes. If the abused girl is 17 or 18, the solution is often to have her marry the rapist. If she's younger, the local chief could order the man to make some kind of reparation—such as a goat—to the girl and her family.
Why is all of this happening now?
"They're asking themselves that question," says Jacqueline Tshilemba, a community educator for APIDE, one of Oxfam's local partners that is working with the people of Kilungutwe. "What they can see is this culture has happened since the war. It happens all over the place and no one gets punished."
At the root of the problem, says Josee Lotsove, is a society that views women as inferior. Lotsove is the coordinator for a local women-based organization called Association des Mamans Anti-Bwaki, or AMAB, an Oxfam partner headquartered in Bunia. Along with those traditional attitudes about women, she says, is the Congo's weak judicial system, which often fails to hold offenders accountable.
When perpetrators are arrested, adds Marie Kanyobayo, it's possible for them to pay a little money to the authorities and buy their freedom. Kanyobayo is the head of another women-based organization called Union des Femmes pour le Developpement, also an Oxfam partner.
It's at this foundation of impunity that Masika, the head of Synergie, is chipping away. Part of Synergie's work involves educating village chiefs and other local opinion leaders—teachers, pastors—about the nature of what has been happening to women, about the catastrophe that it has become, and about the importance of villagers accepting survivors back into the community fold.
But the work comes with great risk.
For speaking out about a problem that has devastated the lives of so many women, Masika and her family have themselves become targets. Last September, six military men came to her house in the early evening and tortured her two daughters, 22 and 20. Masika has since sent them to live in Nairobi, and an aid organization has paid to surround her house with barbed wire to protect her.
Masika admits that sometimes the challenges are so daunting that she's not sure she can continue with her advocacy. But she knows that her voice—and the voices of all the volunteers who work for Synergie—are essential in helping to protect the rights of women who cannot, or dare not, speak out for themselves.
In the Congo, the consequences of rape are far-reaching and affect whole families. Rape heaps shame upon its victims. Women often find themselves cast off by their husbands, and forced into complete self-dependence. Young girls who have been raped lose their chance for marriage and for having a family of their own—and the position of honor that being a mother brings.
At a medical center in Goma where Synergie carries out some of its work, women who are recovering from sexual abuse confront its ugly legacy: possible HIV infection and lives of hardship, including the need to find ways to support themselves. Here, they are learning to weave baskets from long strips of plastic, a skill that will help them earn a living when they are well enough to return to their villages.
But for some, the psychological wounds are so deep they don't want to leave the security and support in which Synergie has wrapped them. For others, the road home is crowded with obstacles that may prove insurmountable. One 36-year-old woman tells of in-laws who are trying to turn her children against her, accusing her of being promiscuous after she was abducted and held as a sex slave and later, in a second round of horror, raped and left pregnant by a government soldier.
For Amina, a volunteer who has been working with Synergie since its founding, the stories she hears from women and girls who have been abused weigh heavily on her. Many of them have become her friends, and she knows that Congolese culture will dictate the future they face—likely one of great difficulty.
Given how sweeping the problem of rape and sexual violence now is, might that culture become more understanding, and even forgiving?
Amina sits quietly for a moment before she replies. A weariness seems to frame her answer. Women are speaking out more, she says. In the past, they kept silent. But as for real change, she can't say when that will come.
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