Humanitarian agencies saywomen are bearing the brunt of the conflict in the eastern DRC, facingviolence, including rape, as they try to care for their families.
ChristineKarumba is country director for the NGO Women for Women. From Bukavu in South Kivu Province, shespoke to VOA English to Africa about the situation in eastern Congo. Most of the displaced are in North Kivu Province, which Karumba visits in the next few days.
"Weknow that more than one million?people have been displaced. The conditions inwhich the women are living now in the camps are really not human because thereare some who have to walk for many hours to reach the closest IDP (internallydisplaced persons) camp?camps which were not accessible for any humanitariansupport or assistance. There are children and women who can spend three to fourdays without?food," she says.
Butthey need more than food. Karumba says, "They need shelter. They need propersanitation and medicine because?when you are spending nights under the rain,because this is the rainy season, without any assistance, without any propersanitation?they are having diseases?like cholera. They need access tomedication to prevent diarrhea."
Manyof the women fleeing the fighting have been raped. "Women have to cross somebush where there are some rebels?and gun people?. So women are being victims ofrape and this is ongoing. Not having access to exact data, but many women whoare coming to the camps have been denouncing that they have been victims ofeven rape," she says.
Womenfor Women operates a number of programs in the eastern DRC, teaching vocationalskills and encouraging them to exercise their rights.
"Thisis, I think, the glue. This is the most important part of our program becausewe believe that strong women build strong nations. If at this stage, we canempower women on the grassroots (level) to know their rights, this can be thebeginning of a change because change must start somewhere. And if the voices ofthese women on the ground are forgotten, then we cannot expect to have a strongnation," she says.
Forexample, she says that some women she's met don't know they inherit theirhusband's property when he dies. "When the women are ignorant, they don't knowwhich institutions to go to claim?(their) right?. So it's like somebody who isalive, but the person is already dead," she says.