As efforts continue totry to end the conflict in the eastern DRC, the toll the fighting has taken oncivilians grows higher. And both women and men have been victims of rape andsexual violence.
ChristineKarumba is the DRC country director for the NGO Women for Women. On Wednesdayshe visited camps for the displaced in the Goma area and spoke to VOA Englishto Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua about what women in the camps told her.
"Thewomen I met at the three camps were fearing for their safety. So, even if theyare in the displaced camps, still they feel not secure at all?. Nothing issecure. Anything can happen to us at any time," she says.
Askedabout the condition of the women she's met, she says, "Really, today I was veryshocked because if I see five women, three were pregnant. And if she's notpregnant, she's carrying a baby of under one year old. Today we had 60 womencoming to collect their sponsorship funds and among them 35 women were pregnantor coming with a baby. So, they are carrying precious treasure, which is achild," she says.
Someof the women in one of the camps have been there for a year. "Some of them gavebirth in the IDP (internally displaced persons) camp. So, I waswondering?(what) will be the future of these newborns who have been born in thecamp, where they don't have enough food?proper sanitation. They don't have evenaccess to education. I don't know how to describe this situation?. Every timewhen I go to these women it's like myself I'm dying. I'm dying. I don't knowfrom where we should start to build up hope for these women," she says.
Whilenone of the women she met Wednesday said their pregnancies resulted from rape,many said they knew someone who did become pregnant that way. Karumba says thatthose women face stigma and discrimination at every level. Often the first toreject a woman who's been raped is her husband. She says, "It's really verydangerous for these women to be discriminated (against), separated from theirfamilies?illiterate, being not able to take care of themselves."
Karumbasays many men not only have been forced to watch their wives, girlfriends anddaughters be raped by armed fighters, but also have been raped themselves. "Imet some men who were really traumatized because of being raped.? The rape hadbeen used like a weapon to exercise power and to have control over a community.The men who have been victims of rape, it's like they no longer exist. It'slike, I am a man, but I am no longer a man because of what happened to me," shesays.
Somemen, like women, had been disfigured by their attackers. "I saw?a man (whose)private parts were cut. And they raped him.? So, this man didn't even want totalk to anybody. So, for me to come closer to this man I have to say, Look, weare together in this battle and you have to make sure you don't hide whathappened to you so that together we may fight to eradicate this," she says.
She says that the trauma for men who have beenraped and for those forced to watch loved ones raped is high: "the entirecommunity has been affected."
Karumba has also spoken to men who've committedrapes in the eastern DRC. However, she does not condemn them. "Men areforgotten. Even if the (rapists) are men, we don't have to stigmatize men asactors of rape, as actors of wars. We have to bring them closer to our programsso that they may understand their roles. Then they may understand the need ofchanging attitudes. They may understand the need of being an actor to build uppeace at each level," she says.
Ignorance contributes to the problem. Karumbaexplains what some men told her about why they raped at gunpoint. "Because whenI have a gun I have control over the land. And I have to make sure I exercisemy power."