Rape and you

Last night I watched a harrowing documentary on rape in the DRC.

In it literally hundreds of women were shown who had been raped by soldiers, by rebels, by boys and by 'men'. They had been raped by bodies, with guns, with anything that these 'men' could find. The women formed groups together to talk about their rapes, and the hospitals were filled with new women each day who had new stories to tell. Their voices grew from whispers to shouts as they told them. They spoke in french, which I understood, and in local dialects, which I didn't. But even when I didn't understand their language their voices cracked with emotions that I could feel.

The producer and a local assistant managed to interview some of the men in both the rebel groups and the army. They had all raped, were proud to list the numbers and explained their rapes in terms of a magic potion that they took, which required rape to work. The laughed at each others reasons. One man, about 25, said that if someone wanted to rape his mother, and he knew it was for the good of the congo.

Where do I start? I am not sure if all the education in the world could help me to begin to formulate a plan to help these women or to change things there. I was frustrated at my own inability to do anything, and all I wanted was to embrace those women and show that there is love for them, and not only hatred. The sheer scale of the problem and the smallness of my reach made me literally shake.

So what can we do? What can each individual person do?

I'm trying to help by talking about it in this space, and through the work that I do. What are you doing?