Fighting Congo’s Ills With Education and an Army of Women

Todd Heisler reports on the opening of V Day's City of Joy in the New York Times.February 6, 2011 :

BUKAVU, Democratic Republic of Congo — Eve Ensler has an audacious plan.

For years, diplomats, aid workers, academics and government officials here have been vexed almost to the point of paralysis about how to attack this country’s staggering problem of sexual violence, in which hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, many quite sadistically, by the various armed groups who haunt the hills of eastern Congo. Read more >>

CITY OF JOY To Open This Friday, February 4th, In Bukavu DRC

AFEM supports the opening of V-Day's "City of Joy". (V-Day & her founder Eve Ensler are strong AFEM partners. Recently, V-DAY funded the equipment of AFEM's production studio.) Here is the press release of the event :

City Of Joy Offers New Platform And Vision For Congolese Women To Pursue Peace In The DRC  
What: Fondation Panzi (DRC), women of the Congo, and V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls, with support from UNICEF,will come together to celebrate the opening of the City of Joy, a revolutionary new community where Congolese women survivors of gender violence will have the opportunity to heal and develop their leadership through innovative programming.

UN reports 53 new rape cases in DR Congo

Source: Agence France-Presse (AFP)

Date: 02 Feb 2011

KINSHASA — The United Nations said Wednesday it had tallied 53 new cases of rape last month in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, bringing its total rape count to 120 since the beginning of 2011.
Between January 19 to 23, "53 people were raped on the market road to Milimba and Kitumba" two villages in Sud-Kivu province, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement.
"Humanitarian workers who organized evaluation missions along this axis," have confirmed the facts, OCHA said, adding men and children figured among the victims.
It did not offer details on the possible assailants.
The UN earlier said that Congolese forces had raped more than 67 women in Sud-Kivu and neighbouring Nord-Kivu province in early January.
The Congolese government has expressed "reservations" about the UN's first set of numbers, saying only three victims have been formally identified and denouncing an alleged "smear campaign" against its armed forces.
Congolese troops and a hodgepodge of militia groups are regularly accused of rape and looting in the volatile east of the country, which one UN official last year called the "rape capital of the world."
Copyright © 2011 AFP.

Ben Affleck moved by victims' testimonies

Today the american movie star Ben Affleck was able to touch the first results of Eastern Congo Initiative, the new foundation he created one year ago.He spent his day in Bukavu at the South Kivu's Women's Media Association where he met some victims of sexual violence who succeeded their community reintegration. He also visited the studio of Radio Maendeleo, one of the local radiostations AFEM partners with for the broadcasting of its shows presenting testimonies of survivors. Each week AFEM produces programmes broadcasted on more than 10 community radiostations in the the Province of South Kivu. These radio shows focus on empowering rural women, restoring dignity and enhancing women's self confidence.(Photo : Douce Namwezi, producer, and Chouchou Namegabe, coordinator, with Ben Affleck at AFEM's office)