Congo Rapes: "Unforgivable"

Today I read (and watched) with much dismay a story CNN broke about the raping of women and girls in Congo by uniformed military. The reports say the soldiers from one ethnic group were systematically raping women of another with the intent of destroying their reproductive capabilities.

Some were girls just 8 years old, raped in front of their mothers and fathers for days at a time. The raping is another indicator of how powerless and undervalued women are in some parts of Africa. These women were raped and tortured (some used knives to rape their victims) but not killed. Maybe it is because it is often worse in this culture to live with the stigma of being a rape victim and the emotional scars of surviving. Imagine raising a child born as a result of rape and hating yourself and that child as one women explained. Or feeling worthless as another woman noted.

The health toll of HIV is exacerbated by these inhumane acts as the reality is there is a high risk that these women could have contracted this fatal disease from their attackers. Women with HIV in Africa as previously noted, are often thrown out of their families and treated as outcasts.

It is hard to conceive that President Joseph Kabila, or any president, could be totally oblivious to this. He says this is "unforgivable." But a more unforgivable act would be to continue to let the offenders go unpunished as noted by Amnesty International.

Related Topics: Global Report: AIDS at a Crossroads

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