Women In Congo

There were many countries I could have done my presentation on like Pakistan, South Africa, Haiti, Sudan, Iran, or the Dominican Republic but I chose to do my presentation on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All these countries have a rich history in turmoil when it came to how they gained their independence but the country Democratic Republic of the Congo stood out to me because it has the most violent past of them all. What is so interesting about the Democratic Republic of Congo is that the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the second largest country in Africa but its economic status does not correlate with its size. Like many African countries it is rich in natural resources but it is still a very poor country because rich European

“Rape is unique. No other violent crime is so fraught with controversy, so enmeshed in dispute and in the politics of gender and sexuality… And within the domain of rape, the most highly charged area of debate concerns the issue of false allegations. For centuries, it has been asserted and assumed that women “cry rape,” that a large proportion of rape allegations are maliciously concocted for purposes of revenge or other motives.”

For centuries, the Congolese people have lived in a war torn society that just does

Another negative effect of gender inequality is the increased fear of violence for women. Women are often portrayed as weak and helpless beings that can easily be taken advantage of. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon states that, “Violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence –yet the reality is that too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned” (Unite to End Violence Againist Women, 2006). Violence against women in the form of rape, spousal abuse, child abuse or spousal killing has become routine behavior over the years, so it rarely even makes the news anymore. “Women aged 15-44 are more at risk from rape and domestic violence than from cancer, motor accidents, war and malaria, according to World Bank data”( Unite to End Violence Againist Women, 2006). Women are often blamed and questioned about their actions if they become the

According to ICRtoP, the Democratic Republic of Congo is reported to be the “rape capital of the world” with an estimated 15,000 rape cases in the Congo’s eastern provinces alone. Rape is a tool of war used by the various armed forces in the Congo in order to “create instability in

In the Congo, many people were affected by Imperialism in many different ways. For some people were shamed, had curfews, and some were often banned from “white” people establishments. Therefore, it was like segregation to the Congolese people. They had religion forced onto them by the Roman Catholic and some Protestant Churches. However, they gained formal education systems and slowly improved their healthcare. The government even sponsored teaching a handful of languages in the schools.

While King Leopold had successfully convinced nearly the entire world for some time that he was a philanthropist, helping to improve the conditions of the Congo and the lives of its people, he was orchestrating an intricate slave trade system and ultimately the murder of an estimated 10-13 million people, approximately 50% of the population . Majority of the people who perished in the Congo were slaughtered, victims of disease or avoidable malnutrition, or were worked to the point of death. These figures are far from perfect. There has been quite a lot of debate about the true number of people who died under Leopold’s authority, though most agree somewhere near 8-10 million. The fact alone that the total is unclear is testament to the lengths Leopold, his soldiers and workers took to conceal the truly hellish conditions inflicted upon the Congolese

“…the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Save the Children released a report on their investigation into allegations of sexual abuse of West African refugee children in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Their interviews with 1500 men, women, and children refugees revealed that girls between the ages of 13 and 18 were sexually exploited by male aid workers, many of whom were employed by national and international non-governmental agencies (NGOs) and the UN, and also by UN peacekeepers and community leaders.” (Hynes 2004:

Once she understood the U.S.’s true participation, guilt for her country consumed her, ashamed that she had never known what was going on at the time and ashamed for what had happened. While the rest of the world played the events like that of a chess game (Kingsolver 317), with Lumumba and the rest of the Congolese as their pawns, the Congo was helpless to do

Congo free state was first established in 1884. The colonial nations of Europe gave Leopold II of Belgium the authority to go and claim the Congo. They said that it would improve the lives of the natives that inhabited the land but that was evidently not the case. As soon as Leopold got over to the Congo, he had forgotten all about these promises. At first the drive for ivory was very prominent but eventually the want for rubber became a lot bigger. The machinery wasn't developed enough to do this so Leopold used what forces he had, manpower. The natives were forced into harvesting and processing rubber. This was a very physically demanding job because they had to climb up the trees to make big slashes into them and then go home and stir the liquid until it was in the right consistency to make the rubber. Each month, if someone didn’t meet the quota that was set out, they would get their hands or feet cut off. There was so many unthinkable things that occurred during this such as forced labour, beating, widespread killing and frequent mutilation. The estimated death toll was between 1 million to 15 million. Just looking at these few examples, the destructiveness of the Congolese people is quite clear. Today, the Congo is still a struggling country. It is very poor, unstable and corrupted because of the various wars and conflicts that happened in the history of the Congo. Because of the

Wartime rape is a topic that should have international attention and perpetrators should be held accountable. That should be obvious, however, that’s my opinion generated from growing up in a “first world” (developed, capitalist, with an industry based infrastructure) country, with work and education opportunities, predominately Christian ideology and with structured rules defining what’s illegal. Inhabitants of “third world” or developing countries have a significantly different environment and a low level of accountability to established governmental control. They face high levels of poverty, low economic development, and inadequate healthcare, prone to an unstable government, have high birth rates and lack a middle-class population.

Not only did they take hold of an area larger than many European countries put together, but they did so, arguably, without allowing many of the people involved to be informed of the horrors that they allowed to take place. In many cases, they were the ones performing the violations against the human rights of the indigenous Congolese.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has always been an extremely poor country. They rank as the poorest country in the world but have a high number of natural resources (“World Without Genocide”). The Congo has an unemployment rate of around ninety-five percent, more than half of the Congo people do not have access to clean water, and their mortality rates among children is highest of any country in world (“Congo Voice”). Their economic situation made it even harder for the

Mass Rape is an atrocious violation of person’s human rights. Testifying in an international court can be extremely dangerous and a horrific experience for many people. Whether it is being humiliated and degraded or having ones life threatened , a survivor of rape should always have the option of testifying against their attacker. The international criminal justice system has greatly improved since the Nuremberg trials when rape survivors weren’t allowed to testify or be in court because the courts did not “want a bunch of crying women in the courtroom” .

In the past, many incidents of genocide have occurred, like the Armenian genocide or the Rwandan genocide. While these incidents may seem unrelated to current times, similar incidents are starting to occur in many parts of the world and one such place is Congo. Many sources hint that the conflict that occurs in Congo is a genocide because many elements of genocide appear in the conflict like classification or dehumanization. While what they say has some truth in the sense that this conflict contains some element of genocide but, not enough elements are present to make it a genocide. Although many would believe that the conflict in Congo is a genocide, there is evidence of the conflict being a territorial and power dispute because some countries invading Congo want the resources, others want power, and the cause of the conflict in Congo is the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide.