TodaysNetworkNews: HILLARY CLINTON: DR CONGO: SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN AFRICAN WAR

TodaysNetworkNews: 14 August 2009 - MONUC: The US pledges 17 million dollars this week to help fight the epidemic of rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The UN says that at least 200,000 cases of rape have been recorded in the region since 1996, with the true number estimated to be even higher.

The United States this week pledged 17 million dollars to help combat sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where conflict and mass displacement have made women, children and even men increasingly vulnerable to rape and sexual abuse on a horrific scale.

The announcement came as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the region as part of her seven-nation trip to Africa. In Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu in eastern DRC, Clinton this week met with women at the HEAL AFRICA hospital that cares for victims of sexual violence and HIV/AIDS.

At least $10 million of the promised funds will reportedly go towards training doctors to treat victims of sexual attacks, while other aid will be aimed at preventing abuse.

According to the latest UN report on sexual violence in armed conflict last month, at least 200,000 cases of sexual abuse have been recorded in eastern DRC since 1996.

SOUNDBITE (English) Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, United States:
The atrocities that these women have suffered, which stand for the atrocities that so many have suffered, distills evil into its basest form. The United States condemns these attacks and all those who commit them and abet them. And we say to the world that those who attack civilian populations using systematic rape are guilty of crimes against humanity.

Eastern DRC has been described as the rape capital of the world, but the scourge is not limited to that region..

Warning that rape is being used as a weapon of war with the same efficient brutality as a gun or a grenade, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week called on the Security Council to set up an independent commission of inquiry into such abuses in the conflicts in Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Sudan.

In Goma, Clinton called for all perpetrators of sexual abuse to be brought to justice.

SOUNDBITE (English) Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, United States:
We believe there should be no impunity for the sexual and gender based violence committed by so many. And that there must be arrests and prosecutions and punishment, because that runs counter to peace and stability for the Congolese people.

More than 1.8 million people are now internally displaced in the DRCs east, according to UNHCR. The latest bout of fighting between DRC troops and the rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and their local allies uprooted a further 35,000 people in South Kivu last month.


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