Sapeur comes from la SAPE, short for Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes, or the Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People. The SAPE, like any club, has rules of conduct and of dress; it's centered around Brazzaville and Kinshasa, the adjacent capitals of the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, respectively.

This isn't a new subculture: the style of dress which the sapeurs imitate is that of the French and Belgian colonists who seized control over the Congo during the 1880s.

The ongoing conflict in the Congo has killed, so far, 5.4 million people, and made hundreds of thousands of Brazzaville and Kinshasa residents into refugees. According to the U.N. Human Development Report for 2007, just released last month, people in the Republic of the Congo have a life expectancy of just 53 years, and a per-capita GDP of $2,030, making it the 136th least developed country on earth. The Democratic Republic of the Congo fares even worse: its life expectancy is 47, per-capita GDP is $143. It is the 176th least developed country in the world.

The logistics of getting and maintaining a wardrobe of properly tailored, designer suits, plus shirts, accessories, jewelry, socks and leather dress shoes in such an environment is mind-boggling. Let alone keeping them clean.

It's hard to know how to read this particular trend: is this a post-colonial pastiche of the oppressors' style of dress? Or an example of a subjugated and still impoverished people hoodwinked into spending untold sums on European labels?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, these dimensions of the sapeur phenomenon have been largely ignored by the fashion press. Dolce & Gabbana's luxury magazine, Swide, wrote about Tamagni's book as a kind of curio, calling it a "fascinating" and, of course, "refreshing" "unlikely style bible." The New York Times' The Moment blog said, "what makes these images so compelling is the way they stand out among such scenes of abject poverty — they pose in their Sunday best in weed-filled lots and peacock through the streets crowded with trash and half-dressed children." Writer Maura Egan even suggested that the sapeurs' "elegance and pride brings a nice dose of optimism to the region."

The book itself seems unwilling to treat the sapeurs as anything other than snazzy dressers who work really hard for their flamboyance. As designer Paul Smith writes in the introduction to Gentlemen of Bacongo, "It is incredible enough today to see men dressed so elegantly in capital cities like Paris or London, let alone in the Congo. Their attention to detail, their use of colour, all set against the environment they live in, is just fantastic."

There are, in case you're curious, sapeur videos on YouTube. (All the ones I saw were French language.) In this one, the camera follows a sapeur funeral cortege; at around the seventh minute, a mourner named Hassan Salvador pauses to show the interviewer the labels of his Mark Stephen Marengo — a Savile Row tailor — pin-striped suit and his purple Polo Ralph Lauren tie. Salvador also explains the precisions of sapeur style: socks must be a certain height, jacket vents of 32 centimenters are preferred, and a maximum of three colors can be used in one outfit. I've heard of men with bespoke suits leaving the bottom cuff button undone to casually indicate their sartorial know-how, since one of the tell-tale differences between an off-the-rack suit and a tailored article is working buttonholes. Salvador's cuffs are all undone. Just after him, another mourner, with neon-green socks, brags that he is the only person he knows who ever wears two ties at once. (And he makes those ties look good.)

Another video examines the sapeur diaspora in Paris; the journalist estimates that around 1,500 dandy sapeurs live in the city, concentrated in the heavily African neighborhoods of the 18th arrondissement. Everyone interviewed agrees that, as one man puts it, "When we're talking about Sub-Saharan Africa and clothes, we're talking about the Congolese. The Congolese from Brazzaville. Not the Angolans, not the Cameroonians, not the Côte D'ivoirians."

A documentary which screened at the New York African Film Festival earlier this year dealt with this phenomenon of Congolese coming to Europe, partly in search of jaw-droppingly expensive clothes, and the kinds of hardship they can face there. It centered around the Congolese musician Papa Wemba, a onetime collaborator of Peter Gabriel, who charges fans for "dedications" — having their names sung — and was arrested in 2003 for importing 350 illegal immigrants, posing as his band members, at a cost of some $4,000 each.

Writes Patty Chang in a review of the documentary, The Importance of Being Elegant,

[Y]oung immigrant Congolese in Paris and Brussels who embrace the sapeur lifestyle, ‘battle' each other for the title of "Parisien" — the equivalent of an exceedingly stylish man — by flashing their labels in ritual dances in night clubs and mounting challenges through preening displays of label versus label...Often without the legal documents to stay in the country, the sapeurs beg, steal, and hustle (although the specifics of these illicit activities remain ambiguous in the film) for money to be able to afford the designer clothes to keep up with Papa Wemba's fashion ideology. In the documentary, one such sapeur named the "Archbishop" attempts to establish a name for himself in the Parisian Sape scene only to later come to the realization that the extravagant and flamboyant lifestyle has been nothing more than an illusion.

Chang compares the sapeurs to hip-hop stars who come out of extraordinary poverty in America craving designer labels as status markers, and indeed there is a line that can be drawn between la sape and "the glorification of material excess found in hip hop culture." But la sape undoubtedly predates hip-hop; it owes as much to the 19th century concept of the dandy as it does to anything else. Their preference for suits, Christianity, and abstention from drugs mark the sapeurs as strangely conservative.

Says Chang, "Fashion became a symbolic gesture of reclaiming power in times of economic deprivation and attempts at political dominance." And there certainly is something triumphant in a man walking through the slum he lives in, immaculately turned out. These men are presenting themselves to the world in exactly the way they want to be seen, and perhaps they are doing it because self-presentation is one of the few powers they have. But is it self-defeating to invest to such a degree in clothing? What about their families' needs? Why are there no women sapes? It seems like this book raises more questions than it really answers.

All images by Daniele Tamagni

Gentlement Of Bacongo [Amazon]
Fop Art: 'Gentlemen Of Bacongo' [NYTimes]
The Gentlemen Of Bacongo [Swide]
Shantytown Dandies of Bacongo [Telegraph]
Sapologie Ailleurs [YouTube]
Sape, Sapelogie, Sapologie, Histoire D'une Vie [YouTube]
A Matter Of Style [Fashion Projects]

• In addition to the "no fuck, no food" rule, the new laws in Afghanistan take away a woman's right to be the guardian of her children and allow rapists to avoid persecution by paying "blood money" for the crime. [Guardian]

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is making women's rights around the globe a key component of her work, as evidenced by where she has chosen to visit on her trip through seven African nations. [Boston Globe]
• Two sisters in Dallas, TX are helping Iraqi women refugees find their footing in America. [Dallas Morning News]
• President of the Philippines Gloria Arroyo recently signed a provision into law demanding gender parity in higher level government positions. The goal is to have "a 50-50 gender balance within the next five years. [AFP]
• The Peewee Boyz, the only known all-male cheer troupe in Europe, won third place at the International Cheer Championships. [The F-Word, BBC]
• Natalia Antonova discusses a new campaign to end domestic violence in Ukraine, with an interesting focus on financial abuse. [Global Comment]
• The headline says it all: "Congo's Rape Epidemic Worsens During U.S.-Backed Military Operation" [Washington Post]

[Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo; August 11. Image via Getty]

Residents of a camp for Internally Displaced People come together to watch US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Unseen) as she tours their camp on the outskirts of Goma on August 11, 2009. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged 17 million dollars in new funding to combat sexual violence during a trip to war-weary eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. AFP PHOTO/Roberto SCHMIDT (Photo credit should read ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)

Clinton is the first Secretary of State to enter the Congolese war zone, and she has an important mission: to urge an end to sexual violence in a country the United Nations calls "the rape capital of the world." Hundreds of thousands of women — and many boys and men — have been raped in the last 10 years alone, often by members of the Congolese military. Anneke Van Woudenberg of Human Rights Watch tells the story of a 15-year-old girl who was kept in a hole and repeatedly raped over the course of five months, when she became pregnant, at which point her family disowned her. Such crimes are all too common in Congo, and Clinton urged President Joseph Kabila both to protect his people and to stem the unregulated mineral trade that gives rise to much of Congo's military activity.

But none of this is very fun or funny, and what the media really wants to talk about is Clinton supposedly getting huffy about her husband. In response to a question about Bill Clinton's opinion on a financial issue, Clinton reportedly "bristled," saying, "You want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not secretary of state, I am...If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband." Her intent was likely to redirect attention where it belongs — on Congo — but of course her remark had the opposite effect, generating analysis of Clinton's supposed frustration and her relationship with Bill.

Today, Maureen Dowd snipes that "looking unhinged about your marriage on an international stage hardly empowers women" and accuses Clinton of being "steamed about Bill celebrating his upcoming 63rd birthday in Las Vegas with his posse." But Tina Brown's take in The Daily Beast is perhaps the most annoying. She generously allows that, "contrary to received opinion, I am told Bill's wife was not a bit miffed at her husband's bounding back into the limelight with that glamorous Team America rescue of damsels in distress from evil North Korea." But then she backtracks with this fun little metaphorical quip: "it's just that-oh God, the trouble is that when Bill bounces back up, he bounces so high he always ends up landing on her." Poor Hillary! Brown continues,

Madam Secretary was doing so well at grabbing back the spotlight, delivering hard messages to devious, corrupt African strongmen, issuing warnings to Somali militants, busting a move on the dance floor at a gala dinner in Nairobi. In Congo she was particularly stressed. She had spent a day touring a refugee camp, hearing harrowing stories of rape, persecution, and female subjugation, issues she has long made hers. I suspect she'd just about had it with having to tiptoe around so many big-dog male egos-Obama, Bill, Africa's Messrs. Kibaki, Zuma, and Kabila. And p.s., was it necessary for Bill to be yukking it up on his birthday with the old adoring pals at such a fancy, high-priced restaurant as Craftsteak?

Instead of pointing out that Clinton's frustration might stem from an overlooking of the very issues she was campaigning against, and an unproductive focus on her husband, Brown just talks about how tiring those issues must be for Clinton. Way to miss the point in a new direction. But the real kicker is this:

And not only that, but (and I say this in solidarity, not belittlement) the African humidity had wreaked havoc on her hair. It had gone all flat and straight, which puts any woman in a bad humor. (Let's not forget: It was a sympathetic reference to the female-specific chore of keeping perfectly coiffed that made Hillary's eyes fill with tears back in New Hampshire.) Plus, the grueling State Department schedule means these days she can never get to the gym.

See, Hillary was just mad because she was having a bad hair day. Oh, and she might also have been feeling fat. This nasty little paragraph shows that sometimes women know how to use the tools of the patriarchy — belittlement (not solidarity) and looksism — better than anyone. It also shows how reducing Clinton's visit to Congo to a personal struggle for acceptance ignores the people there who actually need help.

In the Huffington Post, Georgianne Nienaber criticizes Jeffrey Gettleman's Times coverage of Clinton's visit ("It does not serve readership or the truth to paraphrase the Secretary of State, when direct quotes would do a much better job of conveying her tone and intent. Does the man not own a digital recorder?"), and quotes blogger Texas in Africa who mocks the cliched nature of most Western coverage of Congo ("It's the Heart of Darkness"). Texas in Africa also notes that American shock is played-out and worthless as a response to the crisis in Congo, that what Clinton really needs to do is push for more peacekeeping troops, better HIV/AIDS treatment, and other real-world solutions. But the bar isn't set very high for Clinton or journalists like Gettleman when the dominant media conversation seems to be about Clinton's hair.

Niether Nienaber nor Texas in Africa likes Gettleman much, but he does offer this illuminating anecdote in his Times piece:

A third woman, Christine Schuler-DeSchryver, a well-known anti-rape activist, vented about all the empty promises from the stream of high-ranking visitors who have recently come to eastern Congo, "one more important than the next."

"In the end, all we got was a pile of business cards," she said.

She pressed Mrs. Clinton to do more to end the criminally-controlled mineral trade.

"Madame Secretary," she said, "we want you to be our spokesperson, our voice."

It's Clinton's responsibility to be an effective voice for the Congolese people, not just a purveyor of empty American outrage. But the press could help her, by focusing on the actuall issues at hand. Brown writes, "as usual it's not the politics anyone is talking about now. The unchanging thing about the first lady/senator /presidential candidate-turned-secretary of State is the crackle of marital complications. Just as Hillary Clinton is a pol, she is also-just as intensely (and at times perplexingly)-Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton." But Tina Brown is an incredibly powerful media mogul — to some extent, she controls what people are talking about. She could help them talk about something real.

Why Hillary Lashed Out [Daily Beast]
Hillary Clinton In Congo: Tempers, Human Rights, And Media Cliché [Huffington Post]
Clinton Presents Plan To Fight Sexual Violence In Congo [New York Times]
Congo Rape Victims Caught In Political Crossfire [NPR]
Clinton: I'm Secretary Of State, Not Bill [AP]
Perhaps I've Gotten A Bit Cynical [Texas In Africa]
Toilet-Paper Barricades [NYT]

[Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, August 11. Image via Getty]

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (C) walks past an Uruguayan female peacekeeper as she reviews UN peacekeeping troops at an Indian aviation base during her visit to Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, on August 11, 2009. Clinton called on August 12, 2009 for the Democratic Republic of Congo to punish soldiers responsible for rape as she toured the war-torn east. AFP PHOTO / Roberto SCHMIDT (Photo credit should read ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)

[Goma, Congo; August 10. Image via Getty]

Nurses at the Heal Africa clinic in Goma take a young Congolese woman back to her ward after she underwent surgery to repair serious physical damage suffered after being raped. Doctors at the Heal Africa Clinic in Goma treat women who have been sexually abused and in the majority of the cases, due to the violent and vicious nature of the attacks develop serious physical problems. While being treated at the clinic, the women stay at a transit home inside the clinic where they are treated physically and psychologically. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in what she considers a highlight of her trip to Africa will visit Goma on August 11, 2009, the war-torn east of DR Congo, where the United Nations says nearly 3,500 women have been raped since the beginning of the year. Hundreds of thousands of women have become victims of brutal rape usually perpetrated by a groups on armed men who have engaged in armed conflict in the region for almost a decade and who use rape as a weapon of war. AFP PHOTO/Roberto SCHMIDT -MORE IN IMAGE FORUM- (Photo credit should read ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)

"You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?" the Secretary of State apparently repeated. "My husband is not secretary of state, I am...If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband."

Clinton's visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo, part of an 11-day tour of Africa, is intended, according to a spokesman quoted on NPR, to press the government for democratic reform, fight rampant corruption, and to address the virulent rape epidemic that's hit the eastern part of the country in the wake of years of conflict. According to the New York Times, Clinton took aim at illegal mining, saying she was "particularly concerned about the exploitation of natural resources." In the coming days, Clinton will meet with the country's president, visit a hospital in the capital city of Kinshasa founded by NBA player Dikembe Mutumbo, and speak with several rape victims. Her visit is significant, not least because the U.S., after its involvement in Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba's assassination, is regarded with suspicion. She addressed this in the meeting, telling one student, "I can't excuse this past and I won't try," telling the young people to ask, "will I be dragged down by the past or will I decide to do something to have a better future?"

While it's a great sentiment, it may be harder for the Congolese people to take at face value than we might wish: a devastating piece in today's Washington Post reaffirms that the heavily U.S.-backed U.N. peacekeeping efforts have exacerbated the rape problem. Says the piece, "An already staggering epidemic of rape has become markedly worse since the January deployment of tens of thousands of poorly trained, poorly paid Congolese soldiers, with people in front-line villages such as this one saying the soldiers are not so much hunting rebels as hunting women." The phenomenon, which we've addressed before - and which increasingly targets men as well as women - has forced women to self-impose a curfew to protect themselves from the 60,000 soldiers in the area. Although President Joseph Kabila has declared rhetorical war on the epidemic, the article makes it clear that the vast majority of these crimes will go unpunished by a system that looks the other way - no senior officials have been prosecuted - and that is deeply patriarchal at the best of times.

Clinton is, of course, widely regarded as a female role model - and that even she should be publicly marginalized is a worrisome indication that changing the culture's going to be a very long road. One hopes that her call to young people to "speak out to end the corruption, the violence, the conflict that for too long have eroded the opportunities across this country... Together, you can write a new chapter in Congolese history," will be heeded. According to a report on NPR, Clinton called the rape culture "truly one of mankind's greatest atrocities," something that "the entire society needs to be speaking out against this. It should be a mark of shame anywhere, in any country."

Clinton: I'm Secretary Of State, Not Bill [MSNBC]
Clinton Assails Rampant Sexual Violence In Congo [NPR]
Clinton Heads To A Congo Torn By Violence [NPR]
Clinton to Target Sexual Violence in Congo [Time]
Clinton Presses Congo On Illicit Minerals [NY Times]
Congo's Rape Epidemic Worsens During U.S.-Backed Military Operation [Washington Post]

Earlier: The Faces Of Congo's Women
War Crimes Against Women, Men, Continue Unabated Abroad

The wife of a Congolese army soldier speaks while sitting on the bed assigned to her at a clinic for raped victims in Goma on November 24, 2008. After her husband left home to fight, she and other women were raped while working in a field. She survived the attack in which a child and other women died but was barely able to survive and care for her two boys. After an NGO found her at home barely surviving she was brought to the center. Women and girls in eastern Congo's North Kivu province are once again suffering increasing levels of sexual violence amid renewed conflict, instability and widespread displacement of civilians. Rape has been used as a weapon of war throughout eastern Congo for years. AFP PHOTO/Roberto SCHMIDT

A ten-year-old girl who was raped twice in the last ten days (C) is surrounded by other raped victims and a counselor (3rdL) after she was brought to the room she will be staying in after being admitted to the Congolese non-governmental organisation clinic for raped victims on November 24, 2008. The girl was first raped by several soldiers reportedly from the CNDP when fighting broke out between the rebel group and the congolese army around november 14. After that attack she managed to walk to the provincial capital city of Goma where she had no one to stay with. While roaming the streets she was assaulted by two men and raped again. After being found bleeding in a street by another woman she was brought to the center. Women and girls in eastern Congo's North Kivu province are once again suffering increasing levels of sexual violence amid renewed conflict, instability and widespread displacement of civilians. Rape has been used as a weapon of war throughout eastern Congo for years. AFP PHOTO/Roberto SCHMIDT

A woman (R), raped by a soldier from the Armed Forces of the Republic of Congo, holds her one and a half-year old baby as she sits behind her attacker, Sargent Shumbo Chance (L) while a military court was sentencing him to life in prison during a military trial in the North Kivu provincial capital city of Goma on November 17, 2008. The woman, who was raped in front of her husband, was one of many who were violated by soldiers during an attack by rebel soldiers from the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) near the northern entrance to the city on October 27. A military court sentenced several soldiers for rape, looting and dereliction of duty. The UN Human Rights Council should hold a special session on the Democratic Republic of Congo where rebels and government troops have been accused of war crimes, Amnesty International said Monday. AFP PHOTO/Roberto SCHMIDT

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (L) visits patients at the Heal Africa hospital in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city of Goma 26 January 2008. The hospital specialises in treating rape cases of women, which have been frequent during the conflict and blamed by victims and aid workers on armed men from all sides, including the DRCongo army. A ceasefire deal was signed earlier this week between rebel militias and the DRCongo government, aimed at ending the ongoing conflict in the troubled eastern provinces of Nord- and Sud-Kivu. AFP PHOTO / Frederic de La Mure

A woman has her hair braided in a centre for rape victims, 25 October 2007, near Goma. There are 30,000 reported cases of sexual violence per year in the lawless east of the country. AFP PHOTO / LIONEL HEALING

Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo: Raped women dry their clothes outside the Doctors on Call Services (DOCS) hospital 23 July 2006 in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In the eastern DRC, where armed groups regularly attack civilians, rape often accompanied by torture, is systematically used to terrorize local populations. The number of rapes has not regressed even though the last war in RDC ended in 2003. AFP PHOTO/JOSE CENDON

Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo: A raped woman takes care of her son at the Doctors on Call Services (DOCS) hospital 23 July 2006 in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In the eastern DRC, where armed groups regularly attack civilians, rape often accompanied by torture, is systematically used to terrorize local populations. The number of rapes has not regressed even though the last war in RDC ended in 2003. AFP PHOTO/JOSE CENDON

Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo: Nyirahabimana (R) sits on a bed in the GESOM (Medical help and solidarity group) center for raped women 27 April 2006 in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). She is waiting for the operation she hopes will mend the internal injuries she suffered after being raped by seven Rwandan rebels 10 months ago. The injuries are so severe that she cannot stand up without having urine and faeces trickle out of her vagina. In eastern DRC rape victims are almost systematically rejected by their families and by society. This rejection comes on top of the physical injuries inflicted on victims, many of whom require lengthy reconstructive surgery. Most rapes in this region are carried out with great brutality and the perpetrators are mostly armed men — regular soldiers loyal to the government, dissident troops, Rwandan rebels, Ugandan rebels and local militias with no political agenda that act like bandits. AFP PHOTO/JOSE CENDON

Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo: Congolese women sit on beds in the GESOM (Medical help and solidarity group) center for raped women 27 April 2006 in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In eastern DRC rape victims are almost systematically rejected by their families and by society. This rejection comes on top of the physical injuries inflicted on victims, many of whom require lengthy reconstructive surgery. Most rapes in this region which has seen numerous bouts of fighting and daily atrocities against civilians ever since the official end of the last DRC war three years ago, are carried out with great brutality and the perpetrators are mostly armed men — regular soldiers loyal to the government, dissident troops, Rwandan rebels, Ugandan rebels and local militias with no political agenda that act like bandits. AFP PHOTO/JOSE CENDON

KANYABIYUNGA, CONGO - MARCH 20 A woman describes her rape to a health worker March 20, 2006 in Kanyabiyunga, D.R. Congo. She alleges that she was raped by a soldier while eight months pregnant. While there are currently no available statistics for sexual assaults against women, health workers believe that the crime is at epidemic proportions in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The crimes often go unreported due to women's fear of rejection by husbands as well as stigmatization by the greater community. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a country that loses an estimated 1,400 people per day due to war since 1998, is struggling to hold presidential elections this summer.(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

BARAKA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO Suzanne Yalaka (22) brestfeeds her baby Barunsan 11 Dicember 2003 in Kalundja, South Kivu, in the Democratic Republi of Congo (DRC). Suzanne was raped allegedly by ten FDD rebels (Forces for the Defence of the Democracy) from Burundi: after the baby was born as a consequence of the rape, she was left by her husband and left behind by her husband family. Since the start of the war in the DRC five years ago, aid workers say that in South Kivu Province alone, where a myriad of different armed groups have been operating, more than 8,000 rape cases have been reported. AFP PHOTO/GIANLUIGI GUERCIA

BARAKA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONG Salome Ectho (32, R) sits 11 December 2003 in her house in Kalundjia, near Baraka in the South Kivu Province in the DRCongo. Salome was raped allegedly by FDD rebels (Forces for the Defence of the Democracy) from Burundi: after the baby was born as a consequence of the rape, she was left alone by her family.. Since the start of the war in the DRC five years ago, aid workers say that in South Kivu Province alone, where a myriad of different armed groups have been operating, more than 8,000 rape cases have been reported. AFP PHOTO/GIANLUIGI GUERCIA

BUKAVU, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Two women, one holding her son, both rape victims, wait to be treated 07 November 2003 in one of the wards of the Bukavu's Panzi Hospital, in the South Kivu capitol Bukavu. Many women and young girls, victim of sexual violences, have had to wait the recent break in fightings in south Kivu to come for treatment in Bakavu. AFP PHOTO GIANLUIGI GUERCIA

Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo: Mukamusoni (R), 38, sits on a bed in the GESOM (Medical help and solidarity group) center for raped women 27 April 2006 in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In October 2004, she went to buy groundnuts with two of her children and three neighbors. They were attacked by six Rwandan rebels who killed her two children and the three neighbors before raping her. In eastern DRC rape victims are almost systematically rejected by their families and by society. Most rapes in this region which has seen numerous bouts of fighting and daily atrocities against civilians ever since the official end of the last DRC war three years ago, are carried out with great brutality and the perpetrators are mostly armed men — regular soldiers loyal to the government, dissident troops, Rwandan rebels, Ugandan rebels and local militias with no political agenda that act like bandits. AFP PHOTO/JOSE CENDON

KANYABIYUNGA, CONGO - MARCH 20: (AFRICA OUT) A woman speaks about her rape to a health worker March 20, 2006 in Kanyabiyunga, D.R. Congo. The woman alleges that she was raped by two members of the military while she was working in the fields. While there are currently no available statistics for sexual assaults against women, health workers believe that the crime is at epidemic proportions in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The crimes often go unreported due to women's fear of rejection by husbands as well as stigmatization by the greater community. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a country that loses an estimated 1,400 people per day due to war since 1998, is struggling to hold presidential elections this summer. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Zamuda Sikujuwa, 53, seen at her temporary home in Goma, Congo, on Friday, Feb. 20, 2009, was raped in 2003 by soldiers who killed her husband and two children. Rape has been used as a brutal weapon of war in Congo, where conflicts based on tribal lines have spawned dozens of armed groups amid back-to-back civil wars that have killed more than 5 million people since 1994. (AP Photo/T.J. Kirkpatrick)

Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo: TO GO WITH AFP STORY by Helen Vesperini - FILES - A picture taken 27 April 2006 shows Marie, 16, with her baby Prince, 4 months, in GESOM center for raped women in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. In eastern DRC rape victims are almost systematically rejected by their families and by society. This rejection comes on top of the physical injuries inflicted on victims, many of whom require lengthy reconstructive surgery. Most rapes in this region which has seen numerous bouts of fighting and daily atrocities against civilians ever since the official end of the last DRC war three years ago, are carried out with great brutality and the perpetrators are mostly armed men — regular soldiers loyal to the government, dissident troops, Rwandan rebels, Ugandan rebels and local militias with no political agenda that act like bandits. AFP PHOTO/JOSE CENDON

Counselor Hortance Tshoma, left, talks with unidentified rape victim at a hospital in Goma, Congo, Monday, Nov. 26, 2007. Five years after the end of an earlier war that drew in half a dozen African armies and ripped apart this giant nation, fighting has broken out again in eastern Congo, threatening regional stability and putting hundreds of thousands of people on the run. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Cecile Mulolo a psychologist councils an unidentified victim at the Panzi General Hospital for rape victims in Eastern Congo close to the town of Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday, June. 11, 2005. In Congo, for those who manage to survive the kidnappings and gang rapes that leave many women dead, the clinic is doing wonders to return whatever dignity is left. The clinic treats over 300 rape victims every month, often in various stages of deep psychological trauma. (AP Photo/Bryan Mealer)

Clinton Says DRC 'Worst Example of Man's Inhumanity to Women' [VOA News]

Earlier: War Crimes Against Women, Men, Continue Unabated Abroad

First up, Matthew Clark from the Christian Science Monitor has a piece about the work DC-based non-profit Women for Women International is doing to educate men about the consequences of rape to Congo and the women in their own lives. It includes a video segment incorporating interviews with the husband of a rape victim, a rapist and a police officer who spends her days trying to imprison rapists, only to see them bribe their way out of punishment. Women for Women International focuses on Congolese men not just because some of them are the perpetrators, but because they are the leaders of the society.

"While we are an organization that values investment in women, you have to engage larger communities," says Lyric Thompson, policy analyst at Women for Women. "In many places we work, the community leaders are men, so we use men's position of influence. Our program in Congo is a model for other programs. It involves a huge paradigm shift from approaching men as the perpetrators – the enemy – to engaging them as allies; as fathers, sons, brothers."

It's a similar approach to those used by groups in the U.S. like Men Can Stop Rape. Both groups seek to inculcate in men empathy for and identification with women, as studies show that rapists often don't think of their victims as people. Women for Women International's consciousness-raising workshops — which they and the participants refer to as "sensitization" as opposed to education — are led by men, as their experience is that listening to women talk about the effects of rape on them as individuals or as a group is less effective.

But sensitization has its limits in a society ruled by corruption. Maj. Honorine Munyole, who leads a police battalion focused on sexual assault, sees those limits every day.

Still, 217 suspected rapists were arrested last year, and 20 so far this year: But most escape justice by paying off judges. And, Munyole says, each of them threatened her and her staff: "We can't work after 6 p.m., when it starts getting dark. Sometimes they throw stones at us. They broke my glasses with a stone."

Munyole had to transfer her daughter to a new school after she was threatened with rape because of her mom's work. "The perpetrators need to be punished, but there are always calls to release them," she says.

Even the "sensitized" soldier of the story seeks to mitigate the horror of rape in the Congo, claiming that some of the women they raped were spies, or the wives of enemy combatants.

But even as men blame women — or even lack of access to consensual sex — on the one hand, reports of soldiers raping men continue to skyrocket. Jeffrey Gettlemen reports in the New York Times that even though most men don't seek treatment or counseling for rape unless there are medical complications, 10 percent of the June rape reports to the American Bar Association's sexual violence clinic in Goma alone were from men.

According to Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, United Nations officials and several Congolese aid organizations, the number of men who have been raped has risen sharply in recent months, a consequence of joint Congo-Rwanda military operations against rebels that have uncapped an appalling level of violence against civilians.

Aid workers struggle to explain the sudden spike in male rape cases. The best answer, they say, is that the sexual violence against men is yet another way for armed groups to humiliate and demoralize Congolese communities into submission.

That is, of course, in addition to raping women, killing civilians, and looting and destroying communities.

In Congolese society, there is such a taboo on homosexuality that male rape victims are ostracized if their violations are discovered — they're often called "bush wives" — despite the fact that their part in the act is non-consensual. The stigmatization not only hurts male victims' psychological recovery, it can be deadly.

Aid workers here say the humiliation is often so severe that male rape victims come forward only if they have urgent health problems, like stomach swelling or continuous bleeding. Sometimes even that is not enough. Ms. Van Woudenberg said that two men whose penises were cinched with rope died a few days later because they were too embarrassed to seek help. Castrations also seem to be increasing, with more butchered men showing up at major hospitals.

Analysts blame the uptick in violence on the Western-supported joint Congo-Rwandan military operations designed to root out the last of the foreign and rebel fighters.

But Adam Hothschild in the New York Review of Books traces rape as a weapon of war and subjugation back far further than the start of the recent conflicts.

Unimaginably horrifying as ordeals like Kamate's are, they are all too similar to what Congolese endured a century ago. Rape was then also considered the right of armies, and then, as now, was how brutalized and exploited soldiers took out their fury on people of even lower status: women. From 1885 to 1908, this territory was the personally owned colony of King Leopold II of Belgium, who pioneered a forced-labor system that was quickly copied in French, German, and Portuguese colonies nearby. His private army of black conscript soldiers under white officers would march into a village and hold the women hostage, to force the men to go into the rain forest for weeks at a time to harvest lucrative wild rubber. "The women taken during the last raid...are causing me no end of trouble," a Belgian officer named Georges Bricusse wrote in his diary on November 22, 1895. "All the soldiers want one. The sentries who are supposed to watch them unchain the prettiest ones and rape them."

Forced labor also continues today. The various armed groups routinely conscript villagers to carry their ammunition, collect water and firewood, and, on occasion, dig for gold.

Lovely that — again — the "women" were causing the trouble by being too pretty to deflect rape. Then, like now, it was looked on as a substitute for sex, and not as a crime of subjugation and violence.

Kamate, mentioned above, is a three-time rape victim who runs a reporting and counseling program and was, earlier this year, brutalized for her troubles. She was raped after Ugandan forces tortured, eviscerated and killed her husband in front of her and her daughters; she was forced to lie in his viscera for her own rape. She started a shelter for women and children of sexual violence called The Listening House, where she takes in victims, refers them for medical assistance and keeps track — since the judiciary is unenthusiastic about punishing them — of the perpetrators. Rapists aren't so keen on her work.

The last time Kamate herself was raped was on January 22 of this year. The attackers, members of the CNDP (Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple), a Tutsi-led rebel group that has since been integrated into the Congolese army in a new peace deal, were four soldiers who targeted her because they knew of the work she was doing. It is for fear of this happening again that she asks me not to use her real name. "After having raped me, they spat in my sex, then shoved a shoe up my vagina. When I arrived home I cried a lot and was at the point of killing myself."

Hothschild documents that the many amnesty efforts by the Congolese government to integrate rebel forces into the military has led the Congolese government to allow war crimes perpetrators, rapists and warlords into the halls of power and the officer corps, undermining efforts by groups like Women for Women International to sensitize men to the problems sexual violence can cause the entire nation.

In other words, Hillary Clinton — and the world — have a lot of work on their hands.

Confronting Rape As A Weapon of War [Christian Science Monitor]
Symbol of Unhealed Congo: Male Rape Victims [NY Times]
Rape of the Congo [New York Review of Books]

Related: Women for Women International
Men Can Stop Rape
Democratic Republic of Congo [American Bar Association]

Earlier: Rape In The Congo Is Not, And Never Was, About "Sex"

• Researchers have found that, among men convicted of consuming child pornography, viewing the images alone did not increase their risk of committing a "hands-on" sex offense in the next six years. Only 1% of the men studied went on to abuse another person. • Soldiers Gilbert Parker and Matthew Delia have been accused of filming and photographing female members of their unit while they were in the shower. If convicted, they could face up to 18 years behind bars. •  According to a report released by the charity Oxfam, there has been a surge in sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in the past six months. They found that there had been a dramatic increase in sexual assault since the government launched an offensive against the rebels in January. • Women prone to migraines are 74% as likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than those who have never suffered from migraines, a new study says. However, researchers still do not know why the two diseases are linked. • A Canadian court has found Dr. Juan Tejeda guilty of two counts of sexual assault. The psychiatrist was found guilty of assaulting one of his male patients during their sessions, which he claims was all part of the treatment. •  Scientists from Northwestern University have reportedly grown human eggs to near maturity in a laboratory. Cue conservative freakout. • A recent panel on women's role in Iran found that women are often the "front lines" in the Green movement and election battles. Despite what many assume, this is not a sudden change; for decades women have been part of quiet educational and organizational work, including networking through forums like blogs. •

[The Hague, Netherlands; May 19. Image via AP]

In this image released by the International Criminal Court, movie star and activist Angelina Jolie, right, is seen with chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, second from right, during a visit to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday May 19 2009. Jolie attended the trial of a Congolese warlord charged with using child soldiers. Jolie says in a statement released by the court Tuesday that the case against Thomas Lubanga is a "landmark trial for children" and pays tribute to the former child soldiers who travel to the court's seat in The Hague to testify. Lubanga, founder and former leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots political movement and its armed wing, has pleaded innocent to charges of recruiting and using child soldiers in tribal conflicts in 2002-2003. His is the first international trial to focus solely on child soldiers. The United Nations estimates up to 250,000 child soldiers still fight in more than a dozen countries. (AP Photo/Kim Vermaat/ICC HO)

• Madonna and Jesus Luz are reportedly planning a "commitment ceremony" in front of a rabbi at the Kabbalah Center in New York. Oooh, and a source says:

"Lourdes mocks him by calling him The Babysitter, because he is so young. She likes him, but also likes winding him up." Hee hee, "get off the babysitter!" [Mirror]

• Robin Wright Penn talked to Gotham magazine for the June issue — obviously before Sean filed for divorce — and said: marriage is "real work, but that's what you sign up for. And it pays off beautifully, it really does. The outcome, the reward is so great because then your love grows out of those hard times." Now Sean Penn is allegedly seeing Natalie Portman. So. [Page Six]
• Oprah! At Duke! Doing a commencement speech! And getting an honorary degree! She told students to "stand proudly in your own shoes while you help others stand in theirs." And! "One of the best ways to enhance your own life is to enhance somebody else's." [Breitbart]
• Oprah sent a film crew over to Blackburn, Scotland, to Susan Boyle's house. In the interview, which will be broadcast today, Boyle says: "I am not lonely. Everyone has been so nice. I've got millions of new friends now." [Telegraph]
• Paris Hilton spent a romantic week in Anguilla with boyfriend Doug Reinhardt, and updated her Twitter page constantly, with messages like "Love being in Love :) Best feeling in the world" and "Playing some golf together :) Golfing is fun" and "Loving life with my love" and "Lovers in paradise" and "My smooches from a secret island." Lots of pix of her kissing the dude, too. [Daily Mail]
• Christian Bale's part in Terminator Salvation was originally much smaller; the film's main character is not actually John Conner, played by Bale, but Marcus Wright, played by Sam Worthington. Director McG said the script had to be adjusted to "integrate" Bale more. [Hollywood Reporter]
• When Jennifer Lopez's daughter Emme was about three weeks old, she discovered a lump on the child's head. "We both got very nervous, very very nervous, and I just remember my heart sinking to my feet," Lopez says. "I looked at [Marc] and I said, 'You know if anything happens, I'm not going to be okay, you know that right?'" Emme was fine but Lopez was inspired to work with Childrens Hospital Los Angeles to help medical services to the less fortunate. "I started to wonder," Lopez said, "what if I couldn't afford a doctor, or receive the medicines, the procedures?" [Yahoo News via E!]
• Who were the stars at the White House Correspondents Dinner? Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, Eva Longoria Parker, Owen Wilson, Donatella Versace, Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Kerry Washington, Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick, Kenneth Cole, Jason Wu and "a smattering of mayors, diplomats and ambassadors." Donatella went in 2008 and says ths year "was much better." Then she told everyone to "get ooooout." [WWD]
• More from the WHCD! Rahm Emanuel seated next to Barbara Walters! Jon Hamm was there! Donatella Versace was hanging out with Jonathan Rhys Meyers! Political pundit Craig Crawford asked Jason Bateman a question! Ludacris had a "long talk" with Bill O'Reilly! [Politico]
• According to this report, at the WHCD, "No matter who's in the room, the Obamas outshine all challengers." [MSNBC]
• Noted political junkie Ben Affleck missed the WHCD! He was sick. [mediabistro.com]
• New York Mag: How did you deal with everyone in the room eating steak?
  Kate Hudson: Oh, I ate it.
  Stella McCartney: If you just give up meat one day a week, it has, like, the biggest impact environmentally.
  Kate: Well, I'm interested in change.
  Stella: You can do that! Unless you're like some kind of caveman carnivore...Or are you a cavewoman?
  Kate: Uh, me? I don't eat meat every day! Are you out of your mind? I'd have a heart attack!
  Stella: Jolly. So she's fine. She's good. [NY Mag]
• Re: Rihanna nude pix: This paper points out that she has many tattoos, none of which are see in the images purported to be her. [NY Daily News]
• Chris Brown says he didn't leak the Rihanna pix. [The Sun]
• All that cardio pays off between the sheets! A stripper says Michael Phelps "should get another Olympic gold for marathon love-making!" because "the sex lasted for about three hours." [NY Post]
• Miss California Carrie Prejean's lawyer sent a cease and desist letter to the website hosting her underwear pix saying she was underage and that one shot is a Photoshop manipulation; the site has responded: "Your client's publicity rights are substantially inferior to the right of the public to consider, discuss, agree and/or disagree with Ms. Prejean's actions and views. This is not conduct for which your client's consent is required." Oh snap. [TMZ]
• By the by, Carrie Prejean has recorded a phone message for National Organization for Marriage, asking people to donate money and sign a petition against gay marriage. [TMZ]
• And! Those "topless" pix? Taken well-after Carrie Prejean turned 18, not when she was 17, as she claims. [TMZ]
• Amy Winehouse had a crappy performance at the St. Lucia Jazz Festival, but the tourism minister says: "It's a shame it did not go better but we will bring her back in the future. We fully support her and hope she can get well. We have a lot of admiration for her." [The Sun]
• Swine flu be damned! Hugh Jackman will head to Mexico to promote Wolverine. [Mirror]
• Quentin Tarantino talks Inglourious Basterds, 70% of which is in French or German. "When you see the Germans speaking English with a German accent or sounding like British thespians, it just seems very quaint," he says. "That's one thing I don't want this film to have." Execs at the studio are not worried about the heavy use of subtitles: "Tarantino is a universal language," said one. [NY Times]
• Rachel McAdams has an environmental website, green is sexy, and says: "It's funny because when people come to my house they think everything is broken because I don't have anything plugged in. Guests are always saying things like: 'You need a new light bulb here' and I go around to the lamp and say: 'You've got to just plug it in!"' [Sydney Morning Herald]
• "WARNING: This may hurt your eyes... Beth Ditto strips down to her Spanx." Eh, fuck you, Daily Fail. [Daily Mail]
• Kim Kardashian is getting married! Eventually. "So many people rush into it and it's all this pressure because they see we've been together for a while," she says of beau Reggie Bush, whom she has been dating since 2007. "But, we're heading there. When we're ready, we'll know." [People]
• Boy George has been released from jail — early — and lost a few pounds during the four months he was in the slammer. [Daily Mail]
• This report says Paul McCartney and Nancy Shevell are secretly engaged but don't want to make a formal announcement lest Heather Mills make some kind of scene; McCartney's rep is quoted about the rumor, saying, "There is no truth in it whatsoever. They have not become engaged in any shape or form. It is utter nonsense." [Daily Express]
• Jerry Hall was writing an autobiography — being called an "explosive, tell-all account" of her life with Mick Jagger — but the book has been abandoned. Apparently the publishers were "disappointed" with the lack of Jagger dirt. In JERRY'S autobiography. There was, however, a lot of gossip about Carla Bruni… [Daily Mail]
• Bjork sang with the Dirty Projectors at "her smallest gig of the year" Friday night in a bookstore in NYC, in front of 300 people. [NY Times]
• "Serial dater Geri Halliwell's relationship gets serious as she meets aristocrat lover's parents." [Daily Mail]
• Nineteen year old JoJo Simmons, son of Rev Run Simmons of Run-DMC, was caught rolling a joint in his BMW and has been arrested and charged with a bunch of stuff. [UPI]
• Awww, on Mother's Day, Florence Henderson, aka Carol Brady, says, "I get mail from all over the world, 122 countries." [UPI]
• Shirley Jones, 75, who was the mom on The Partridge Family, may pose nude for Playboy. Her husband/manager says, "Mature women are relevant." [Page Six]
• Is Kylie Minogue gonna get hitched to her hot hot Spanish boyfriend? [Daily Mail]
• Nia Vardalos talks about becoming a mom of a toddler — overnight. She adopted a 3-year-old from a foster family agency and says her daughter "arrived without an instruction manual. I didn't know if she had a sleep schedule, food allergies – there wasn't even a note pinned to her shirt. She just walked in and looked up at me, like "got lunch?" [People]
• Barbra Streisand's personal assistant: Busted on drug charges in Malibu on Wednesday. Cops found cocaine, methamphetamines and a weapon in her car. Sometimes people who help people who need people need a bump. [LA Times]
• Label exec Irv Gotti says he is dropping Ashanti from The Inc. They haven't been on speaking terms for some time; in 2007 Gotti told Wendy Williams he and Ashanti had sex even though he was a married man. [MTV]
• Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell tore his calf muscle during the first song in a concert in Atlanta. He finished the show and then took an ambulance to the hospital; doctors are telling him to stay off the leg for a few days. [AP]
• If you have £500,000, you can buy David Beckham's "modest" childhood home in east London. [BBC News]
• Blind item! "Which married TV actor used the Correspondents Dinner as an excuse to meet up with his occasional mistress?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I wasn't familiar with rugby league beforehand and I don't profess to be an expert now. But everything I do know about rugby league, I know from Russell Crowe." — Rachel McAdams, who became friends with the Aussie while shooting State Of Play and even watched a game with him via satellite at three in the morning. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• "I wanted audiences to think, ‘This guy could easily rip someone's head off', so I worked hard to achieve that physique. I ran and had to lift very heavy weights. Every morning I'd get up and there was a part of me that just wanted to collapse, but you just have to keep going, it's full-on testosterone. When I'm training, I'm fairly obnoxious, I really make a big thing of it and there is a lot of noise. I play driving music like Metallica that I would never otherwise listen to. I consulted a bodybuilder and what I realized is that how you look is 30% how you train and 70% how you eat. No carbs after lunch. Six to eight chicken breasts a day, two at each sitting, 4,000 calories in total. I really enjoyed eating pizza at the end of the movie, trust me, and I had half a dozen beers on the final day of shooting." — Hugh Jackman, on achieving the look of Wolverine. [Mirror]
• "I knew I had to build a body, and I ate a lot of wheat and chain-smoked. That will do it! The woman had to feel like she really had been drinking for 25 years. Now, I have not been drinking for 25 years. I'm a relatively healthy individual, so the first thing I had to do was make myself look like I was super-wrecked, which took a bit of time." — Tilda Switon, on playing a "ferociously dedicated alcoholic" in Julia. [USA Today]
• "I see Amelia as that fast-talking, Katharine Hepburn type of woman. She's powerful and authoritative with some chutzpah. I am much more cautious, I don't take as many physical risks as her. I see her as a woman who's ahead of her time but also having fun, embracing that sense of adventure; it's about believing in yourself and your passions and making the most of the time that you have in life." — Amy Adams, on playing Amelia Earhart in Night A The Museum 2. [Daily Mail]
• "Jack is gun crazy. Over here you can buy real guns. I have this horrible thing: I can see this movie in my head where he's messing around and shoots himself in the foot. Sharon goes to me, ‘Oh darling, he's been surrounded by guns all his life.' But there is a difference between an air rifle and a 45-calibre pistol. I said to Jack, ‘If someone got into your house would you be willing to use the gun?' He said, ‘Sure.'" — Ozzy Osbourne. [Daily Express]
• "We visited Panzi Hospital where IMC is training doctors and which has become world-renowned because of its incredible work with thousands of women who are in need of surgical repair for a condition called 'fistula,' a severe gynecologic rupture. It's a frighteningly common condition in eastern DRC because of lack of obstetric care, and the epidemic of rape. Panzi Hospital's Founder and Director is Dr. Denis Mukwege, often referred to as "the savior of women " and was named by a prestigious Nigerian newspaper as African of the Year in 2008. He shared some of his experiences with us and as you can imagine, they are horrific. The youngest rape victim he has had to treat was a three year old girl." — Sienna Miller, who is in the Congo, working with International Medical Corps. [Huffington Post]

[Image by Steven Klein via W Magazine]

'Congo Chic': A Hint Of Glamour In The Shadow Of War [Huffington Post]
Congo Hairstyles Highlight Earthy Chic [GlobalPost]

As we’ve previously mentioned, the violence against women in Congo has reached unprecedented levels. Over the weekend, NPR interviewed Eve Ensler and Dr. Denis Mukwege about their work in helping to heal the wounds caused by the sexual attacks of soldiers. Mukwege, the founder of Panzi hospital in the Congo, said that first “we need to help them feel like human beings again before we can do any medical help.” Eve Ensler became involved with the crisis in Congo through several interviews she conducted with Dr. Mukwege in 2006. She continues to raise awareness about the violence in Congo, partially through V-Day, a global movement she founded to end violence against women. In this clip, Eve Ensler and Dr. Mukwege calls for help from Americans to help “put pressure on the political actors of the countries of the great lakes so there will be a political will to prevent these horrible crimes.” [NPR]

[People, AP , AP]

It's hard to understand and describe the situation in the country; the Tutsis — the tribe slaughtered in Rwanda during the genocide of 1994 — are leading an army against the government. 5.4 million people have died from war-related causes in the Congo since 1998, which one organization calls "the world’s deadliest documented conflict since WW II." And the majority of deaths were from "secondary" causes: malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition. Preventable, and treatable, under different circumstances. But Ashley Judd says that women and children "tend to be the most vulnerable and the most exploited and the most underserved and so there is probably a gender inequality factor that contributes to the lack of attention that's being given."

Judd's experiences in the Congo — especially when she met with the many, many women who had been brutally raped — had a real impact on her. "I was flat on my back for three weeks after," she says. (She went to a doctor and then a psychologist, who diagnosed her with "plain old straight-up grief.")

Judd is extremely articulate about the horrors she witnessed:

"[I sat with] a woman, who, through word of mouth, heard there was a clinic which could help a woman who had been raped. She had to figure out—in the midst of being stigmatized, in the midst of her physical agony, in the midst of incontinence and starvation—how to get herself walking, crawling to this clinic, only to find that it's overcrowded, because there are so many women, hundreds, if not thousands, just like her. And just imagine, this is a clinic that does nothing but genital reconstruction; […] The vagina will tear when being forced to accommodate either a rapist's anatomy or objects that are introduced: wood, rock, sticks, guns, bayonets. There will be perforation of the vaginal walls, perforation and ripping of the cervix, potentially, based on the extent of the penetration into the uterus. The wall between the rectum and vagina is ripped apart. The urethra, which goes to the bladder, is damaged. There is incontinence. The urine is constantly seeping out, because the muscles and mechanisms that hold the bladder intact are ruined; there is faecal incontinency, which of course can introduce faecal matter into the gut, which results in horrific infections."

Christopher Dickey says: "Inevitably, there are people who say that you are a voyeur." Responds Judd: "Let them come with me—Come 'voyeur' with me."

Ashley Judd’s Heart Of Darkness [Newsweek]
Ashley Judd's Congo Diary [TheCommunity]
Population Services International [Official Site]

What Gettleman finds during this trip, in addition to thousands more reported rapes, is a little bit of progress. Women are learning to tell the stories of their brutalization without shame, and to seek justice without fear. The police and the government are slowly realizing that these survivors are their mothers, their sisters, and their daughters and that the men that would sexually brutalize women to the point where they are left infertile, incontinent, permanently disabled or dead are more horrifying than their actions. Is it full scale change? No. With continuing violence of all types, no one expects an end to the rape epidemic any more than they expect a full end to the military conflict any time soon. But with people like Gettleman and playwright Eve Ensler, as well as organizations like the United Nations and the American Bar Association, attempting to draw attention to the issue and assist in pragmatic ways like helping women press charges, the police to investigate and, in Eve's case, establishing centers to provide counseling to victims, it's possible the tide of sexual violence is starting to ebb just a little. That's probably cold comfort to the women who have already been victimized, but it's a start to trying to make sure that there are some women in Congo who won't be.

Rape Victims’ Words Help Jolt Congo Into Change [NY Times]
Breaking The Silence [NY Times]
Rape Epidemic Raises Trauma of Congo War[NY Times]
Brutality in Congo [NY Times]

Earlier: In Congo, They Rape Three-Year-Olds
"Here At The Hospital, We've Seen Women Who Have Stopped Living"
Critics Find The Greatest Silence "Chilling" But "Frustrating"
"They Said If My Parents Didn't Give Them Money They Would Rape Me"