Good Enough for Us...

Article 3

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Does this one seem a little familiar? How different is this really from "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" One of the reasons that line from the US Declaration is so popular is that in those seven words, so much is encompassed. What shocks me is that we claim these as rights in the US - they are in fact "self-evident" - but yet on the whole we don't react very much when we realize others do not have these rights.

Because Article 3 encompasses so much, there are so many current events that demonstrate how many people don't have these rights (for example, genocide in Darfur, conflict in Somalia, and political oppression in Burma). So I will start with one that particularly effects me: sexual violence against women.

I went to a panel discussion tonight that was raising awareness of the epidemic of rapes in the Democratic Republic of Congo. What struck me about the panel was that I was the only male audience member there. Granted, that could be just because of how the event was advertised and which groups were notified. But even looking beyond this event, the response and efforts of ending the sexual violence and getting help for those already affected seems to be coming more from women's groups. While there seems to be a lot of ambivalence to go around, I still can't fathom how this could possibly be an issue that affects one gender more than another. Everyone needs to step up and get more involved in this issue, but men especially need to be more outraged.

For those of us that are outraged, the effort that was announced tonight is a great place for us to start working to end the rapes in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The group is called Congolese Women's Campaign Against Sexual Violence in DRC. This effort allows Congolese women to tell us what they need - giving a voice to those involved. They have a website that can be read in English, French and Swahili, and they are asking for people to sign their petition. Hopefully, that is a first step among many we can take.

Women in Conflict

I have come to realization lately that I am a numbers person. In many aspects of my life, I realize that it is numbers that really affect me. This might explain why I am most passionate about human rights issues as they relate to conflict situations. When you hear that 800,000 people were killed during the genocide in Rwanda or 400,000 killed and 2.5 million have been displaced due to the genocide in Darfur, it shocks my conscience.

When I read the October 7th article in the NY Times about a "rape epidemic" in Eastern Congo, again is was the sheer numbers that moved me.

According to the United Nations, 27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone, and that may be just a fraction of the total number across the country.

[Edit]

Malteser International, a European aid organization that runs health clinics in eastern Congo, estimates that it will treat 8,000 sexual violence cases this year, compared with 6,338 last year. The organization said that in one town, Shabunda, 70 percent of the women reported being sexually brutalized.

The article goes on to describe hospitals crowded with victims of rape, of doctors performing 6 surgeries per day for victims of rape, and sending women home early because more victims show up every day.

Don't worry, I am not a robot. What affects me about the numbers is knowing that for each person represented in those numbers, there is one story of terror and unimaginable pain. The NY Times article linked to above gives some stories from the victims. The true horror is knowing that there were 27,000 such stories in South Kivu Province, and any one of those should make us rise up and do what it takes to prevent any more.

The truth though is that while these numbers are very shocking, it is not the only place this is happening. Conflict zones in Columbia and Darfur and neighboring Chad are dealing with this. And Sierra Leone, Uganda, and the former Yugoslavia were witness to it (Amnesty International has a good web page on the issue).