Congo

Views of the Kony2012 campaign launched by Invisible Children (IC) have drastically fallen after its initial premiere on 5 March and the subsequent backlash. On 16 March, IC founder and star of the video Jason Russell was back in the news after having a breakdown in San Diego. The rhetorical space for advocacy around the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been eroded. The work of IC, in its own right, has largely been discredited and oversimplified.

It is safe to say that on March 14, 2012, history was made in the realm of international justice. On this day, Thomas Lubanga, former head of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UCP) and its former military wing, the Patriotic Forces of the Liberation of Congo, was convicted in the International Criminal Court (ICC). Charged with war crimes, including conscripting and enslaving child soldiers, Lubanga will now face sentencing in the court.

Originally scheduled to take place on 28 November, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)’s legislative and executive elections bled into the 30^th following logistical issues in delivering ballots, widespread irregularities, and long lines on the first day of polling. With over 30 million voters, thousands of polling stations, and lack of basic infrastructure, DRC’s elections were a logistical nightmare.

A population-based assessment completed recently by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that nearly 40% of women and 23% of men in three Eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had been subjected to gender based violence (GBV) since conflict reignited in the mid-1990s. Though some INGOs operational in the region have questioned the methodology of the survey, no one has questioned the existence of GBV against men.

It is no secret that in this new era of intra-state conflict, rape has increasingly become used as weapon of war. Sadly, the women of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) know this all too well. This past week a new report was released in the American Journal of Public Health, which takes an in-depth look at rape statistics in the DRC. The article reports some incredibly staggering numbers.

I am going to start this post by making this bold statement: I believe we are currently standing on the verge of an exciting moment in history in the realm of peace and conflict. Recent events have left me with a sneaking suspicion that the women of the world have the opportunity right now to redefine how we as an international community understand peace and conflict. They are beginning to step up and take charge in conflict situations, inspiring what might be considered a revolution in the peacekeeping community.

For the past ten months I have dedicated countless hours of my time researching the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that has been shaking up the country (especially its women) for over a decade now. I was first drawn to this subject through this year’s campaign of VDay, an organization that works to end the violence against women around the globe. It was founded by Eve Ensler, who wrote the “Vagina Monogogues” and I participated in this year’s events by directing another one of Mrs. Ensler’s plays entitled “Any One Of Us: Words from Prison” that talks about the violence female prisoners have to encounter.