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| January 12, 2010 |
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/ten-radical-acts-for-cong_b_418... <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/ten-radical-acts-for-cong_b_418425.html>
‘Sexual terrorism was imported into the DRC like a plague about 12 years ago years ago, after a 1996 military operation know as Operation Turquoise - a plan supported and implemented by the international community which allowed murdering Hutu militias of Rwanda (FDLR) into Eastern Congo. Since then, this sexual terrorism has been sustained by these and other parties interested in the minerals, (coltan, gold, tin), that are serving you. Like a plague, this rape and sexual violence has spread infecting the Congolese Army and even the UN peacekeepers who are there to "protect" the women. Put pressure on the international community to remove all outside militias. They brought them there, they are responsible for getting them out.
Read the latest U.N. human rights reports:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/world/africa/13iht-congo.1.18648435.ht... <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/world/africa/13iht-congo.1.18648435.html> )
Visits these sites:
AFEM
http://englishafemsk.blogspot.com/
Friends of Congo
http://www.friendsofthecongo.org/
Read the recent Human Rights Watch reports:
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/12/14/you-will-be-punished-0
Read the history:
http://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905
We know what is happening in the DRC. Now is the time for action.
Support the local groups and campaigns that already exist, that have existed. They need your support to continue to exist. Fight to make sure the money headed for Eastern Congo actually gets to the women on the ground - the grassroots groups who need it most like AFEM, the South Kivu Women's Media Association, Panzi Hospital in Bukavu and Heal Africa Hospital in Goma, women's collectives like I Will Not Kill Myself Today and AFECOD, and the Women's Ministry and Laissez l'Afrique Vivre.
Visit https://secure.ga4.org/01/drcongo to donate.
Write to President Obama and ask him to make finding a non-military solution to the war in Congo a priority in his foreign policy agenda:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/
Educate yourself about how conflict minerals are illegally and inhumanely pillaged from the Congo and make their way into your cell phones and the computer you are using to read this post right now. Demand that electronics companies alter their mining and trade policies so that conflict-free minerals are used in our electronics. Until this happens, we all literally have blood on our hands.
Investigate where and how your electronics companies are purchasing their materials. As a consumer, demand that they use conflict-free minerals in their parts.
Feel what your sister, mother, grandmother, daughter, wife, girlfriend would be feeling if she were being gang raped or held as a sex slave for years or if her insides were destroyed by sticks and guns and she could never have another baby.
Eve Ensler, a playwright and activist, is the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls.
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