Congo-Angola Mass Rapes Draw Scant Notice
source: http://womensenews.org/story/war/101122/congo-angola-mass-rapes-draw-scant-notice
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- Womens_eNews
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Some mass rapes attract more outrage than others. Two recent atrocities-- separated by just a couple of months--suggest U.N. peacekeeping jurisdiction can decide the degree to which the violations of hundreds of girls and women are noticed.
Gang rapes of nearly 500 women in remote villages in North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo over the summer drew enormous international media, followed by a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council. They created a centerpiece for 10th anniversary discussions of U.N. Resolution 1325, which commits world governments to integrate women's special interests in peace and security negotiations.
But when approximately 650 women and girls were raped in late October--about 800 miles away, along the Democratic Republic of Congo's western border with Angola--no such international attention followed. A Google news search produces 21 viewable articles and wire alerts, roughly one-tenth those associated with the earlier North Kivu rapes.
Many of the women raped in the border attacks were among a group of 7,000 Congolese expelled from Angola in October, according to the International Committee for the Development of Peoples, a Rome-based humanitarian aid organization best known by its Italian abbreviation, CISP.
Congolese victims said Angolan security guards repeatedly raped them while they were held in deportation areas for weeks in cage-like enclosures, Antonio Mangia, protection coordinator of CISP, said in a recent phone interview.
Severine Autesserre is a professor at Barnard College, in New York City, and author of the 2010 book "The Trouble With the Congo: Local Violence and International Peacebuilding." In a recent interview, Autesserre said U.N. officials feared the mass rapes in North Kivu would be compared to the "Kiwanja incident" two years earlier when hundreds of people were massacred near the U.N. peacekeeping base.
"So they felt threatened by the charges that they had not done their job properly and had to be proactive. With the rapes on the Angola border, no one is thinking about blaming the U.N., because it is not their job to protect those refugees," Autesserre said.
Read the full story at Women's eNews http://womensenews.org/story/war/101122/congo-angola-mass-rapes-draw-scant-notic...
Gang rapes of nearly 500 women in remote villages in North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo over the summer drew enormous international media, followed by a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council. They created a centerpiece for 10th anniversary discussions of U.N. Resolution 1325, which commits world governments to integrate women's special interests in peace and security negotiations.
But when approximately 650 women and girls were raped in late October--about 800 miles away, along the Democratic Republic of Congo's western border with Angola--no such international attention followed. A Google news search produces 21 viewable articles and wire alerts, roughly one-tenth those associated with the earlier North Kivu rapes.
Many of the women raped in the border attacks were among a group of 7,000 Congolese expelled from Angola in October, according to the International Committee for the Development of Peoples, a Rome-based humanitarian aid organization best known by its Italian abbreviation, CISP.
Congolese victims said Angolan security guards repeatedly raped them while they were held in deportation areas for weeks in cage-like enclosures, Antonio Mangia, protection coordinator of CISP, said in a recent phone interview.
Severine Autesserre is a professor at Barnard College, in New York City, and author of the 2010 book "The Trouble With the Congo: Local Violence and International Peacebuilding." In a recent interview, Autesserre said U.N. officials feared the mass rapes in North Kivu would be compared to the "Kiwanja incident" two years earlier when hundreds of people were massacred near the U.N. peacekeeping base.
"So they felt threatened by the charges that they had not done their job properly and had to be proactive. With the rapes on the Angola border, no one is thinking about blaming the U.N., because it is not their job to protect those refugees," Autesserre said.
Read the full story at Women's eNews http://womensenews.org/story/war/101122/congo-angola-mass-rapes-draw-scant-notic...
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twohawks
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The lack of awareness about the Congo and our hand in what is happening there is beyond appalling.
When you post these news bits, please consider adding them to more groups and with more tags.
Thank you for posting ;^)
- 1 year ago
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twohawks
