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#126250 - 08/23/07 05:17 PM Barbarized women--this matters to all of us
mrs_madness Offline
Member

Registered: 09/29/05
Posts: 217
Loc: Moscow
From today's Associated Press. We need to care more about all women everywhere. Read this. Extremely disturbing. Women's voices everywhere matter.



'Vagina Monologues' author campaigns against sexual violence in Congo

Thu Aug 23, 4:29 AM



By Verena Dobnik

NEW YORK (AP) - Eve Ensler has just returned from hell.


That's how the author of "The Vagina Monologues" describes her trip to Congo, where thousands of women have been sexually attacked and mutilated in the African country's civil war. The 54-year-old playwright has joined with the United Nations in a campaign against what a UN expert called the worst violence against women in the world.


"In Congo, you're talking about a situation where Africans are hurting Africans, black people are hurting black people," Ensler said in an interview from Italy.


"And it's harder to make people care. People say: 'Oh, it's just Africa."'


"And nobody is held accountable."


She spent weeks at the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu in eastern Congo where Dr. Denis Mukwege is helping to repair the broken bodies of war victims. The hospital sees about 3,500 women a year suffering fistula and other severe genital injuries.


A UN human rights expert said last month the sexual atrocities in Congo's volatile province South Kivu extend "far beyond rape" and include sexual slavery, forced incest and cannibalism.


From Geneva, Yakin Erturk called the situation the worst she had ever seen as the global body's special investigator for violence against women. She blamed Ugandan-backed militias that occupy Congo's Ituri region, as well as Congo's armed forces and national police.


Erturk will report her findings in September to the UN Human Rights Council.


"How do I tell you of girls as young as nine raped by gangs of soldiers, of women whose insides were blown apart by rifle blasts and whose bodies now leak uncontrollable streams of urine and feces?" Ensler asks in an article in the September issue of Glamour magazine.


The International Criminal Court in the Hague is now considering indictments in connection with the atrocities. The court's investigation started in 2004, instigated by Congo's President Joseph Kabila.


Ensler is asking people to write letters to Kabila, demanding he take stronger action to stop the attacks. Hundreds of letters already have arrived at the United Nations, which is forwarding them to the African leader, Ensler said.


She is working to raise both awareness and funds for the women through the United Nations Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict and through V-Day, a global movement she founded to stop violence against women and girls.


V-Day was inspired by the overwhelming audience response to "The Vagina Monologues," an award-winning play in which actors share anecdotes about their bodies that reveal heartbreaking and hilarious glimpses of their souls.


The V-Day movement has raised over US$40 million in the last decade, funding thousands of community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Kenya, Egypt and Iraq, as well as the United States.


The money Ensler helps raise for Congo will go to Panzi hospital and to establish a safe haven called "City of Joy."


Her journey to Congo in May was inspired by a conversation she had with Mukwege last December in New York City, where he spoke about his work - "sewing up women's vaginas as fast as the mad militiamen are ripping them apart," as Ensler describes it.

Their friendship "began with my rusty French and his limited English," she wrote.

"It began with the quiet anguish in his bloodshot eyes, eyes that seemed to me to be bleeding from the horrors he'd witnessed."

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#126251 - 08/23/07 11:36 PM Re: Barbarized women--this matters to all of us [Re: mrs_madness]
chatty lady Offline
Writer

Registered: 02/24/04
Posts: 20267
Loc: Nevada
This is someting I have seen on an Oprah show some time ago and it is horrifying. I can't believe that the United nations hasn't done something by now. What the hell are they waiting for? Why is it always the MEN who are the abusers and the poor WOMEN the abused? Sick!!
_________________________
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#126252 - 08/24/07 01:12 AM Re: Barbarized women--this matters to all of us [Re: chatty lady]
Princess Lenora Offline
Member

Registered: 11/11/04
Posts: 3503
Loc: Colorado
How courageous of Ensler to enter. She has taken her art (play) and made a mission. This is horrifying. by the way, I highly recommend every women see the DVD version of the Vagina Monologues if you can't see the "play." Selma Hyack (sp) speaks of "My Short Skirt" excellent, moving, troubling, enlightening, courageous work Eve Ensler did. And now she leaves her safe NYC apartment for Africa. A heroine.

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#126253 - 08/24/07 02:05 AM Re: Barbarized women--this matters to all of us [Re: Princess Lenora]
yonuh Offline
Member

Registered: 06/14/06
Posts: 2447
Loc: Arizona
This is horrifying - good for Eve. I was lucky enough to see the Vagina Monologues live on stage here at the University. My partner and I loved it. I laughed and cried and laughed some more. I highly recommend it!
_________________________
Well-behaved women rarely make history. - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
http://ruthrainwater.wordpress.com/
http://newbeginningsgratitudejournal.wordpress.com/
http://sablewings.wordpress.com/

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#126254 - 08/24/07 08:11 PM Re: Barbarized women--this matters to all of us [Re: yonuh]
Daisygirl Offline
Member

Registered: 08/25/05
Posts: 1052
Loc: Ohio
I have no confidence that the UN has the power to stop these atrocities in Africa or anything else:
1st warning - Stop or we'll embargo you
2nd warning - We really mean it
3rd warning - We really really mean it
4th warning - We really really really mean it this tme.
And so it goes.........
They'll leave it up to the Americans to clean it up eventually.
_________________________
Laura

laurapoplin.com

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#126255 - 08/24/07 08:40 PM Re: Barbarized women--this matters to all of us [Re: Daisygirl]
mrs_madness Offline
Member

Registered: 09/29/05
Posts: 217
Loc: Moscow
Quote:

They'll leave it up to the Americans to clean it up eventually.




Like Rwanda? Where America sat back and did nothing for years during one of the worst episodes of genocide in the 20th century?

Actually I floated that copy to see what kind of response American women would give. I was kind of thinking that maybe we here at BWS might get it together to take up a worthy cause and show some support to save some other women in dire need on the other side of the world. If nobody pays attention and everbody always does nothing expecting somebody else to do something, then nothing will ever change.

I'm still pondering how I might contribute. And I'm fairly stumped. I want to do something but have no idea how I might contribute. I was kinda hoping somebody here might throw out a brilliant suggestion as to how we/I might make a difference in these women's lives. I found the article almost too heartbreaking to even read.

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#126256 - 08/25/07 02:22 AM Re: Barbarized women--this matters to all of us [Re: mrs_madness]
Princess Lenora Offline
Member

Registered: 11/11/04
Posts: 3503
Loc: Colorado
Hello MM, I don't know of a brilliant suggestion. Where do we start? Aside from a few really enlightened, interested, and compassionate groups, such as Dotsie and BWS, let me say that sexual abuse, domestic violence, ritual abuse, religious abuse, does not get the "right kind" of attention in the USA. Believe me, I and others beat our brains out trying to reach out on the above topics. What is the "right kind" of attention? Money. What gets to the money? Celebrities. So, another words, if/when there is a celebrity willing to take on and speak out about a cause, then maybe the ills of society will get attention. I am not politically brilliant, perhaps there in lies my trouble, but I think politics and how money funds the politics and what political cause funds what social cause is what brings people to action. I may be really off base, but I wanted to respond so that your concerned voice did not go overheard.

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