What should be done about rape in the Congo?

Arm the women?

The mass organized rapes are largely a component of warfare. Let the women fight back.

@incendiary_dan Not all warfare, not by a long shot. Using rape as a tactic of war (which is different from rape being something that happens in war, but not as a planned way to inflict pain) is not part of most wars.

GIRL, if you find out a way any of us can personally help, let me know, because this has been on my mind ever since I saw The Greatest Silence earlier this year.

Dan is pretty much right…the only way to stop that sort of violence is with violence in return. I read about a woman who was developing some sort of condom the women could put inside their vagina which has extremely painful barbs on the inside of it (the outside will not hurt the woman in the slightest), tearing the man’s penis and disarming him for long enough for the woman to pick up her gun and blast him away.

The women must be trained in self-defense, and in believing that they are just as strong and powerful as men. When women can pick up themselves up and fight alongside the men, and the men learn that they cannot get away with this, it is sure to subside.

@incendiary_dan These men don’t just rape…they rape while making the women watch their sons and husbands and fathers be tortured and killed. These men force women to have sex with their own sons at gunpoint, just to humiliate.

Like Malcolm X said, by whatever means necessary.

@Ladymia69 You’re talking about Rape-aXe.

@MyNewtBoobs The thing about those is that the men would hear of them and get wise to them after a bit, so there would have to be several methods of somehow destroying the penis through rape, so that the penis cannot be used as a weapon any longer.

@MyNewtBoobs Rape is actually a sickeningly common component of all warfare. Sad. But I was talking specifically about the situation in the DRC. The mass rapes are a tactic specifically formulated. It’s sick shit, and I say these oppressed people need valid ways to fight back. And as Arundhati Roy recently said “Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? People have the right to resist annihilation.”

@incendiary_dan Ok, I think we’re saying the same thing, and yet your disagreeing with me. I know rape happens in all wars; rape as a tactic of warfare – ie. gathering the entire village together and raping the village chief’s wife and daughters in front of everyone – is not the same thing, and it is not part of most wars. It’s the difference between premeditated murder and a crime of passion.

@MyNewtBoobs We’re not saying the same thing. I am, in fact, stating that organized rape is a part of most warfare. This is less true in industrialized countries, but is still true overall.

I respect you guys’ rights to argue over an issue based on semantics, but this is definitely one of the more discussion-worthy topics I have seen on Fluther, and a truly productive talk about what could be done could be really beneficial. I would hate to see it ride off of the rails because of semantics.

As far as these “make a donation to help” groups and websites – I don’t trust those as far as I could throw them, so I never use them unless someone belonging to the organization who is in a high position can prove to me where the money goes and how it is used. I think ideas and willing people are what is needed here.

So what do you guys think of my seedling of a plan? :O

@Ladymia69 That’s why I stopped arguing… I don’t want it to go off the rails into semantics. I like it. I mean, I like known organizations like the American Red Cross. It’s the ones that don’t necessarily exist beyond their webpage that I get really wary of. And I don’t think most online petitions do a damn thing – I think that there are some petitions that are organized by large groups who plan to do something with the petition, and it’s just disseminated through the internet, but the vast majority are useless.

The development, funding, training, and implementation of sexual self-defense and physical self-defense is direly needed.

@Ladymia69 Indeed. But the women.. not all of them are against it. And even when they are against it, they still join in the shaming of other women who have been raped. How do you get the women to fight a war they aren’t already dying to fight?

Let the ones who are ready to fight back pick up the gloves. Help those women fight back, and give them the resources they need. The ones who attack eachother, well, that is an unfortunate thing that seems to be a global phenomena. Women will always fight, belittle, and hurt eachother. Not sure if that has to do with men, or if it is something in our innate being (maybe, in the most crude terms, having to do with us competing for men or something).

Can’t remember who said it, but someone stated that a nation, or country, is only as strong and healthy as its women. As long as women are treated so hideously in Africa, Africa itself will never heal.

Wish more people would get in on this discussion…but I think they would rather talk about more lighthearted things!

Fact from fiction, truth from diction. What should happen or need to happen will never happen. As hard as it is to accept, nothing will happen, first off is because it is Africa. There is no strategic or monetary incentive there for Uncle Sam. Most of the world will not act unless Uncle Sam is leading the way. The only interest the US would have in Congo is to keep them on a leash well enough that they oppose any fingerprint of Al Qaeda there. Maybe blame Al Qaeda for the rapes the US will rush in there. A study say there is more than ⅓ of a million women raped in the Congo every year, that was way more than the 50 or 70k estimated rapes in the Bosnian War, but the media was all over the rapes there and the world was in an uproar; after all it was Europe. Dismiss it if you will but how else can you see it?

As @incendiary_dan say, maybe the only way to slow it down before you can stop it, is to arm the women. Who will provide the weapons and training? The US won’t do it as mentioned before and if Uncle Sam is not involved he ain’t giving no guns or manpower. The fear that Al Qaeda will get there hands on it is more important than 1,000s of women and young girls being raped; after all, it is not Europe.

A booby-trap ”rape condom” might work for a while but then the woman will have a gun to her head and an order to take it out or get shot, or they might threaten to shoot her kids, husband or parents if she don’t, then after she complies and they brutally rape her shoot her for having it.

It has gone on so long it is probably part of the culture, “if you are big enough and strong enough to take it from a woman or girl, you take it.” As debase and tragic as it is, little will happen because the US don’t care, and if the US don’t care others will care little also.

No one is going to get involved because there is nothing to benefit from it. We are not a selfless species

As with @Ladymia69 if anyone has any real ways people outside of the DRC can do something to help, please post. I would help in anyway I could. I have had female students from this area of the world and while it is not something I have every asked them to discuss out of respect for their privacy, I am aware and go out of my way to try to make sure they get any academic support that might help them complete their studies and move on.

I hear the comments that there is nothing anyone can do, I would just rather believe that even in a small way, those who want to help can in some way. Are their organisations that are trustworthy? Or how can we find out which organisations to support?

In many parts of Africa, a Kalashnikov costs around $20. It would only take a few volunteers to show all the women in a village how to use one (ease of use and durability were what they were designed for), and do basic lessons in hardening positions. When the militias run through, they’d be met with something they probably wouldn’t want to deal with.

Funny thing is, I was almost involved in starting an organization to do just that: collect funds to arm poor women and train them.

The problem is that, like @Hypocrisy_Central mentioned, there’s no incentive for the U.$. to step in. More than that, is that the civil wars that cause much of the rapes in the DRC are what allows Western companies to cheaply buy conflict minerals, chief among them coltan. This means that not only will the U.$. military not step in, but they or a private corporate army (Blackwater/Xe) could be involved in stopping anything that threatens the coltan supplies. Which means we then would need an army even better prepared than mercenaries.

So, can you see why this didn’t get off the ground? I’m willing to fight, kill, and potentially die to save a bunch of innocent people, but not if it won’t do shit for the situation.

@Bellatrix One thing that you can do to support them is to stop buying new cell phones. One of the main component materials necessary for our phones is the coltan I mentioned above, and to my knowledge the DRC is the primary, maybe only, source for that mineral.

@incendiary_dan Once again, you are an astounding resource where it really counts. You are the only person besides us ladies on this thread who even tried to speak of some viable help (because for there to be a solution would take a miracle). I applaud you for that.

@Hypocrisy_Central I guess you hit home with the reality of the situation. No one gives a shit. The difference between the furor over Bosnia and the impassiveness over this African nightmare is obviously this: Who cares about a lot of black people? Deep down in the recesses of the indo-european mind, blacks/africans have always been established as inferior/animalistic/not as important. The white men in the US will cry that it is not fiscally or politically possible to help, but their subconscious screams complete indifference to anyone of African origin. It’s almost like it is in their DNA.

Of course, as I say this, I am generalizing, and not mentioning the many whites who do care and try to make some sort of effort.

@Ladymia69 Yep, that’s the sad state of opinion Europe has had for Africa (and basically everywhere else) for the past 500 years.

@Ladymia69 Who cares about a lot of black people? Deep down in the recesses of the indo-european mind, blacks/africans have always been established as inferior/animalistic/not as important. The white men in the US will cry that it is not fiscally or politically possible to help, but their subconscious screams complete indifference to anyone of African origin. Overall I would have to say it is an indigenous of Europe for centuries. Not every individual though. History has record everywhere Europeans have gone they tried to consume the culture there, be it the Native Americans, the Mayans, the Incas, Africans, Pacific Islanders, etc. The only concern about Africa now is to keep Al Qaeda out so any aid is very much a bribe to keep them in line and keep them busy squabbling over who gets the beads Uncle Sam is tossing from the float. Part of the reason Congo is such a mess is because governments give money and aid without accountability. You have some one come from a dirt hut and gets elected leader where he has millions of dollars at his fingertips, and you expect it not to be like a kid in a candy store? He and his cronies will start living the high life of aid money, which means you and I are paying for his fancy villa and new Benz. As @ incendiary_dan so long as there are resources and Blood Diamonds to get cheap no one will rock the boat. The Africans themselves are too disjointed and too poor to try to influence a move, they also don’t want trumped up accusations that they are terrorist and be invaded with the blessing of the UN.

Private citizens can take up a collection and buy or get partially donated a boat load of Glock 9mm and have volunteers at the ready to show the women how to have their own security force but that is doomed from the start. The officials over there will whine that it is an attempt to arm a rebel army and the US will arrest the do-gooders on some breech of law. They will confiscate the guns, none will ever see the hand of a potential victim and the US will still do nothing but sent the damn checks.

I read somewhere there was a region in South Africa that spiked in rapes after apartheid fell, anyone caught attempting or was shown to have raped a woman was hauled to the town square. All the women who wanted in, were handed rods and the perp had to run a gauntlet of them, if they could lay a lick on him, they were free to do so. If he manages to keep his footing and make it to the end without getting beat to death, then he got his trial; maybe they need something like that.

Of course, even if there were retribution, there would be one important thing to remember: those who resist and fight back have a higher rate of survival than those who go along and accept it. It was true of the Jews who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, even when only %5 of them survived.

In situations where there is no organised government and the rule of law has broken down the policing and justice system must be re-established as soon as possible, with aid money being used to train people. This is the foundations on which a nation can be built and with crimes being dealt with within the justice system. If people are being subjected to inhumane conditions, slave labour and human rights violations, they are going to react against this by rebelling and once a rebellion breaks out then it’s very hard to control that element of the population who have wanted to rape but the rule of law has prevented them from doing so. We in the western world have been a major contributer to this problem in DRC especially with our lust for diamonds and precious metals to adorn our bodies and make our technology work.

Giving arms to the underdog never works and contributes to the chaos – just look at Iran/Iraq, we have funded/armed one side then the other then the first and now they both hate the western world. Probably always did. How can you advocate arming women, having them break the law, such as it is, because they have been subjected to a criminal act such as rape? We are lucky in our western world that we have a justice system that will attempt to sort out the messes that we make but these people do not. In giving them the means to become just as bad as their aggressors will lead only to more and different crimes being committed against them. Fight the cause, not the effect.