"They
Are Destroying The Female Species In Congo"
By Christine Schuler
Deschryver & Amy Goodman
16 October, 2007
Democracy
Now!
In a war that has already killed over 4 million people, Christine
Schuler Deschryver describes how women continue to be the victims of
"sexual terrorism" in the Congo. John Homes, the UN Undersecretary
General for Humanitarian Affairs, called the sexual violence in the
Congo “the worst in the world.”
Christine
Schuler Deschryver is a Congolese human rights activist. She lives in
Bukavu in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where
the violence against women is the worst. She came into our firehouse
studio last month. I asked her to describe the situation in her country.
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
In Congo, since ten years ago, the war started in ’96. After the
genocide in Rwanda in ’94, all the one who made the genocide arrived
in Congo and stayed there in camps. And in ’96, when the war started,
they went out from the camps and went inside the forest, and then they
started killing and raping the Congolese population. Three years ago,
we had the report from International Rescue Committee that already four
million people died in Congo, so it's one of the most
AMY GOODMAN: Four million?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
Four million. It was three years ago, in 2004. And now we are waiting
for the new report, I think, for beginning October. It will probably
be seven million or more, and nobody is talking about this silent war
that's going on in Congo, because the official war ended three years
ago. We had elections last year.
But there's another form
of very violent war with sexual terrorism going on in Congo. We are
talking about more than -- in all eastern part of Congo, more than 200,000
women, children and babies being raped every day, and now, right now,
I am talking to you, thousands of women are taken and children into
forests as slave sex. And today --
AMY GOODMAN: As sex slaves.
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
As sex slaves, yeah. And we are not -- I’m sorry just to talk
like this -- we are not talking about normal rapes anymore. We are talking
about sexual terrorism, because they destroyed, and they -- you cannot
imagine what's going on in Congo. Rape is a taboo, I think, in most
of African countries, so the women who accept to go to the hospital
or to be registered, it's because they don't have a choice anymore.
They have to go and be repaired, because we are talking about new surgery
to repair the women, because they’re completely destroyed. And
the ones who are just raped without big destruction, they don't talk
about rape, because the African -- the Congolese woman, she suffered
so much that she can support being raped without telling it, when she
doesn't need medical care.
AMY GOODMAN: But the medical
care you're talking about is what?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
Very, very heavy surgery. We have some women, for example , this Panzi
Hospital close to Bukavu town.
AMY GOODMAN: Bukavu is where
you live?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
Bukavu, yeah, it's where I live. It’s eastern part of Congo, just
at the border of Rwanda, five minutes walking. And we do have a hospital
that is very specialized in rape, because of --
AMY GOODMAN: This is the
Panzi Hospital?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
Yeah, Panzi Hospital. And -- I forgot the idea was.
AMY GOODMAN: And the women
who come to this hospital, what -- they have been raped, and they have
been physically --
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
Destroyed.
AMY GOODMAN: How? What is
the operation? What is the -- what is the operation that they go through?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
The operation -- today we are talking about repair surgery, because
these women have to be repaired. They are not just rape like usual rape,
but they put hot plastics inside the organs. They put woods, they put
bamboos, they put everything --
AMY GOODMAN: Guns?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
Yeah, guns. They shot inside the women, so they're completely destroyed.
We have some survivors in these hospitals since more than three years,
so every two months or every three months they have to be re-operated
again. And it's impossible, you know, to keep all these women in this
hospital. We don't have room anymore.
AMY GOODMAN: They suffer
from fistula. Can you explain what that is?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
I’m not a doctor. It's quite very difficult. But I know that when
they have fistula, it’s like, you know, instead of -- it’s
everything, urine and things, everything comes out.
AMY GOODMAN: They're completely
incontinent.
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
You cannot control. You’re out of control, so these people smell
very bad, and they have infections. And they cannot live, you know,
in communities. And they have to be repaired by heavy surgery.
AMY GOODMAN: So they can't
control their urine or their bowel movement, and so --
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
Not at all. So everything just go out when they're walking, when they're
sleeping. It's just --
AMY GOODMAN: They become
pariahs in their community.
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
Yeah, yeah, of course. And also, you have to know that in your community,
when they know you are raped, you are fired from the village. They stigmatize
you, and also the husband, if you survive, he will just ask you to leave,
most of the time with the children.
AMY GOODMAN: Who established
Panzi Hospital?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
Panzi Hospital is established by the community of a church, a church,
and lots of help we do have, it’s from European Union, UNICEF
and also a Swedish NGO. Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: And there, the
women come; they are operated on, and they live there?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
The most lucky ones who can reach Panzi Hospital, because, you know,
Congo is very -- it’s a huge country, so every time permanently
we can have 250 raped women, the worst of the worst one. And can you
imagine when a woman has to wait surgery? So we have to find houses
around the hospital for them to stay and wait -- and to wait for the
surgery. It's impossible for them to stay there. That's the reason we
really need to have a roof, to have a house, where this all -- all these
women can stay while waiting the operation.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the
Kabila government doing about this? Do they know?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
I think everybody -- in Congo, everybody know what’s going on,
but I think they didn't -- you know, they have problems everywhere,
and they did not know where to put priorities. And priority in Congo
was, of course, security, security of people, because now they're just
talking in Congo about new contracts, and especially with the Chinese
who are coming in Congo like -- my goodness, it's like in far west,
so people are just interested in signing this big mines contract and
everything, but nobody cares about the population. Even if we see the
budget the government has, there's nothing for the raped women, nothing
for all these people.
AMY GOODMAN: You took Mrs.
Kabila through the hospital, through Panzi Hospital?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
Mrs. Kabila came last October to visit the hospital, and, of course,
she promised to come back and help, but we are still waiting. As I said,
the problems in Congo, it's everywhere, so they have to know where priorities
is. As long as we have raped babies, raped grandmothers --
AMY GOODMAN: Babies.
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
Babies. The last baby who was raped, it was in April. She was ten months
old, so a very small baby. She was raped. The same gang raped the mother
during two weeks. Then they came to Bukavu into my office. I wanted
to bring the baby to the hospital, but she was so injured she died in
my arms. Ten months -- can you imagine that? And these people, these
women in Congo, are just begging for life, not begging for money, just
the right to live in their country safely.
AMY GOODMAN: Who is doing
this?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
The ones who are doing this, they are 60% -- because we made studies
-- it’s 60% is committed by these people who made genocide in
Rwanda, by Rwandans, the Hutu, the one who made the genocide. And, you
know, we talk to women, and sometimes these people who made this can
tell them, “You know, we died in ’94 in Rwanda, so now we
don't care about what we are doing.” So 60% of these rapes are
made by these random Hutu who made the genocide in their country.
AMY GOODMAN: There are supposedly
peace talks that are going on. Foreign ministers from the Great Lakes
countries failed to make progress in two days of talks in Uganda. Latest
news, no solution has been agreed on how to deal with the dissident
General Laurent Nkunda, whose forces were at war with the Congolese
authorities. How does this figure into what you are describing?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
You know, I’m just sorry to say that it's one more meeting, and
I think these meetings are just going on because of the international
pressure. The consequences, I’m sure, it will be nothing. Like
General Nkunda, he has an international mandate against him, but everybody,
every journalist who go to Goma -- Goma is north part of Bukavu -- can
go and interview him. He’s like a king there. He became a pastor.
So is that normal, this impunity?
AMY GOODMAN: How do these
rapes take place? What happens in a village? How do the women, how do
the girls, the babies get taken?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
They usually come at the end of the day or during the night. They just
come and circle the villages. Most of the time, they killed all the
men, and they take all the children, the girls, the mothers, the grandmothers
as the sex slaves into the forest and steal -- what can I say -- everything
they have, just maybe a goat or a chicken, and take them and use them,
use them as slaves, sex slaves and slaves to work for them in the forest.
AMY GOODMAN: Christine, how
did you get involved with this human rights work?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
I don't know if it was my destiny, but the first -- the first raped
woman was my best friend. She was like my sister. It was in ’98.
She was colored like me, so not black, not white, and no political position,
and she was -- she was raped in such a -- I cannot describe the violence,
because after she was raped by more than twenty men and after she was
killed, we found more than a hundred holes with knives in her body.
And the husband has to assist -- he was Canadian, and then they killed
her husband. So that was the first case in ’98. And then we thought
maybe it was an accident.
AMY GOODMAN: Where did she
live?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
In Goma, northern part of Bukavu. And then, in 2000, when they brought
me that little girl, she was eighteen months old.
AMY GOODMAN: What were you
doing at the time?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
I was working just like administration, you know, in my office. But
when they brought me this young child, eighteen months, with broken
legs, who was raped for two months, then I knew, my goodness, there's
a problem going on in Congo. And, of course, she died. It was impossible
to save her. And then, at that time, I said something is wrong in this
country, and the two solutions I had is just to take my suitcase, my
children, and leave this hell, or to try to change something in Congo.
And I chose the first one -- the second one, to try to make an international
lobby and to try to help these people the way I could, because it's
not so easy, you know, to find help. The problem in Congo is so huge.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you protect
yourself?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
I’m not really protecting myself, because I cannot -- I cannot
live with bodyguards around me. I know I’m in danger, because
the war I started against these people, I do receive lots of letters
to tell me that it will be my turn soon and things like that, but I
don't want to know what's going on around me. I’m just focusing
in helping people the way I can, like denouncing and trying to find
some funds to help. And I don't know, maybe the one is protecting me,
it’s my father, who died some years ago, or my best friend who
was killed, the first one, so --
AMY GOODMAN: How can people
help here?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
People can help me, first of all, being our ambassador, you know, talking
about the problem that's going on in Congo, because it's a silent war.
It's like silent. They are killing, they are raping babies and women
in Congo. It's to talk about -- you know, it's like Darfur. Darfur started
four years ago. I don't want to compare, you know, problems we have
in this world, but Congo, it started almost eleven years ago, and nobody's
talking about this femicide, this holocaust.
AMY GOODMAN: Femicide.
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
Yeah, it's a femicide, because they are just destroying the female species,
if I can talk like this, because can you imagine now -- in Africa, woman
is the heart of family. She is doing everything, babies, looking for
food, looking for the whole family. And now they're destroying this
resource.
Also, can you imagine with
this massive rape, AIDS? How will be the population, for example, in
ten years? And these children who are teenagers now, who just know violence,
seeing murdered the family, raped sister, the mother, what's the next
generation?
So, for me, the most important
thing now, it’s that the international community to realize that
there’s an holocaust, to wake up and try to change something,
because even the war we had in Congo, it was not -- it was like an African
world war, because so many countries were involved, but it was not a
Congolese war, Congolese against Congolese. It was some countries who
came and invaded Congo with the help, of course, of the international
community to come and steal everything out from Congo. And now we are
asking for the international community reparation, not for money, but
to be involved to try to find solution, Rwanda to take back these people,
these genociders, and also Congo to prioritize security of the population.
AMY GOODMAN: Has Mrs. Kabila
called you ever since October, coming to Panzi Hospital?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
She called me before I came here, and I think now she would like --
she asked me to think about what we can do concretely to help, to help
these women, because I think also she noticed that the pressure is also
coming from everywhere, because, first of all, the Congolese, and I
think the first lady and the president and the institution we have now,
they have to be enforced, even before the international community. They
have at least to show a sign to say we are there, we would like to change.
Maybe they can ask for help, but they have to show that they have this
will to change these things.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you afraid
to go back home, as you leave here to get on a plane?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
No, I’m not afraid at all to go back home. You know, even if I’m
here, my heart is in Africa, so it's like I’m just going home.
I will be happy to see my family there and also all these women at Panzi
Hospital. And, no, my place is in Congo, so I’m not afraid at
all to go back home.
AMY GOODMAN: If people wanted
to help Panzi Hospital?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
To help Panzi Hospital, we are just begging for a roof, so we would
like, with V-Day and UNICEF, to make what we will call the City of Joy,
just for about for a hundred women to have a roof, where to stay while
waiting for these heavy surgeries. Or we do have, for example, very
young raped mother, their mothers, they're thirteen -- twelve years
old, thirteen years old, they lost all the family, so they don't even
know where to go. Instead of going, you know, on the road and be prostitutes
to survive, we would like just to -- we are just begging to have enough
funds to build our City of Joy. We will work, of course, closely with
the hospital of Panzi, because if you see a woman -- for example, also
these very old women, when they're safe enough, you know, to go back
home, and they just trying not to leave the hospital because they are
there, they feel secure, it's really breaking our hearts. So priority
now in 2008, we would like to have this house for the survivors.
AMY GOODMAN: Where can people
get more information online?
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
V-Day. V-Day.
AMY GOODMAN: Eve Ensler’s
international organization, V-Day.
CHRISTINE SCHULER DESCHRYVER:
Eve Ensler, yeah, of course, of course. She came to Bukavu some months
ago. She's an amazing woman, and she was so moved at what she heard
and what she saw. When she heard, she could not even imagine that today
we can talk about cannibalism, having women witness how -- you know,
how they ate their children, the food they were cooking, like, every
day for them was their own children, and some horror you cannot even
talk about. So she was moved, and I think she really wanted also to
move the entire world for them to try to change something in Congo.
AMY GOODMAN: Christine Schuler
Deschryver, Congolese human rights activist, she lives in Bukavu in
the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the violence
against women is the worst. I spoke to her when she came to New York.
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