Speaking Out

Congolese Women March Against Rape

After a U.N. report reveals 15,000 victims last year.

Defying the stigma associated with rape, throngs of Congo’s rape survivors filled the streets in Bukavu Sunday to demonstrate against sexual violence and a government that’s failed to protect its citizens, CNN reports. “They have had enough, enough, enough, enough,“ said Nita Vielle, a Congelese activist. “Enough of the war, of the rape, of nobody paying attention to what’s happening to them.” A U.N. report stated that 15,000 women were raped in eastern Congo last year, in regions where rebel groups move in and attack civilian populations they consider to be government sympathizers, employing systemic rape as a tool of warfare. Methodical mass rape has plagued eastern Congo for years, but the situation has only gotten worse. In one particularly vicious spate, at least 303 rapes occurred between July 30 and August 2 in the Walikale region of North Kivu province alone.