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UN official: DR Congo is ‘rape capital of the world’

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Friday, April 30, 2010

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Wallstrom is the current envoy on sexual violence in conflict

A top United Nations official has called the Democratic Republic of the Congo the "rape capital of the world". The UN's special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Margot Wallstrom, said that the UN Security Council needs to "punish the perpetrators in DR Congo".

Data collected by the UN shows that 200,000 cases of sexual assault have been reported in the last 14 years, 8,000 of which occurred last year and 1,244 of which occurred in the first three months of 2010. The UN's mission has been trying to combat the problem by escorting women when they go to market and working closely with the local officials.

Wallstrom released a statement after returning from a visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She said: "Women have no rights, if those who violate their rights go unpunished. If women continue to suffer sexual violence, it is not because the law is inadequate to protect them, but because it is inadequately enforced.

The Harvard Humanitarian Society issued a report in April showing that in South Kivu, an eastern province in DR Congo, 60% of the women raped were raped by armed men. More than half were raped in their own home, and more civilians are committing the attacks than ever before.

Despite the country's war ending in 2003, DR Congo is still plagued with militia violence.


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  This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License
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