V-Day's Spotlight Campaign
SPOTLIGHT 2009
WOMEN & GIRLS OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO (DRC)
SPOTLIGHT: Each year V-Day creates a Spotlight around a particular group of women who are experiencing violence, with the goal of raising enough awareness to put a worldwide media spotlight on this area, and to raise funds to aid the groups who are addressing it. 10% of all proceeds raised by our organization goes back to VDay, in order to help fund this focussed program.
The atrocities being perpetrated against women and girls in the DRC are nothing less than a femicide – the systematic destruction of the Congolese female population. Since 1996, sexual violence against women and girls in the Eastern part of the DRC has been used as a weapon of war to torture, humiliate and destroy not only women and girls, but entire families and whole communities.

Since the conflict began, hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped. Advocates from the region have told stories of unthinkable atrocities that are taking place, including cannibalism, chopping off body parts, rape with tools and weapons, and sexual assault of minors as young as 10 months and elders as old as 87 years.

Many members of the female population within the region have endured sexual slavery, kidnapping, unlawful detention, recruitment of young girls into armed forces, and forced prostitution. Over a century of discrimination against women and girls underlies the violence perpetrated against them. The current climate of impunity allows sexual violence to flourish.

In December 2006, Eve Ensler interviewed Dr. Denis Mukwege, head of Panzi Hospital in Buakvu, Eastern DRC, about conditions in his native country. Panzi Hospital is presently the only referral hospital in North and South Kivu available to meet the high demand for services for women victims of sexual violence and fistula treatment. (V-Day subsequently honored Dr. Mukwege with the inaugural Denis Mukwege award at its 10th anniversary celebrations in New Orleans: http://v10.vday.org/anniversary-events/video/mukwege )

In May 2007, UNICEF hosted Eve’s visit to Panzi Hospital in Bukavu and the HEAL Africa Hospital in Goma. The violence perpetrated against women there, and the scale of damage that Eve saw firsthand was so horrific that V-Day immediately initiated a multi- year public education and action campaign on the DRC, mobilizing UNICEF as a partner in the effort. Shortly after, in August 2007, V-Day and UNICEF (in partnership with UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict,) launched Stop Raping our Greatest Resource: Power to Women and Girls of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a global campaign to:

Raise awareness of ongoing sexual violence against women and girls in DRC and the devastating impact on their health, their spirits, their families and their communities;

Call for specific measures to end impunity and punish perpetrators;

Economically and socially empower women and girls so that they can become leaders in the rebuilding of a country devastated by conflict;

Build and open the City of Joy in partnership with UNICEF, Panzi Hospital and women working on the ground in DRC. The City Of Joy will be a safe facility and community for women survivors of sexual violence where they will be provided with support to heal and training to further develop their leadership and life skills.

GET INVOLVED IN THE 2009 SPOTLIGHT CAMPAIGN AND HELP IMPROVE THE LIVES OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE CONGO

Through your attention to the 2009 V-Day Spotlight Campaign on the Women and Girls of the Democratic Republic of Congo, you will educate thousands of women and men throughout the world about the issues facing women and girls in DRC and will begin to help us effect change in that region.  By joining this campaign, you will be supporting Congolese women and men who are demanding an end to rape. You will be supporting local efforts to demand justice and accountability. You will be supporting survivors of sexual violence to heal and rebuild their lives and communities. Your Spotlight Funds will help to build and sustain the City of Joy. And you will join others around the globe to demand that women and girls in DRC are safe.

READ THE FACTS

The data on sexual violence in the DRC is alarming:
Local Congolese advocates estimate that more thank 200,000 women and girls have been raped since the war began;

According to a June 2006 report by the International Crisis Group, sexual violence is regarded as the most widespread form of criminality in the Congo;

According to the United Nations (UN), 27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone;

In 2007, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) noted more than 700 reported cases of sexual violence per month; approximately 50 percent of these survivors were under the age of 18;

In 2007, Panzi Hospital received 24,756 patients—4,577 women were victims of sexual violence. The staff performed 3,401 vaginal reconstruction operations.