When I started writing this column, the editors wanted the opinion columnists to stick to campus issues as much as possible. So I could sit here and complain about the recent increase in the price of birth control (or the fact that you can’t even buy condoms, much less the Pill, at Georgetown). Or I could discuss the body-image issues – something that every girl our age seems to struggle with – that Jennifer Love Hewitt’s bikini photos stirred up. But it feels a little ridiculous to lament the problems of us privileged Americans when there are some really terrible things happening to women around the world who have never had the opportunities we enjoy, or even basic standards of human decency. If you think the 1-in-4 statistic of sexual assault and attempted sexual assault in college is bad, then imagine what it must be like in the South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the United Nations estimates that 26,000 women were raped in 2006. That figure is not even for the entire country – it’s for the province. The violence, which dates back to the beginning of the civil war, is unimaginable. One of its trademarks is that the rapists, who are usually gangs of soldiers, shoot women in the vagina after they have been raped. Many men are forced at gunpoint to watch their wives, daughters, sisters or mothers get raped, or even forced to do it themselves with the promise that they will be left alone when it is over, only to be shot and killed at the end. Many women are taken as sex slaves and are forced to eat feces or the flesh of their murdered relatives. Some of the victims are as young as three years old. When I read about what was happening, I wanted to cry and vomit at the same time. Even worse, I could not believe that this had been going on under my nose for all of this time. Coincidentally, I discovered that right down the hallway at my work-study job in the Woodstock Theological Center works a visiting scholar, Yvonne Kambale, from the Congo, and she has done extensive research on this violence for the United Nations Development Fund for Women. A co-worker arranged a chance for us to meet so that we could discuss the sexual violence in her home country, but I was nervous at first. How do you tell someone that you think that the violence going on in her country is one of the most appalling and horrific things that you have ever heard? I was relieved when she told me that she was eager to talk about it. Kambale wants more people to know about it and what it means in her culture. Violence against women is not a part of Congolese culture, she explained. It started during the civil war, when soldiers from countries all over the continent came to fight in the Congo and Congolese child soldiers were exposed to their practices. Furthermore, the violence is actually not explicitly anti-female. It’s anti-human. The motive of these gangs of soldiers is not to signify that women are valueless; they want the whole society to feel valueless by using women as weapons against their own people. The soldiers think that it gives them power. “For us, a woman is life,” Kambale said. “It is the only way you can destroy the morale of the people.” The violence is both emotional and physical. These women are usually not killed after they are raped. They have to live the rest of their lives with not only the painful memories but also, in many cases, HIV, unwanted children and permanent internal damage to their reproductive and digestive systems. In Kambale’s estimation, at least half of the women who have been raped either contract HIV or have a child as a result, because there is little information or preventative care, especially in rural areas, where most of the violence takes place. Kambale’s fear is that sexual violence will become embedded in the society as, like in any group of people, younger generations copy what their elders do. She is especially concerned about the child soldiers who are already destroyed psychologically from growing up in war alongside these rapists, who actually find their behavior normal. “They have no remorse,” she said. Kambale did say, though, that she is starting to see a decline now that people can talk about it without the fear that they will be raped for saying something. Thankfully, there is now a law to protect people who speak out, but she said that there needs to be more law enforcement in the country, which she said has no prisons. But we here in other places in the world need to speak out, too, and affirm that genocide is a real event that we will not tolerate. How many times have we said “never again,” only to let genocide recur and recur in Latin America, Cambodia, the Balkans, Rwanda, and Darfur? oney talks, too. Panzi Hospital, the hospital that treats the largest number of rape victims in the South Kivu province, is in danger of losing the little funding it has in June, when its partnership with a European aid group is set to end. If you want to put your money where your mouth is, you can look online for information about making a donation. (It would make a great Christmas present for the feminists in your life.) The simple fact is that we cannot let ourselves and others remain ignorant of these events because they do not happen here. For Kambale, just knowing that more people are concerned about the situation and are supportive of its victims are motivation to keep working for peace. “There are very few people who are able to see that we have a crisis,” Kambale told me. “I want to find people who can see what I see. It gives me courage and hope to continue what I am doing.” Emily Liner is a senior in the College and a contributing editor of THE HOYA. She can be reached at linerthehoya.com. SKIRTING THE ISSUES appears every other Friday.