Fighting Sexual Violence in the Congo

There has recently been a lot of clamor around Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to the Congo in which she stated that we must punish those that commit sexual violence against women. She even committed $17 million to fight the epidemic of sexual violence there. But unfortunately there has been little talk about real solutions and it seems that there is much controversy about how this money would be spent.

NPR reported on the visit and interviewed Anneke Van Woudenberg from Human Rights Watch about the visit. Here is what she had to say:

And I think much more of the money needs to go to stopping rape. That means ensuring that there's justice. It means better protection mechanisms for women and girls. We shouldn't just be helping the victims. We need to ensure that there are less victims in the future.

I dont think anyone would disagree with this. But it remains to be seen just what this means. What does better protection look like? How can women get justice when there are so many perpetrators and the government is not protecting its people but are in some cases the perpetrators themselves?

Moreover here is how the money is being spent, learned via Wronging Rights:

We learned from the New York Times today that the U.S. government is launching a $17 million plan to combat sexual violence in the Congo. (And yes, we probably should just go ahead and change the blog's name to "Wronging Rapes.")

The new initiative includes training for local gynecologists, assistance to the Congolese police force and, wait for it... "supply[ing] rape victims with video cameras to document violence."

The article does not explain the logic or logistics behind what TexasinAfrica is calling "Camcorders for the Congo" so we're left with a number of questions:

(1) Who are we giving these cameras to? Victims who report past rapes, on the assumption that they will soon be raped again? People who appear to be promising candidates for future rapes? Or, is the American government going to go back in time and hand out cameras to documented rape victims so they can be ready to hit "record" when the violence begins?

(2) In what way is the lack of film evidence impeding the fight against sexual violence in the Congo? Seriously, just let us know. Open-minded bloggers that we are, we are amenable to the possibility that someone looked into this question and found that, in a country without a functioning government, economy, police force, judiciary, army, system of land tenure, prosecutor's office, criminal defense bar, or -we can't help but point out- power grid on which to charge portable electronic devices, the real impediment to the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes is the dearth of video footage. We eagerly await receipt of that study.

(3) Where is the footage gathered from these cameras going to go? We are aware that there is plenty of demand for that sort of thing (this blog gets a lot of Google hits from people in search of "Africa rape porn") but remain a little fuzzy on how filling that niche is going to combat the problem at hand.

And by the way, those camcorders had better not contain any conflict coltan. Because if they do, then it's only a matter of time before we all have to read another Enough Project report pointing out the direct link between violence against women in the Congo and the video camera that you sent to be used to film violence against women in the Congo.

Here is some more analysis.