["400px"]
["400px"]

This audio book requires the Flash constituent to comedy inline. You may additionally download the file.
The afterward affairs was recorded on September 17, 2007. Please agenda that this podcast contains clear descriptions that some readers adeptness acquisition disturbing.
Michele Kort: This is Michelle Kort, chief editor of Ms. Magazine, and I'm captivated to be speaking with Eve Ensler today. Eve is the acclaimed columnist of The Vagina Monologues, and arch of the V-Day organization.
With her today is Christine Schuler Deschryver from Bukavu in the Congo, who is an activist adjoin the animal violence. We'll be talking about that today -- specifically, we'll be talking about how animal abandon has led to an catching of fistula in women who accept been raped.
Our allocution today is aggressive by the advertisement of the blur Lumo on POV The blur was directed by Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Nelson Walker III.
Eve, could you explain what a fistula is?
Eve Ensler: Well, afore I do that, I'd actually like to allocution a little bit about the ambience of abduction and how it happens, because I can't actually allocution about fistula afterwards accomplishing that.
So what I'd like to say, accepting aloof been in the Congo in May, and accepting aloof done a big address for Glamour annual that came out in August, is that the bearings of women in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, or the Congo) is about the affliction bearings I've apparent of women anywhere in the world. The affectionate of atrocities that are actuality committed on women's bodies is annihilation abbreviate of femicide. It is an all-out, analytical arrangement of abolition adjoin the changeable species.
I witnessed and heard belief of animal torture, assemblage rapes, massive raping, accoutrements up women's vaginas, sticks up women's vaginas, girls as adolescent as 6 years old actuality gang-raped and destroyed.
The affectionate of fistula that bodies are seeing and acclamation in the Congo, which comes from this affectionate of trauma, is usually aback a woman has been raped so abominably that there has been a aperture punctured either amid her vaginal bank and her bladder, or amid her vaginal bank and her rectum. In both of those situations, what happens is that this abhorrent aperture is created axial her. I actually sat in on a fistula operation and was, unfortunately, able to see this aperture axial a woman, and it's like a aperture axial her being, axial her soul, area aggregate avalanche out.
After a woman has a fistula, she's no best able to authority her pee or her feces, and so things aloof abatement out of her, which, as you can imagine, destroys a woman's life. She afresh begins to smell. She is adopted from the community. She begins to abhorrence herself. There's absurd abasement and abashment and all kinds of abhorrent things associated with that.
It was decidedly advancing to see fistula in little girls, because they were incontinent, and boys were actually abominable to them, and communities of accouchement were actual abominable to them.
Kort: Christine, you assignment at the centermost in Bukavu, Congo that treates women who accept this condition?
Christine Schuler Deschryver: Yes, I assignment in the centermost in Bukavu, abnormally in activity there, anecdotic the victims and alert to them. I additionally try to acquisition some advice for them through all-embracing lobbying. I'm in Bukavu at atomic three times a anniversary and every weekend with these women.
Kort: Hopefully, the women can be physically healed. A lot of them sometimes accept added than one operation to try to alleviate them. But what about healing the abandon that's activity on in that allotment of the world?
Ensler: One of the things that we are accomplishing with the accord of DOCS in Goma (Editor's note: now accepted as HEAL Africa), an alignment in Bukavu, and organizations all over the eastern DRC is V-Day. UNICEF and the U.N. Activity to Stop Abduction has launched a civic and all-embracing attack to stop the raping of our greatest assets and to empower the women and girls of Congo. You can acquisition out added about that attack on vday.org/congo. What we're allurement is for bodies to address belletrist to Admiral Kabila to appeal amends and aegis for the women of eastern Congo, and for bodies to accelerate in funds to abutment these efforts.
["400px"]There's now a affiliation of women's groups in eastern Congo, area this blur was shot, and DOCS is one of them. The affiliation has agreed that the aboriginal adeptness they are activity to body is commodity alleged the City of Joy in Bukavu, which will be a centermost and a abode for women who accept been survivors, and who accept no abode to go. These women will be accurate to become the abutting leaders of the Congo.
Kort: In the documentary, there was a actual cogent moment area addition said, "We abutment you" as the women were boot adjoin the violence. But they additionally said, "But you shouldn't dress in absolute ways." So acutely there's still a lot of apprenticeship that needs to go on there. Would you accede that women are still actuality abhorrent for the abandon adjoin them?
Schuler Deschryver: Yes, of course. I anticipate that the women feel they are still actuality blamed. Abduction is still anathema in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the women alone allocution about abduction and go to the hospitals aback they don't accept a best anymore. Otherwise, they don't allocution about it because they are abhorrent for it.
Ensler: The bearings for women in the Congo afore the war started was abhorrent anyway. Women had actual few rights. They are not perceived as according citizens. In some cases, they had beneath cachet and beneath account than gorillas, in my opinion.
I anticipate what this femicide and these atrocities accept done is to have, bizarrely, normalized rape. So now it's not aloof the militias, the Interahamwe, the Congolese army and the factions that are raping the women; now it's acceptable normalized. Calm abduction and calm array has berserk added in families.
Because there has been no justice, because so few perpetrators accept been captivated answerable for the crimes that they're committing, it's acceptable as Christine said to me aback we were there, like a country sport: rape.
It's the affliction affair I've anytime apparent in the world, and if the apple does not pay absorption to this and if the all-embracing association does not put burden on the admiral and bodies in that country to alpha apropos the women and absorption the women, we are activity to see deaths like we accept never seen. I can't alike brainstorm the cardinal of deaths that could activity because of the acceleration of AIDS, and the access of AIDS that's activity to activity in the abutting 10 years.
Schuler Deschryver: We are talking about one of the affliction altruistic disasters in this apple afterwards the Second Apple War. Two years ago, the All-embracing Rescue Committee appear that added than 4 actor bodies accept died in the DRC during the conflict. Now we are cat-and-mouse for the new report, and it will say, maybe, that 6 or 7 actor bodies accept died.
Today, in the eastern allotment of Congo, there are added than 200,000 victims of rape. In Bukavu we accept victims alignment in age from 10-month-old babies to 87-year-old women. I anticipate that the chat Ms. Ensler acclimated -- femicide -- is the appropriate chat to alarm what is activity on in the eastern allotment of Congo. And the apple should deathwatch up and do commodity afore it's too late, because maybe one day, we'll allocution about women in Congo like a breed that is in the activity of disappearing.
Kort: Eve, can you acquaint us about the United Nations, the All-embracing Abandon Adjoin Women Act and what that adeptness do?
Ensler: One of the things that's actually alarming in the Congo is that there's no law that's acknowledging women or accouterment justice. The United Nations, in my opinion, is aloof artlessly not accomplishing enough. I batten at the Aegis Council a few months ago, and I now apperceive that there's been a alarm by Steven Lewis to accept a appropriate activity to end the animal abandon in eastern Congo. I anticipate acknowledging that activity would be a actual acceptable idea. I anticipate accepting the Aegis Council to accomplish any abandon adjoin women in eastern Congo a axial affair of their assignment would be a actual acceptable idea. And I anticipate ambitious that the U.N. get added peacekeepers and get added aegis armament in the arena would be a actual acceptable idea.
Kort: What has the U.S. role been up to this point? Has the U.S. said annihilation about Congo?
Ensler: I don't actually anticipate so. It's important to bethink that the United States is allies with Uganda and Rwanda. And in Rwanda, during the genocide in the 1990s, the Interahamwe, who are a Hutu militia, were killing boyhood Tutsis. The acceptable Congolese bodies accustomed the Rwandan refugees to appear over the border, and with them came the Interahamwe.
The Interahamwe is one of the primary militias that has been murdering and committing these atrocities. If the U.S. government were to put burden on Rwanda and Uganda and say, "We are not activity to abutment you unless you get the Interahamwe out of the Congo and assignment with the Interahamwe to stop these atrocities," you bet it would accept an influence.
Kort: Who is costs the Interahamwe?
Schuler Deschryver: We don't apperceive who actually is costs them. The Congo is one of the richest countries of the apple -- in the eastern allotment of Congo there is a mineral alleged tantalum that is acclimated in corpuscle phones and computers and Playstations®. So the Interahamwe are alive with some bodies -- we don't apperceive who -- to consign tantalum out of the Congo in barter for money and guns.
["400px"]
Kort: It sounds like some activity should be taken adjoin the corporations who use tantalum.
Ensler: Absolutely. I anticipate it's actually important, and one of the things we're aggravating to do in this attack is to activate anecdotic the bunch corporations that are benefiting from these resources. Ultimately, these corporations are exchanging accoutrements with the Interahamwe, who assure and accommodate these accustomed assets for them. We appetite to alpha putting burden on the multinationals so that they stop accomplishing business with genocidists.
Kort: It sounds like a acceptable movement that bodies can focus their attentions on.
Ensler: If they break acquainted to the campaign, I apperceive that it will be an aspect of the attack that emerges.
Kort: Christine, how do the women in the Congo accumulate their alcohol up with all this activity on?
Schuler Deschryver: I don't know. I anticipate best of them accept in God. So all the backbone they accept may appear from God.
When you go to the hospital, you see all the women afflicted and actually destroyed, but they can still dance, they can still sing, they can still smile, alike if their eyes attending sad. Their alcohol accept not been killed, and that gives them the backbone to continue. These women are survivors, they will become leaders and they will change the Congo.
Ensler: Some of the best resilient, absurd women I accept anytime met in the apple are Congolese women. You apprehend these abhorrent belief appear out of their mouths, belief that you can't alike echo to people, and afterwards the cogent of the story, their activity is renewed.
Sometimes their assets are so abbreviate that aloof accepting a canteen of soda is such a allowance that they're hopeful for hours. So I anticipate if we could get assets and abutment to the women of the Congo, we could actually advice activate to about-face their lives around.
Kort: What's the best way for bodies to do that?
Ensler: Appropriate now, it's to accord to the V-Day UNICEF attack at vday.org/congo. The money goes to abutment a affiliation fabricated out of abounding altered groups. POV's Lumo focuses on a woman who was at DOCS in Goma, and DOCS is allotment of this coalition, so that money will get to them as well.
We're affairs accoutrements that are fabricated by women in that accurate center, as able-bodied as accoutrements that are fabricated by women in Bukavu and Bunia. If you accord to our attack or buy the bags, the money will get directed appear them.
Kort: Eve, how did you get from The Vagina Monologues to all this assignment adjoin abandon adjoin women? Was it a accustomed path?
Ensler: It was. Aback I toured initially with the show, so abounding women would band up to allocution to me. At the beginning, I thought, "Well, they'll be cogent me about their admirable sex lives and their abundant orgasms." In fact, what women lined up to acquaint me was how they'd been baffled or gang-raped or raped or endured incest. I was activity to stop accomplishing the show, because I acquainted so abandoned aloof alert to belief and accomplishing nothing.
In 1998, which is about 10 years ago, we absitively we would do one achievement of The Vagina Monologues to accession money for bounded groups in New York, and that was the aboriginal V-Day: V-Day stands for Vagina Day, Valentine's Day and Victory over Abandon Day.
That achievement launched this movement, which in 10 years has advance to 119 countries. We've aloft $50 actor by the assignment of grassroots women accomplishing productions of the comedy in communities all over the planet.
["400px"]
You see how burning it is and how fast it's spread, because one out of three women in this apple will be baffled or raped in her lifetime. So The Vagina Monologues, in talking about the vagina and aperture up the belief of the vagina, opened up the belief of actually abundant adventures and adulation and female and pleasure, but it additionally opened up a box of horror.
Kort: Are there added areas of the apple that we're overlooking appropriate now that are areas of amazing abandon adjoin women? We apperceive about Darfur. We apperceive now added and added about the Congo. Are there added areas that we're overlooking?
Ensler: Our primary focus appropriate now is the Congo, which I would say needs the best absorption of any abode I've been in the world, including Darfur. What's activity on in Darfur is atrocious, but if you attending at it in agreement of numbers, you can't alike analyze what's accident in the Congo to anywhere abroad in the apple appropriate now. We're talking about 4 actor bodies who accept died in the DRC in the aftermost 10 years.
I was in Haiti this spring, and I anticipate what's activity on in agreement of abduction and abandon in Haiti is actually absolutely awful. I anticipate the bearings for women in Afghanistan is actually actuality angry to what it acclimated to be; it's activity aback to the way it was beneath the Northern Alliance and the Taliban: The rapes are alpha again, women are actuality afar from teaching and from jobs again, and there is the affairs of women again.
We additionally charge to attending at sex trafficking, which is ascent wherever there is poverty, wherever there are storms, wherever there are abhorrent situations. We apperceive that women who are on the advanced band of adversity are the aboriginal to go.
We accept to accomplish abandon adjoin women a axial affair in every aspect, in the United Nations, in foundations, in civic and bounded governments. We accept to stop seeing it as commodity we get to later, aback it is the distinct best important affair anybody can be cerebration about.
If you abduction a woman, you abduction life. You abort her parenting ability. You abort her adeptness to assignment and anticipate and adulation and breeding and affliction and provide. Yet we still accumulate alleviative it as the affair we're activity to get to later.
Kort: Aback I was watching Lumo, I was addled by how admirable the Congo looked. And it's actual aching to anticipate that actuality is this admirable country, actual blooming with mountains and rolling hills, and all this affliction is hidden amidst all this beauty. Is that how you feel about it, Christine? How does the Congo of your adolescence analyze to the Congo of today?
Schuler Deschryver: Every time I allocution about my Congo, my province, I'm cerebration about hell in paradise. Ten years ago they angry the country into hell. But the Congo is one of the best admirable places on this earth. We accept aggregate -- vegetables in your garden, the best altitude all year long. The alone affair we don't accept is peace.
Kort: Why should that consistently be the affair that's so far away?
Schuler Deschryver: I don't know. That's a acceptable question. We accept become beggars of accord in the Congo. We are not allurement for annihilation abroad -- aloof peace, and the appropriate to alive for women. We achievement that the Congo will become paradise again, abnormally for women and children.
Listen to the abounding audio of this program: Download MP3 (6.7 MB)
Related Links» Ms. Magazine: "Not Women Anymore." The Congo's abduction survivors face pain, abashment and AIDSAn commodity from the bounce 2005 affair of Ms. Annual capacity the horrors of abduction in the Congo and how the underfunded U.N. mission is declining the country's women.» V-Day: CongoFounded by Eve Ensler, V-Day is a all-around movement to stop abandon adjoin women and girls. V-Day and UNICEF accept teamed up on a all-around attack alleged Stop Raping Our Greatest Resource: Power to Women in the DRC.» UNIFEM: Say NO to Abandon Adjoin WomenThe attack invites bodies to assurance their names in an online book to access decision-makers about the apple to accent catastrophe abandon adjoin women in their policies.» All-embracing Rescue Committee: Stop Abandon Adjoin Women and GirlsThe all-around altruistic alignment All-embracing Rescue Committee has set up a address advancement the U.S. Congress to booty activity to stop abandon adjoin women and girls.
Eve Ensler is the award-winning columnist of The Vagina Monologues and the architect of the all-around movement V-Day. She has adherent her activity to endlessly violence, envisioning a planet in which women and girls will be chargeless to thrive, rather than alone survive. Her plays accommodate The Acceptable Body, Necessary Targets and Conviction. She additionally executived-produced the documentary blur "What I Appetite My Words To Do To You," which aired on POV in 2003.
SOURCES:
1. "Sexual Abandon and Armed Battle In the DRC: Background," VDay.org.
["400px"]
2. "Fighting Ongoing in Eastern Congo," The Guardian, September 4, 2007.
["400px"]

["400px"]

["400px"]

["400px"]

["400px"]

["400px"]

["400px"]
