V Day-Until The Violence Stops

V-Campaigns-Stop Raping Our Greatest Resource-

Power to Women and Girls of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

About V-Day

V-Day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls.V-Day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexual slavery.

Through V-Day campaigns, local volunteers and college students produce annual benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues to raise awareness and funds for anti-violence groups within their own communities. In 2006, over 2700 V-Day benefit events took place by volunteer activists in the U.S. and around the world, educating millions of people about the reality of violence against women and girls.

Performance is just the beginning. V-Day stages large-scale benefits and produces innovative gatherings, films and campaigns to educate and change social attitudes towards violence against women including the documentary Until the Violence Stops; community briefings on the missing and murdered women of Juárez, Mexico; the December 2003 V-Day delegation trip to Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Jordan; the Afghan Women's Summit; the March 2004 delegation to India; the Stop Rape Contest, the Indian Country Project, and Love Your Tree.

In Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, V-Day commits ongoing support to build movements and anti-violence networks. Working with local organizations, V-Day provided hard-won funding that helped open the first shelters for women in Egypt and Iraq, sponsored annual workshops and three national campaigns in Afghanistan, convened the "Confronting Violence" conference of South Asian women leaders, and donated satellite-phones to Afghan women to keep lines of communication open and action plans moving forward. Through the Karama progam based out of Cairo, V-Day works in-depth to build networks ending violence against women and girls in Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

The V-Day movement is growing at a rapid pace throughout the world, in 81 countries from Europe to Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, and all of North America. V-Day, a non-profit corporation, distributes funds to grassroots, national and international organizations and programs that work to stop violence against women and girls. In its first year of incorporation (2001), V-Day was named one of Worth Magazine's "100 Best Charities." In eight years, the V-Day movement has raised over 30 million.

The 'V' in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina.

Eve Ensler and Noella (It is not permitted to show the faces of young girls)

View More Photos by Paula Allen from Eve's Trip to DRC, where she visited Panzi Hospital, run by Dr. Denis Mukwege.

Stop Raping our Greatest Resource: Power to Women in the DRC is a new global campaign to call attention to the wide-scale atrocities committed against women and girls in Eastern DRC and demand an end to the impunity with which these crimes are committed.

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. And you will join others around the globe to demand that women and girls in DRC are safe.

The Campaign is being initiated by V-Day and UNICEF, representing UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Sexual Violence and Armed Conflict In the DRC: Background

The war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is formally over, but women and girls remain targets for violence. Physical and economic insecurity still characterize the lives of women and girls. The threat of and the use of violence are constants.

As before the war, discrimination against women and girls underlies the violence perpetrated against them. The current climate of impunity allows the many forms of gender-based violence, including sexual violence, to flourish.

All armed groups involved in the conflict have perpetrated sexual violence. Today, several armed groups still use sexual violence as a weapon of war in the DRC. Further, international actors, including UN personnel, have been implicated in perpetrating sexual violence in the DRC. Armed actors systematically violate women and girls in the streets, fields, and homes. The armed actors in the DRC have perpetrated gender-based violence through various forms, including sexual slavery, kidnapping, forced recruitment, forced prostitution, and rape. The Congolese victims of sexual violence include men and boys, who have also suffered rape, sexual humiliation, and genital mutilation.

Towards midnight, I heard the crackle of gunfire all around the village…As I was trying to escape with my children, seven soldiers broke down the door to my house, threw me down to the ground and raped me. I lost consciousness till the next day...When I walk I have to hold my abdomen with my skirt, because it hurts so much. I cannot walk very far now and as the soldiers took everything, I can hardly manage to look after my children."

Many survivors of sexual violence suffer from grave long-term psychological and physical health consequences, such as traumatic fistula and HIV. However, health infrastructure in the DRC is almost entirely absent. Shortage of medical services is particularly critical given the prevalence of sexually-transmitted infections and HIV among soldiers and irregular combatants. 

Survivors of sexual violence face enormous barriers in securing justice through the courts or more informal, community-based mechanisms. At the community level, survivors usually suffer in silence, fearing stigma and ostracism if their ordeal is made public. Following her visit to the Great Lakes Region, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights noted that “while victims (of sexual and gender-based violence) were stigmatized and socially ostracized, there was virtually no stigmatization of perpetrators.” Corrupt, under-capacitated justice systems hamper survivors’ attempts to bring perpetrators to justice through formal legal processes. 

The extent of gender-based violence in the DRC can only be estimated, though sexual violence is understood to be widespread. In the province of South Kivu alone, local health centers report that an average of 40 women are raped daily. Sexual violence in Congo is vastly underreported due to insecurity in or inaccessibility to many areas and the physical or material inability of some victims to travel. Further, survivors may fear reprisals by perpetrators if they were to come forward.

"Sexual violence is regarded as the most widespread form of criminality in Congo...The government that is elected will be challenged to implement the principles of the constitution and address discrimination against women, in particular sexual violence."

In 1999, the Congolese government, two armed groups, and five neighboring countries signed the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement. As determined in the peace agreement, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) established the UN Mission to the DRC (MONUC) to ensure the implementation of the Lusaka Accord.  With the support of the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) and international observers, the DRC held its first democratic elections in 2006. The representation of women elected to the government is very low: 9 of 60 Ministers, 42 of 500 members of the National Assembly, 5 of 108 Senators; and 43 of 690 Provincial Assembly members are women.13 Only one woman was elected Vice-Governor, out of 22 gubernatorial posts.

The 2006 elections follow four years of transitional government aimed at setting up a government of national unity, as set out in the Sun City Peace Agreement of 2002. The Inter-Congolese Dialogues that preceded the signing Sun City Agreement were meant to provide space for national dialogue on the future of the DRC. However, civil society women’s rights advocates and governmental women representatives felt that they had little voice or influence. Congolese women, supported by international NGOs and UN entities, sought to harmonize women’s agendas for peace and security to influence the peace negotiations. The Nairobi Declaration, which demands for an end to violence against women and girls, is one of the results of women’s initiatives.

Three years after the establishment of the peacekeeping mission, the position of Senior Gender Advisor in MONUC was established and filled. Today, MONUC receives the most financial and human resources of all peacekeeping missions worldwide. The UN Country team, comprised of numerous UN entities and agencies, has been present in DRC since 1996. 

Despite the achievement of a formal peace agreement, there has been little progress in establishing and advancing the rule of law, including justice, and respect for human rights. Fighting between militia groups and FARDC continues, as do human rights violations such as unlawful killings, abductions and sexual violence perpetrated by all armed groups. Most recent outbreaks of violence have been in the Eastern provinces.

Advance Legislation That Will Reduce Violence Aimed At Women And Girls

Introduced by Senator Biden and Senator Lugar on October 31, 2007, the International Violence Against Women Act (S. 2279) is a historic and unprecedented effort by the United States to address violence against women globally. The law would make ending violence against women a diplomatic priority for the United States and create the first high-level position in the U.S. Department of State to coordinate efforts to combat violence against women. It will also make sure that the U.S. is able to develop emergency measures in a timely fashion to respond to critical outbreaks of violence against women, such as to address the mass rapes in the armed conflict in the Congo.

The Act recommends allocating more than $1 billion over 5 years in U.S. assistance to support international programs that prevent and respond to violence, including health programs and survivor services, legal reform, public awareness campaigns, women's economic opportunity projects and education, and activities to better address violence against women in humanitarian situations.

The inspiring thing about this legislation is that it incorporates training, protection, and services for women across a range of situations, from the fight against HIV-AIDS, to school and health clinics, to court systems, to workplaces, to refugee camps. It also supports the efforts of local women's groups overseas that are already working to end violence against women in their countries.

Call your Senator today, and tell him or her that you want them to sign on as co-sponsors of this bill, S.2279. It's simple:

Call 202-224-3121 and ask for the office of your Senator. (If you don't know who they are, you can find out at www.senate.gov.)

Tell their office that you are a constituent, and you care about the well being of women and girls around the world.

Urge them to cosponsor S. 2279, International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA).

If you feel so moved, share one reason why this issue matters so much to you.

One easy phone call can help bring safety, security, and new options in life to women and girls worldwide.

If you prefer to email, go HERE

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