Posted by John Malloy on 06/10/2008
Lewis Calls For Protection For Women, Girls
It could be a strategy of war from among the most reviled of invading armies throughout human history: “If you want to destroy a nation, you do so by destroying its women.” But these are the words of a surgeon at the Panzi Hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an African country where an estimated 200,000 women and girls have been raped or subjected to other forms of sexual violence over the last decade.
“The hospital was born out of suffering,” says Dr. Roger Luhiriri, who took part in a Toronto news conference Monday sponsored by the Stephen Lewis Foundation, which called on the United Nations to fulfill its mandate to protect women and girls in Africa from ongoing violence. Opened as a maternity hospital in Bukavu, South Kivu in the Congo, the Panzi now also provides free medical care to victims of war, particularly females subjected to often unspeakable forms of sexual brutality.
The hospital’s six surgeons operate on about 60 patients a week, repairing and reconstructing women’s reproductive systems that have been mutilated during sexual violence often perpetrated by marauding packs of armed gangs and militias. “The nature of the raping is so violent,” said Lewis, who announced his charitable foundation is donating another $300,000 to support the Panzi Hospital.
“There’s mutilation and amputation and the use of knives and the use of guns, terrible things done in front of families and families forced to participate in the raping of family members or face death,” he said in an interview. Lewis, former UN envoy for AIDS in Africa, said what is so incomprehensible about the unchecked violence against women is that “the world knows” it is happening, but little is being done to stop it… www.owensoundsuntimes.com
Posted by
John Malloy
on 06/10/2008. Filed under
International.
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