Tears and cheers as Congo rape victims end their decades of silent hell

HONORATA Kizende looked out at the audience and began with a simple, declarative sentence.

"There was no dinner," she said. "It was me who was dinner. Me, because they kicked me roughly to the ground, and they ripped off all my clothes, and between the two of them, they held my feet. One took my left foot, one took my right, and the same with my arms, and between the two of them they proceeded to rape me. Then all five of them raped me."

The audience, which had been called together by local and international aid groups and included everyone from high-ranking politicians to street children with no shoes, stared at her in disbelief.

Congo, it seems, is finally facing its horrific rape problem, which UN officials have called the worst sexual violence in the world. Tens of thousands of women, possibly hundreds of thousands, have been raped in the past few years in this hilly, incongruously beautiful land, and many of these rapes have been marked by a level of brutality that is shocking even by the twisted standards of a place haunted by warlords and drug-crazed child soldiers.

After years of denial and shame, the silence is being broken. Because of increased efforts in the past nine months by international organisations and the Congolese government, rapists are no longer able to count on a culture of impunity. Of course, countless men still get away with assaulting women. But more and more are being caught, prosecuted and put behind bars.

European aid agencies are spending tens of millions of dollars building new courthouses and prisons across eastern Congo, in part to punish rapists. Mobile courts are holding rape trials in villages deep in the forest that have not seen a black-robed magistrate since the Belgians ruled the country decades ago.

The American Bar Association opened a legal clinic in January specifically to help rape victims bring their cases to court. So far the work has resulted in eight convictions. In Bukavu, one of the largest cities in the country, a special unit of Congolese police officers has filed 103 rape cases since the beginning of this year, more than any year in recent memory.

In Bunia, a town farther north, rape prosecutions are up 600% compared to five years ago. Congolese investigators have even been flown to Europe to learn CSI-style forensic techniques. The police have arrested some of the most violent offenders, often young militiamen, most likely psychologically traumatised themselves, who have thrust sticks, rocks, knives and assault rifles inside women.

"We're starting to see results," said Pernille Ironside, a UN official in eastern Congo.

The number of those arrested is still tiny compared to the perpetrators on the loose, and often the worst offenders are not caught because they are marauding bandits who attack villages in the night, victimise women and then escape into the forests.

This is all happening in a society where women tend to be beaten down anyway. Congolese women do most of the work – at home, in the fields and in the market, where they carry enormous loads of bananas on their bent backs – and yet they are often powerless. Many women who are raped are told to keep quiet. Often, it is a shame for the entire family, and many victims have been kicked out of their villages and find themselves reduced to begging to survive.

Grassroots groups are trying to change this culture, and they have started by encouraging women who have been raped to speak out in open forums.

At the event in Bukavu, Kizende drew tears – and cheers. It seems the taboo against talking about rape is beginning to lift. Many women in the audience wore T-shirts that read in Kiswahili: "I refuse to be raped. What about you?"

Dozens of activists are travelling to villages on foot and by bicycle to deliver a simple but often novel message: rape is wrong.

But these improvements are simply the first, tentative steps of progress in a very troubled country.

UN officials said the number of rapes had appeared to be decreasing over the past year. But the recent upsurge of fighting between the Congolese government and rebel groups, and all the violence and predation that goes with it, is jeopardising those gains.

"It's safer today than it was," said Euphrasie Mirinidi, a woman who was raped in 2006. "But it's still not safe."

Poverty, chaos, disease and war. These are the constants of eastern Congo. Many people believe the rape problem will not be solved until the area tastes peace. But that might not be anytime soon.

Laurent Nkunda, a well-armed Tutsi warlord, or a saviour of his people, depending on whom you ask, recently threatened to wage war across the country. Clashes between his troops, many of them child soldiers, and government forces have driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in the past few months. His forces, along with those from the dozens of other rebel groups hiding out in the hills, are thought to be mainly responsible for the epidemic of brutal rapes.

UN officials say that the most sadistic rapes are committed by depraved killers who participated in Rwanda's genocide in 1994, and then escaped into Congo.

These attacks have left thousands of women with their insides destroyed. But the Congolese National Army, a ragtag undisciplined force of teenage troops who sport wraparound sunglasses and rusty rifles, has also been blamed.

The government has been slow to punish its own, but Congolese generals recently announced they would set up new military tribunals to prosecute government soldiers accused of rape.

No one – doctors, aid workers, Congolese and Western researchers – can explain exactly why Congo's rape problem is the worst in the world.

The attacks continue despite the presence of the largest United Nations peacekeeping force, with more than 17,000 troops. Impunity is thought to be a big factor, which is why there is now so much effort on bolstering Congo's creaky and often corrupt justice system. The sheer number of armed groups spread over thousands of miles of thickly forested territory, fighting over Congo's rich mineral spoils, also makes it incredibly difficult to protect civilians.

Activists from overseas have been pouring in. Few are more passionate than Eve Ensler, the American playwright who wrote The Vagina Monologues, which has been performed in more than 100 countries. She came to Congo last month to work with rape victims.

"I have spent the past 10 years of my life in the rape mines of the world," she said. "But I have never seen anything like this."

She calls it "femicide", a systematic campaign to destroy women.

Ensler is helping to open a centre in Bukavu called the City of Joy, which will provide counselling to rape victims as well as teach leadership skills and self-defence. Her hope is to build an army of rape survivors who will push with an urgency – that has so far been absent – for a solution to end Congo's ceaseless wars.

The City of Joy is rising behind Panzi Hospital, where the worst of the worst rape cases are treated. But even this refuge has come under attack. Last month, an irate mob stormed the hospital. They demanded that the doctors give them the body of a thief so it could be burned.

When the doctors refused, several angry young men members of the mob proceeded to beat up nurses and smash windows. But it was not clear if the body was the only thing that had set them off.

"They don't like our work," said Denis Mukwege, a gynaecologist. "Maybe what we're doing is disturbing people."

The stories of these rapes are clearly disturbing. But that is the point, to shake people up and grab their attention.

"The details are the scariest part," Ensler said.

At the event in Bukavu, many people in the audience covered their mouths in astonishment as they listened. Some could not bear what they heard and burst out of the room in tears.

One speaker, Claudine Mwabachizi, told how she was kidnapped by bandits in the forest, strapped to a tree and repeatedly gang-raped. The bandits did unspeakable things, she said, like disembowelling a pregnant woman right in front of her.

"A lot of us keep these secrets to ourselves," she said. She was going public, she added, "to free my sisters".

But Congo, if anything, is a land of contrasts. The soil is rich, but the people are starving. The minerals are limitless, but the government is broke.

After the speaking-out event was over, Mwabachizi said she was exhausted. But, she added: "I feel strong."

She was given a pink shawl with a message printed on it.

"I have survived," it read. "I can do anything."