The Democratic Republic of Congo has been called the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman or girl. (John Prendergast) The weapon of choice in this African country is not a gun or machete; it is mass rape and sexual assault. Hundreds of thousands of women have reported being attacked, and who knows the true number, as the stigma that goes with rape causes untold numbers not to report it.

No woman is spared; girls as young as 2 and grandmothers as old as 80 are victims. The situation has become so dire that the playwright Eve Ensler has termed what is happening as Femicide  — “the systematic destruction of women”

And with approximately 30% of the victims of these attacks contracting HIV/AIDS, this term does not seem far-fetched.

Why is this happening? Why is this war being fought on women’s bodies in this way? The answer is actually quite simple. It’s about control. Control of a land that is rich in minerals. Competing armed militias have found that the most effective way to subjugate and intimidate those living in the areas they control is by raping its women. When you rape a mother in front of her children and husband, or a daughter in front of her parents, there is a major breakdown of normal family and community life. The life of not just the victim is destroyed but the life of the whole village.

But why is this happening on such a scale in the Congo? As usual it involves money — this is a land rich in minerals. It is 4 minerals in particular — tin, tantalum, tungston and gold — and the trade in these that is fueling the atrocities being committed. 

These minerals are being used in all electronic devices including cell phones, ipods, and digital cameras. The militias that are trading these 4 minerals are generating approximately $144 million per year.

So in short, it is our never-ending demand for more and more electronic items that is causing this misery on Congo’s women.

Now that we know we are all (unconsciously) responsible for the problem in Congo, we can all make an effort to end it. As consumers, we have the power to demand that the electronic companies we are buying from become more aware of where the minerals in their products are coming from and prove that they have not been purchased at the expense of human rights violations.

This may seem impractical if not impossible, but the very thing has recently been done in the diamond industry. I’m sure everyone remembers “blood diamonds” from a few years ago, and no, this was not just a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. When it was discovered that the diamond trade in Sierra Leone was responsible for a slave trade and conscription of child soldiers, among other atrocities, public outcry caused the diamond industry to change its buying practices and the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme was introduced by the UN. This certifies where rough diamonds have come from and that they are not funding human rights violators. Sierra Leone is now a stable country.

Why can this not be done with the electronic industry? It can. The Enough Project is working with the 21 largest electronic companies and has created a conflict minerals pledge that would commit these companies to ensure that their products are conflict free.

I hope you’ll take a moment to go to this page and fill in your name to send a message to these electronic companies that we demand to know where their products are coming from. It will only take one minute of your time and the mothers, daughters, sisters and grandmothers of the Congo are depending on it.

Tweet  Print This Post

Tags: his & hers, terror & war // 7 Comments »