Anderson Cooper’s breaking my heart. Last month I watched an episode of 60 Minutes where he reported on the possibility of a world without gorillas because of all the unrest in the Congo.
Well, gorillas aren’t the only ones whose lives are in danger and experiencing massive upheaval. Last night Anderson Cooper reported about the women of the Congo and all the suffering they’re enduring.
“It is, in fact, a war against women, and the weapon used to destroy them, their families and whole communities, is rape.” ~-60 Minutes-~
He told about the unbelievable violence women in villages endure at the hands of rebels, militia, and the Congolese Army. Even if they try to run and seek shelter and safety in a refugee camp, they can’t find it. In their world, violence is the norm. Rape is the norm. Trauma and terror lurks everywhere.
Who’s fighting who? Homegrown militia are fighting rebels. The Congolese Army is fighting sometimes with the homegrown militia forces, sometimes against, and also against the rebels.
After clashes occur, villages are pillaged and the women raped. Usually by many men at once. Usually in front of their husbands who, defenseless, are forced to watch. Sometimes they’re raped in front of the entire village.
They profiled one young woman, Lucienne, who was raped in front of her six-year-old brother. The men made him hold a flashlight and watch what they were doing. Then they told him to rape his sister. He refused and they killed him.
Then they kidnapped her and she spent eight months being raped repeatedly everyday until she finally was able to escape. When she got back to her village she did not expect to find her young daughters alive.
Thankfully they were. But her husband fled.
A husband abandoning his wife who’s been raped is a common occurrence in the Congo now. One doctor they interviewed explained that at first he was horrified by it too, but now he understands the mentality behind it. The husbands feel they’ve been raped too. They feel great shame that they could not protect their wives. So they leave.
In Lucienne’s case, not only did her husband leave but she also gave birth to a little daughter fathered by one of her rapists.
As I watched this brave women who’s now responsible for caring for three little girls in an environment where even they’re in danger of being raped, I thought about the blog I wrote about the Cinderella effect in our society.
What kind of romantic fairy tales about love and marriage did Lucienne grow up believing? What are her views on love and marriage now? Does she still believe in it, even after everything she’s lived through? And what will she teach her daughters about men and marriage?
How can you believe in love when you don’t see it anywhere around you? Or is believing it must exist somewhere what helps you get by?
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