Worst Place To Be A Woman: Congo

We're heard the stories of the atrocities of civil war, militias run rampant, rape, and murder in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for quite some time, but now Amnesty International has made it official - the Congo is the worst place in the world to be a woman. Women and girls in the Congo are nearly all survivors of calculated and systematic sexual assault, which has been used as a weapon in the ongoing civil war since 1996. In addition to the emotional and mental anguish experienced by the survivors as well as members of their local community (assaults are often carried out in public, aimed to undermine the strength families or local towns), physical injuries have been devastating in an area of the world where medical care is sorely lacking, and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, are quickly rising. One result is that survivors are expelled from their families and communities, cut off not only from a support network but also from economic opportunity. To make things even worse, few aid organizations are able to work in the Congo, due to the civil strife that is ongoing.

Amnesty International hopes that by naming the Congo the worst place in the world to be a woman, they can urge other women to join in the call for an end to violence. They've prepared a petition on their website calling on President-elect Barack Obama to protect women of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. You can sign that here, and we hope you do.