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DRC / REPARATIONS PANEL
STORY: DRC / REPARATIONS PANEL
TRT: 2.29
SOURCE: OHCHR / MONUSCO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: RECENT / FILE
FILE / OCTOBER 2010, BUKAVU, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
1. Wide shot, aerial view of Lake Kivu
2. Med shot, sexual violence victim
3. Close up, victim injured face being washed
4. Wide general shot, women walking on a road
5. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Jeanne Mukuninwa, sexual violence victim:
“They tied my uncle’s hands and feet to a tree. Then I was also tied and left there for whoever came to rape me.”
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Kyung-Wha Kang, UN Human Rights Deputy High Commissioner:
“We have heard so much about the mass rapes in the Congo but all throughout what was missing was the voice of the victims. The international community, concerned people go in listen to their horrendous stories but then what? What has become of their lives since?”
7. Med shot, UN Panel of experts with victims
8. Close up, Jeanne
9. Wide shot, victim being transported in the field
10. Various shot, monument
11. Wide shot, woman and peacekeeper walking in village
12. SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Mongu Akenkua, rape victim:
"It is painful when people point you out in the community, as if we wanted these abuses to happen to us. A husband will say he does not want a “wife” of the rebels. The husband abandons you. Children are born of rebels. You say you give us counselling, and tell us we should not discriminate against the (unwanted) children, but everyone already knows how they were conceived.”
13. Wide shots, people congregated at a talk
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Kyung-Wha Kang, UN Human Rights Deputy High Commissioner:
“Women victims should not be stigmatized and these courageous women deserve all the support that they can get.”
15. Various shots, women singing and clapping their hands together with Kyung-Wha Kang
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Kyung-Wha Kang, UN Human Rights Deputy High Commissioner:
“It’s not simple assistance. It is reparations which is a duty on the part of government to help victims of crime recover as much as they can, to restore them to the state before the crime happened.”
FEBRUARY 2011, SONGO MBOYO, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
17. Various shots, boat donated by the UN to women of Songo Mboyo being baptized and set out in the river
South Kivu, a remote corner of the vast African country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Although it might look beautiful and tranquil for the people who live here, it’s a different story.
Their story is of the violence of war, of lives devastated by brutal rapes committed by armed gangs and soldiers who fight over this mineral rich land.
No one is safe here, young or old, women or men.
SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Jeanne Mukuninwa, sexual violence victim:
“They tied my uncle’s hands and feet to a tree. Then I was also tied and left there for whoever came to rape me.”
Jeanne was left pregnant. A few months later she was viciously attacked for a second time. Her body and her life, shattered by the armed militia who raped her.
SOUNDBITE (English) Kyung-Wha Kang, UN Human Rights Deputy High Commissioner:
“We have heard so much about the mass rapes in the Congo but all throughout what was missing was the voice of the victims. The international community, concerned people go in listen to their horrendous stories but then what? What has become of their lives since?”
A United Nations (UN) panel of experts led by Kyung-Wha Kang, the UN Human Rights Deputy High Commissioner was set up to hear from victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Jeanne was one of an estimated 200 thousand people who had been sexually assaulted here in the DRC during the past 12 years of war. A monument in Shabunda stands as a harsh reminder of their suffering.
But their pain does not end after the violence. The victims still have to cope with trauma, shame and stigma.
SOUNDBITE (Swahili) Mongu Akenkua, rape victim:
"It is painful when people point you out in the community, as if we wanted these abuses to happen to us. A husband will say he does not want a “wife” of the rebels. The husband abandons you. Children are born of rebels. You say you give us counselling, and tell us we should not discriminate against the (unwanted) children, but everyone already knows how they were conceived.”
Here at the Songo Mboyo village the United Nations panel talked to the people there of the need for change in social attitudes that brand rape victims and their families.
SOUNDBITE (English) Kyung-Wha Kang, UN Human Rights Deputy High Commissioner:
“Women victims should not be stigmatized and these courageous women deserve all the support that they can get.”
The women welcome the offer of help. They singled out education, for their children, healthcare and their quest for justice as their greatest needs.
The UN panel concluded that the victims must benefit from their right to remedy and reparation and recommended the government to establish a reparations fund with support from the international community to provide resources for the women to rebuild their lives.
SOUNDBITE (English) Kyung-Wha Kang, UN Human Rights Deputy High Commissioner:
“It’s not simple assistance. It is reparations, which is a duty on the part of government to help victims of crime recover as much as they can, to restore them to the state before the crime happened.”
In February, the United Nations donated this boat to the women of Songo Mboyo. They will use it to ferry their merchandise to sell in local markets. The village women say this boat will help them get back their dignity, lost along with so much else, when they were mass raped in 2003.
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