Congo (Kinshasa)

A workshop on conflict prevention, mediation and peace-building for women leaders from member states of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) was concluded on 12 January in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with the participants agreeing on a number of recommendations related to women's involvement in conflict resolution.

The number of women raped in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where sexual violence committed by warring factions has become endemic, topped 8,000 last year, according to fresh estimates released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The number of rapes carried out by civilians in eastern Congo has increased by 17-fold in the last few years, according to a study released Thursday that says sexual assaults long perpetrated by armed groups are spreading across the population.

Sexual violence has become increasingly pervasive in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo where civilian rape has risen 17-fold in the past few years, says a report released today by Oxfam.

Former Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler thinks Canada has lost its way in the world, rejecting grand Liberal era foreign policy in favour of narrow strategies.

Invited to address the Liberal Party of Canada's thinkers conference last weekend in Montreal, Fowler blasted the governing Tories for abandoning Africa.

Government troops - the FARDC - in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are to blame for much of the epidemic of sexual violence in the east of the country, according to US and UN reports detailing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity by various groups there.

1 April 2010 –The United Nations is boosting the efforts of women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to overcome decades of low female participation in politics and achieve their rightful role in governing the vast African country and rebuilding it after years of civil war.

The Congolese conflict is considered the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, and the deadliest since World War II. Since 1998, more than six million people have died as a result of this war. Over two million people have been forced to flee their homes, and some 400,000 Congolese have sought refuge in neighboring countries. Hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been kidnapped, raped, and tortured.

Rape in wartime is a scar on modern society that must be stamped out by ending impunity and changing men's attitudes towards women, says Margot Wallstrom, the United Nations' first special representative on sexual violence in conflict.