Decoupling Seattle Family Law and Divorce Blog

Part II: The Road Back From Hell

Courtesy Unicef

A conflict from neighboring Rwanda spilled over into the Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, leading to a brutal war that claimed 5 million lives.  In its wake, Congo’s ineffectual government does little while armed gangs continue to roam eastern Congo, raping women on a scale that defies belief.  Part one of this article discusses the epidemic of rape and the recent history of violence in central Africa since the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

There are signs of hope in the region, however, from Rwanda of all places. In 2008, Rwanda became the world’s first congress or parliament with a female majority (56%), and its government includes a female foreign minister, education minister, Supreme Court chief, police commissioner general, and speaker of the parliament. Apparently this change has been more than symbolic. As the Washington Post reports:

One result is that Rwanda has banished archaic patriarchal laws that are still enforced in many African societies, such as those that prevent women from inheriting land. The legislature has passed bills aimed at ending domestic violence and child abuse, while a committee is now combing through the legal code to purge it of discriminatory laws.

Things in Kivu, however, remain somewhat bleak.

As Patrick Vinck from the Initiative for Vulnerable Populations and Phuong Pham from the Human Rights Center of the University of California at Berkeley wrote in a NY Times Letter to the Editor:

In our recent survey of 2,620 people in eastern Congo, we found that … one of six (16 percent) had been sexually violated, often multiple times (12 percent).

In addition to the trauma, rape victims have been rejected by their communities. One of four adults (25 percent) would not accept victims of sexual violence back into their community.

But, say Vinck and Pham:

Most of all, eastern Congolese want justice. Eighty-five percent of those we surveyed wanted those responsible for rape and war crimes to be held accountable. (emphasis added)

Enter The Lawyers!

The good news is that something is finally being done – this time by lawyers!  Among other remedies, and the world finally paying attention, the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative, with US State Department funding, opened a legal clinic in January 2008 to help bring justice to some of the victims in Goma, North Kivu.

The ABA is not only getting attention, but also funding from some unlikely sources:

The Dutch government recently awarded the ABA Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) a $5.2 million grant that will dramatically expand its work on combating gender-based violence [in Maniema Province] …   increasing the capacity of police, prosecutors and judges to combat pervasive impunity in rape cases. ABA ROLI’s DRL-funded program has been directly responsible for a surge in rape convictions in and around the city of Goma in North Kivu, where ABA ROLI maintains an office….

Finally, MacArthur Foundation recently notified ABA ROLI that it will fund a proposed project to combat gender-based violence in Butembo, a city north of Goma.  ABA ROLI expects to open an office in Butembo in the coming months.

I graduated from law school 17 years ago, and though I am heavily involved with my local and state bar associations, I never even thought about joining the American Bar Association – till the day I read about the ABA opening up offices in Kivu.  So I had to join up, on the spot, if for no other reason but to feel a small connection to the kind of brazen, windmill-tilting excercise that made me want to be a lawyer in the first place.

Eastern Congo is still a chaotic, violent place. And the ABA’s efforts are just a small part of a complex, long-term solution. But 2008 brought more than 100 Rape charges filed in the city of Bukavu alone, and there have been 8 convictions coming from this ABA project.  Eight might not seem like a lot against a back drop of tens of thousands of crimes.  But it is a start.  A New York Times article notes:

In Bunia, a town farther north, rape prosecutions are up 600 percent compared with five years ago. Congolese investigators have even been flown to Europe to learn “CSI”-style forensic techniques …

Activists are fanning out to villages on foot and by bicycle to deliver a simple but often novel message: rape is wrong. Men’s groups are even being formed.

But these improvements are simply the first, tentative steps of progress in a very troubled country.

With the help of the international community, there is now some hope that life might start getting better in this staggering beautiful place.

For more information:

• Listen to a recent ABA podcast on its Congo effort here.
• Get a monthly newsletter from ROLI here.
• Contact Mathieu Ndongo-Koni at Mndongo-koni@staff.abanet.org for more info.
• If you’re a lawyer, join the ABA here.

So learn more.  Get involved.  And next time you hear a snide lawyer joke, tell ‘em about what us lawyers are doing in Kivu.