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DR. DENNIS MUKWEGE MUKENGERE: …public, collective followed by sexual mutilations, rapes without age distinction, rapes with corporal torture of all kinds often ending in sexual slavery. Of course, this practice has direct consequences on the woman and her family, including the spouse and children, on the community and on an entire region. Of course, the consequences are of a physical, psychic, economic, social nature to name but a few.
But the major issue that persists is to know the motive behind these methodic acts, which is a major atrocity in itself. Is it only acts following a war as we see everywhere else and that we can compare to acts of punitive rape or statutory rape, et cetera? Or is it a well-structured, planned war strategy? The latter case would be more dramatic, and we strive to think that this hypothesis is incorrect, but the practical strategy, the effects produced by this strategy produce the same consequences on the civil population as a classic war using firearms, in other words, death of men, displacement of people, internally displaced people, robberies, abandonment of land and riches to the executioners. But in addition to these consequences, the woman is humiliated. Her femininity is destroyed. Her future of motherhood is compromised. These women’s entire lives are disrupted, as well as that of their progeny. In short, it is a war against life.
The gravity of this situation is also shown by the very high number of victims identified and certainly there are others who prefer to die in anonymity. Throughout the two days we have spent together, it has seemed important to me that each one of us add his stone to the structure so this plague can be stopped, so that the victims can be cared for properly, and most importantly study the mechanism so that such plagues can no longer -- cannot happen in other regions of the world where future conflicts arise. Thank you.
ZAINAB SALBI: Denis, I remember the day Mobutu was overthrown from power. I was very excited. I called my cousin, and I said, “The Congolese were able to change an oppressive regime. They were able to do it by themselves. And the more I learned about Congo -- I had not been working in Congo then -- but the more I learned, that actually North and South Kivu were known for their prosperity and independence and educated population in that area. That’s -- many, many, many times Mobutu’s regime was not able to actually control South and North Kivu in many ways because of the educated population and the prosperous population over there.
The question I have is: what happened? Just to take a moment back before we go into what’s happening right now. What happened in terms of the change, and why are we seeing, ten years later, or more than ten years later, from hope that you mentioned in your opening remarks to the despair that we are talking about today?
DR. DENNIS MUKWEGE MUKENGERE: Actually, I think that it is a very complex situation. You have taken me a little bit back in history. I think that for the Congolese population, which had suffered so much under the Mobutu regime, his departure was actually hope to begin a new life, to actually form a nation, to express itself. And everyone believed it. Everyone believed it was the beginning of a new era. Unfortunately, for more than ten years, since his departure, the Congo has found itself in a situation where people – when asked about the Mobutu past today they believe that, today, they live worse than they did before, even though we thought back then that no worse life existed. And that is the complexity of the situation and I think that people live in worse conditions today.
ZAINAB SALBI: One of the things that I always think about whenever visiting Congo is the Heart of Darkness. It’s -- and particularly the horror, the horror that the Heart of Darkness talked about, Joseph Conrad talked about. In the midst of the horror that is happening right now, where do you see the hope? Do you see hope? And this is actually what worries me the most when I talk about Congo.
I met a woman last year. I was visiting there. And she was actually at the Panzi Hospital getting treatment. The rebels came to her home. She served them food, thinking that if she serves them food they would let her go. Then they ask for her husband. She had kept her husband asleep so he would not, you know -- men would not encounter him, and that would perhaps be more -- more tense. So they ask her for her husband, and she went and woke him up after they ate, and they beat him up and killed him in front of her and her four children. Then they raped her. Then they cut off her right leg, and they cut it in four pieces, and they asked her children to participate in eating part of their mother’s flesh.
The story is horrible, and I don’t think it’s the worst story I’ve heard from Congo, as I’m sure it’s not the worst story that you have witnessed. What I’m left with is the question, in the midst of this horror, how can we have hope? And do you see hope? And can we snap out of this cycle of hatred? She was telling me that her children hate, hate the concept of anybody who speaks Kinyarwanda, who may be coming from that region. Do you see that as you work with women and their children, in terms of the healing? And not their physical healing but their, also, mental healing.
DR. DENNIS MUKWEGE MUKENGERE: Ah, Ms. Zainab, I think that if there was no hope, we would have packed our bags and left a long time ago. But I must tell you that in this horror, there is one thing that has always amazed me, that has given me unbelievable strength, it is the courage that these women demonstrate in the face of all the problems that confront them.
I believe that often, when a woman talks to you, you have the impression that she is telling you a story that does not appear to be true. However, the story is true. But when you also observe her ability to want to leave it behind, her ability to want to fight back, her ability to say, “This is the past, it must be put behind me.” And all she tells you is: “Help me be able to leave it behind me.” I think that is, this gives hope because most women that I have met are women who have been through horrible things that, I myself, I am supposedly helping them, sometimes I fall apart, as the French say, and -- and I am the one who falls apart while -- I am the one who is supposed to support them. But I think that their strength gives me hope because they are women who are able to fight and they fight despite their difficult situation. This is a window of hope.
ZAINAB SALBI: It’s easier for me not to ask the question when I have had [UI]. In the midst of assuring the window of hope, it is estimated, according to the World Health Organization, that there 4 million orphaned children in DR Congo right now. It is estimated -- I talked already about the estimation of HIV. It is estimated that 80 percent of the population struggle to exist on less than 20 cents a day. Sixty to 80 percent of the women are now single heads of households in DR Congo. And particularly, I believe, this applies particularly to eastern Congo.
What are the things that can be done in a tangible way to capture this concept of hope that you’re talking about? Because I actually agree with you. I think hope in the midst of darkness is a very important, powerful tool that we need not only to appreciate but we need to nourish and provide for so it becomes larger than the darkness that it exists within. What are the tangible things? How can we not only talk the talk about paying attention to Congo, but walk the walk in terms of paying attention to Congo? What are the needs of the population there, but what are the needs also for the region, to stabilize it?
DR. DENNIS MUKWEGE MUKENGERE: Actually, I think that in effect you are asking me a question about solutions, but I must say that this window of hope, it is there because it is a population -- I mean, the female population of the Congo, are women who -- they have always impressed me. They have always impressed me with their ability to adapt to situations that you could call impossible to adapt to. And they try to make a path through the rock, as we say. And I think that it is Women for Women that can provide the most important testament because of the work you do with these women, who start from zero and who you find, in the end -- are the ones who give you the courage to do what you do.
But I think that in order not to continue to have the same people suffer all the time, during Mobutu’s reign, everyone was unemployed, 80 percent of the population was unemployed, the possibility was not there, thus the money was in the hands of certain persons. I saw the women of the Congo get up, they would wake up at 5 o’clock, 4 o’clock in the morning to go out and look for work to earn a living for the entire family. I hope the men forgive me, but a lot of men allowed themselves to fall into hopelessness, but the women remained steadfast for everyone’s survival. And here, when you walk through the streets, unfortunately, you will observe that -- for a foreigner, he tells himself, “How can one explain that it is women who transport, who are at the market, who are everywhere? In the vehicles. They are the ones who board the vehicles.” When I observe that, I think, “It is great, the men should see how these women have managed to find solutions.”
But as we move forward, we find that the woman who managed so well during the Mobutu period, who fought for the survival, not only of her family, but for the survival of the nation, [when] the war arrived, it is that same woman who was no longer able to go to the fields, who was no longer able to work for her family, who, when she tried to go to work, it is that woman who was kidnapped, who was raped, who was mutilated. It is that woman whose leg was amputated, whose arms were amputated, etcetera. And unfortunately, that is not a short-term situation. It is a situation that has persisted over time. I think that -- we have been crying out for ten years, we have been talking about what happens in the Congo, it is completely abnormal. You can’t not [UI] after having raped a woman, cut off her leg, asked her children to eat, to start eating a part of their mother’s body. And there is worse. There are worse stories than that. It is always the woman who suffers.
And here, I think that all solutions start by making this woman safe. Any solution in Congo starts by making this woman, who is an immeasurable resource, safe. And I think that if one must let her develop during times of chronic wars where she is targeted, there will be no solution because I think that in the Congo the solution must start through her who has shown dynamism at all times. Unfortunately, today we deprive her of all possibility of expressing herself about all plans. She is less literate. She can no longer carry out her normal activities for fear of being raped. She can no longer express herself. And I think that any solution starts with her security, thus peace in the region.
ZAINAB SALBI: Actually, you bring a lot of issues. One of them is -- to circle back on Honorata -- one of them is how you can capture the hope, and Honorata, the woman that was a sexual slave that I mentioned about, she’s goes on and she goes to the Women for Women’s program which matched with a woman from America, from all over the world, by sending her $27 a month for a year. Honorata also exchanged letters with her sponsor’s sister in America, and then gets into a group of 20 women, where she goes for an intensive training in women’s rights and -- and vocational skills to start a job at the end of the year. So, after a year of graduating, she said, “This has turned me to hope, to aspire for a better life, to dream of having a house, to have peace and security, to reclaim my life where some of it -- with the same resilience as before, to regain my dignity and dynamism. I would like to be someone of importance, someone of value again.”
So it’s possible to actually capture this someone who is -- the strength and the courage you talk about of someone who’s been a sexual slave for a year and a half, to actually someone who wants to be someone. So Honorata -- the story goes back, and she’s now a community activist where she goes from one door to another, from one home to another and encourages women to take back their voices and to participate in community decision making and the elections and the different issues.
Where we’re finding a hard time is when that repeated attacks happen, when the woman stands on her feet actually, she’s able to rebuild her life physically, emotionally to a certain extent, and economically, an attack happens again. And that goes back into the issue of security and how important it is that we address this whole issue. One woman was talking about -- she said, “After being raped the second time, I am lost. I wonder if this war has been a war against me. I have lost hope in life, but I have to live for my children. I know that I should go and get tested, but I’m afraid to take the HIV/AID tests. I fear I may be positive.” So many questions related to that. It’s the second time, and it’s the security situations. And what do you do when someone has been able just to rebuild their life and again it happens?
So many questions on that. One is the presence of the U.N. When the U.N., when MONUC first arrived into Congo, I know there was some criticism of MONUC participating in some of the rape. How has that changed? And how does the population feel about the U.N. presence in eastern Congo in terms of providing security and reduction from the repeated attacks on women?
DR. DENNIS MUKWEGE MUKENGERE: I think that the population had cheered the arrival of the MONUC so much because at that time we thought that there is an objective witness who is arriving and thus the situation would have to improve. And it is true that everyone had set their hopes on this mission from abroad, finally [UI] are here. They will not be able to remain calm or they cannot keep quiet about what is happening. And, as you know, in Bukavu or in Goma, it is the MONUC radio that regularly informs that, well, today that there were so many women in these villages that were forced into sexual slavery. Thus, they have all the data because it is the MONUC radio that, for example, informs us to guide our actions here where we will guide our actions. Thus, what is alarming in this situation is that everyone -- I mean, the national community, the international community -- everyone knows where the people who commit the rapes are. They are localized. Everyone here knows where they are.
Secondly, everyone knows, and here we have a study that will be published by the associates of Public Health of Harvard University, that clearly shows who commits this violence and these sexual rapes against the women. 80 percent is committed by foreign-armed groups. This study will be issued.
Third fact: Those who have committed these acts against women for all these years, we ask ourselves the question thanks to MONUC. In the plan – first, in the national plan, there is no action undertaken to stop or isolate the perpetrators of these crimes. Regarding this issue, MONUC is present and it appears at times to play the role of observer, while they are in Chapter 7. Thus, they can act. They have the right to act, but they just observe and only report about what is happening.
It must be said that the population has a lot of trouble with this area, it really asks questions because even recently there was a Congolese military commander who, in his area, had decided to wage war against these armed groups in the -- in the Kaniola portion. We asked him to stop and he quit his command post. And the population knows about this. Thus, I believe that these are intriguing questions and when you speak with women, in all the reports they clearly show you that they are their aggressors’ victims.
But, somewhere, there is an invisible hand because they cannot understand that those who are supposed to protect them in the national or international plan have done nothing for many years. And this is very worrisome. It is very worrisome and at times we have -- we are in the midst of discussions when the women tell us what they see here or they are taken as sexual slaves. And I think that, to add to what we have just said, I had a young girl that was raped -- she was 12 years old. She arrived at the hospital, she was 14 years old. She is a lovely young girl, and after having treated her for genital lesions, because she was losing urine and fecal matter, this young girl, I remember just after she was cured, she would not stop telling me, “Father, look how – how beautiful I am.” She even wore makeup and then she wanted all the time, like a daughter to her father, to tell me “see how beautiful I am.” She was from Shabunda.
And I often say that this little girl really affected me because on the day I asked at MSF, who had brought her to the hospital, that she is cured, she must return to her village in Shabunda, she came crying, she told me, “Father, I cannot leave. These people there will hurt me.” I said, “You know very well that I cannot keep everyone at the hospital. Now you are cured. We do not have enough space. Return to your village. God will provide he will help you. Nothing will happen to you.” I really encouraged her. She returned to her village. She returned three years later. When she was raped the first time, she became pregnant and when she delivered all of her genital system was destroyed. But we were able to repair it and thankfully she had not been infected with HIV. But note. She returned three years later. This time, when she arrived at the hospital, she returned in a coma. She had become septic after being raped by several men. She had lost consciousness. She had an infection. And when she came to hospital, she was in a coma. We revived her. The poor thing, she awoke but was even more destroyed than before.
To tell you, for the second time, the surgery was not able to accomplish anything. But the serious thing, I had to have the courage to tell this young girl that “now you are HIV positive.” You know, having the courage to look her in the eyes and to tell her, “I was not able to play my role of father, like you had called me,” since – “father” -- she had called me “her father”. Having the courage to say, “Now accept that you will continue to lose urine for the rest of your life and that now you are HIV positive,” even though I am a physician, it is very hard.
And the story of this young girl, it is not a unique story. There are many such cases. And when I have seen the worst of these cases, despite their poverty, they are women who have nothing. Sometimes they arrive to the hospital almost naked and we are forced to give them clothing, to protect them, for their dignity, to give them their dignity. But all they asked of Jan Egeland, the Under-Secretary of the United Nations, of John Holmes, the last time, of the secretary – of the Minister of British Cooperation, for example, when she came, is, “Messrs, give us peace! Even if Doctor Mukwege treats us, and he treats us, but after, when we return to them -- return home, we are raped again, we are hurt even more.”
And I think that when someone who is hungry, who is -- who is naked, sick, does not ask you for food, does not ask you for clothing, but tells you, “Give me peace,” -- that means that if you give her peace, she will know how to manage that. I think that these poor women only ask us for that -- peace.
ZAINAB SALBI: Thank you. It’s very hard to -- follow this. Thank you.
MODERATOR: As always in a case like this, we don’t have even near enough time, but at this point I’d like to open it up to you all to ask both Dr. Mukwege as well as Zainab Salbi questions. We do have mikes in the front of the aisle here on both sides. So please come forward. We have about a half an hour to -- for questions. Don’t be shy. Sir?
MR. DALIBOUNO: My name is Bernard Dalibouno [phonetic]. I’m from Congo. I work for Georgetown University here in town. I was shaking while coming down. Thank you for organizing this. We’ve seen you on many shows. We’ve seen how you’re moving this together. We are in front of some of our very many heroes of the country. I’m from the same place where most of them are coming from, and I admire what they do for our women and for our people in Congo.
But one of the concerns I have, the same concern you’ve mentioned earlier, but you’ve been studying this and things kind of fell back because nobody is interested in this history of Congo. We’ve been suffering for many years. I’m 38 years. I’ve been hoping, hoping, hoping. I’m dying very soon with old age. Nothing is happening. And I live in this particular powerful country of the world, the country that is silent to everything that is happening in Congo, a [UI] genocide that is happening in Congo. Eight thousand people have been killed in neighboring country. Everyone is crying. Five million and a half have killed in Congo. Everybody’s silent! Where are we going with this, and how long more should we go seeing our people dying? I sit here in Washington, D.C., watching TV, living a good life. My own people are dying back home. And the country is silent and silent. We are in front of the media. We are in front of people who can talk to the government of United States. Can the government intervene in this situation that is going on in Congo? You [UI] for many, many years. Can the United States now step in and do something in our country?
ZAINAB SALBI: I think, if I may take a crack at this, you know, my first visit to Congo, I visited in the one of the villages near Bukavu, and we had a village meeting where the elders of the village and women and men got together and sat down. And I asked them, “What do you want me to pass on to the world?” They did not have TV in that village; they had one radio that the whole village hears. And the elders said, “We just want the world to stop selling us arms. Would you just stop selling us arms and so many that is causing a lot of the fighting.” It’s not an answer to yours. I think the answer to yours really will need to take courage to address the issue as it is and to address that two wrongs don’t make a right or a past wrong doesn’t justify any action that is happening right now. And it takes from all of us the courage to address the situation, and that is the stopping of the atrocity in Congo is not only -- does not relate to Congolese; it’s really address the region in general and our policies towards the region in general. It’s a wider issue than just DR Congo, and we need to address that and to be honest about that. Doctor --
DR. DENNIS MUKWEGE MUKENGERE: Yes. Honestly, I think that, when I gave the introduction, I thanked you all because I think that your presence here has already been interpreted as you doing something so that the world is informed of what is happening. And I tell you that it has been ten years, we have been battling each other for ten years and today you should not feel discouraged since today I feel that there is a lot more hope. Your presence here, for me, it means that we are in the process of -- we are going towards victory against evil. This is the interpretation of your presence here.
And I believe that, five years ago, we would not have had the audience we have today. And I am certain that if each one of us does what he must regarding what he has learned today, what he will learn tomorrow, if each one of us can do within his work milieu, within his political milieu, I don’t know … I believe that it can take time maybe and it is regrettable since for someone who is suffering prolonging the suffering is always bad, but I believe that one must not abandon if one has the impression that one is not heard. One must insist. I believe that your presence here is already a great testament that you want this to stop. And it is with your help that this will stop. One must never think that there is someone else who will do [the work]. One must always tell oneself I am personally the actor and what can I do? The fact of being informed, the fact of being witness and not to be quiet that is already fighting the fight. And I think that what I am asking in fact, I believe that each one must do what he must do.
Regarding – I think that you had asked the question about what the United States can do. I think that the United States can do a lot and the United State’s influence in the region can help a lot, but those who make the decisions must have the correct information and know what people are asking of them. That is your work. It is you who must do that. And I think that if you do that based on what you do, those who make the decisions will make a good decision. But if you don’t provide the correct information, nothing will change. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Sir?
MR. ALIMASSI: Greetings. My name is N’Tal Alimassi [phonetic]. I’m just an American of Congolese origin. I had a question for Dr. Mukwege, and it’s really a question of clarification. On his program, 60 Minutes, after he interviewed to Mr. Anderson, made a comment that after young women and women in general are raped in the Congo, they are abandoned by their husbands and their communities. I happen to remember hearing from you saying that actually, when men witness their women being raped in front of them, they feel so diminished and degraded that they flee the home. I just want to get from you where Mr. Anderson got his interpretation because, as a Congolese, it disturbed me, and so since you are here, I’d like to hear your answer.
DR. DENNIS MUKWEGE MUKENGERE: Actually, I think we must answer this question based on what is happening. I believe I will even try to broaden it since at the beginning I interpreted it like everyone else and told myself it is the war. That was in 1999. It was the war. People were taking vengeance against the women, against -- in fact, the one who vanquished, the vanquisher against the woman. And thus I took the context as a war context.
But when the situation continued and when I talked more with the victims and when I tried to compare what is happening in different corners, you will find today, through the crack downs, the tortures imposed on a woman, at the hospital in Panzi we can tell you this woman has been tortured at such and such a place by such and such a group since they do it in a methodical way and the manner in which it is done, for example, those they force to eat the flesh of their victims or require the women to eat the flesh of their husbands, things like that, it is a group that is identified.
Those who, after having tortured, they try to do it so that the largest number possible of the village can assist in the spectacle and that, after the spectacle, well, they only take the -- the young girls whom they force into sexual slavery and who leave the children or the old women, it is another group. And I think that when we see what has happened, in fact, there is a goal sought, and this goal, I am referring to the consequence since I was talking about how to explain that a man who was unable to protect his wife can repudiate her?
How to explain that a man who was unable to protect his wife can abandon her? And I was truly frustrated with the men. I was finding that, in fact, the men are not responsible. But when I started asking, when the wives asked me, “No, I want to leave, but I have been told that my husband is in such and such a place, can you try to bring him to me so I can reconcile with my husband?” When I spoke with the husband, I realized that in fact not only is the wife raped but the entire community is raped. It is not a single rape. In fact, the act is performed against the woman, but the entire community is raped since many of these men, I found them who -- they were no longer normal men in terms of their behavior, in their manner of acting and that, finally, they abandoned their wives -- that is the case for many of them -- it is done to seek anonymity, leave the village where everyone knows what has happened, where everyone knows how his children were conceived. And he leaves, but he where the family, no one knows him. And I believe that during these meetings, maybe tomorrow in workshops, we will discuss a lot more thoroughly to tell you that it is also a strategy of destruction and not simply rape. And that is why one should not compare them with traditional rapes.
ZAINAB SALBI: I want to add into that because we actually work with about 17,000 Congolese women through our office over there. And I want to address some of the things that you mentioned. Not all men, of course, have the same reaction. The issue of public rape, because the consistency of the stories or the pattern of the stories is changing, it’s changing sexual acts from a private function to a public function. It’s often men and women talk about how when the rape is happening, it’s public, it’s in the middle of the street, it’s in the middle of the house. It’s forcing the father or the husband to look at their wife or their child as she’s being raped.
So, we have to talk about -- this is actually is a shock to the social system, for the social infrastructure, that is happening here. Some men, a lot of men do escape because it is the emasculating of men. So, when I first went to Congo and I hear so many stories of the husbands abandoning their wives, you first get very angry at the husbands. But then we started talking with the husbands, and the husbands oftentimes see themselves as also the victims, that he was so emasculated that he could not protect his nine-year-old daughter or his wife or his mother or anybody of his family and loved ones as they were raped in front of him.
So, there is a lot of patterns of men escaping or abandoning the family and the children. We cannot deny that. But there are also a lot of men who are returning back to their family and to their women. The church has a huge role in that, in encouraging men to come back. Some come back and resume their normal relationships with their wives; some, they don’t. I have one woman telling me that her husband and her are back with each other, and they live in the same room, but they are silent. And she said, “Worse than anything I have witnessed, worse that being raped in front of my husband, worse than having my children killed in front of me, worse than escaping and walking in the forest for two months is the silence between me and my husband tonight, right now.” So, we cannot talk about the issues of rape without really talking about its consequences and the impact as a domino effect on the whole infrastructure of the society. So, that’s one issue. It’s not black-and-white. It’s not everyone is abandoning or everyone is staying. It’s really a complexity, and different men are doing different things.
But I do want to mention the issue of rape of men because I think this is happening. I don’t know how often it’s happening. Women for Women International, actually, when we learned that we need to work in a community, we do need to work with men leadership in that community. And so we do sensitization training for men leadership. And as you said, yes, 90 percent of the rapists are outsiders, outside of Congo, but they’re also the -- and whatever that means, that 10 percent of rapists that are happening within Congo.
And we need to give you an experience, and this is not to talk of who’s doing the rape as a much as the rape of men. So, one of the men I talked with, he said, “You know, whenever I entered another man’s house and that other man did not have a gun and I had a gun, I never questioned whether I could rape his wife or not. I always raped his wife until I learned the connections between rape and HIV positive. And I learned that by raping, I could be killing myself and I could be killing my family. And by raping, I could be losing half of my soldiers.” So he stopped, he stopped raping. So, he’s -- but he talks about the rape. We talk about the issues of rape in a very public discussion. What everyone stops the discussion at is when it comes to the rape of men. And I’m actually curious about how often this is happening. That’s when everyone giggles, and no one can talk about is it happening, is it not happening, how frequently is happening, is a major crisis or not? And I’m actually very curious about that.
DR. DENNIS MUKWEGE MUKENGERE: Yes. Another group that we have had to treat is men who were raped. And I think that there is a very, very big difference. Here I am actually referring to the strength I see in the women. The men who are raped, we have a lot more difficulty in the ability to heal them, as one says, thus the ability to help them from a psychological perspective. Their suicidal tendency is much greater when compared, for example, to the rage experienced in women, their ability to leave that behind.
But when a man is raped, when he himself has been subjected to rape, it is always more serious, but even the men, when they assist in the rape of their wives, what I have observed, for example, a lot when they come to see me, like Ms. Zainab just said, the wives complain because they find that the husband has accepted to continue married life, but the husband is no longer the same. And when I call them, for example, I tell the wife, “Now bring your husband.” Often, in private, the husband tells me, “I would like to but each time I see my wife, what comes back is what happened and I have developed impotence.” That is -- that is sexual impotence.
The men, it is as if after these events, many are able -- when this has truly touched them, afterwards they all develop abnormal behavior, and we have a lot more difficulty in guiding them to the reason. And it is true that the wives complain for that reason, but when we talk with the men, well, often they show us that is not their fault. But when they themselves have been raped, it is even more serious. Particularly if they have been raped in the presence of their wives and children, you must monitor them much more closely than the women since those we have been able to treat in our clinic, even if you treat him, he always has something that -- that hurts, that is not right, that -- he does not sleep. And thus you have the impression that to treat a raped man you use as much energy as that needed to treat ten raped women. This is what we have observed. Thankfully, the groups that rape men, they are specifically located in the island of Ubwari, in the south of Bukavu, towards Fizi, Baraka. It is there that we have a lot of cases of men who have been raped. And I remark that I have found their ability to face the problem was very, very weak when compared with the ability of women to get by, to start again.
