With Hillary Clinton
launching her African tour today, including a stop in the war-torn eastern Congo—dubbed the rape capital of the world by the UN—the
New York Times is running a big story about rape in the Congo:
rape, that is, of men.
Hillary had a bit of bad fortune in being upstaged as she kicked off her campaign to bring attention to women's rights in African countries by
her husband's rescue of two women journalists in North Korea. But no hard feelings, Bill. Because nobody would have paid any attention anyway.
As much as it seems right to be appalled and concerned that hundreds of thousands of women have been sexually assaulted there, we aren't. Call it rape-and-pillage fatigue. After months of especially brutal fighting there last year, the crisis seems to have
dropped off the radar screen.
Newser ran
many stories about atrocities in Congo last year; this year, the stories we're seeing have been about ...
gorillas. And readers respond to them. We're (rightly) upset about poaching and smuggling of gorillas. Seven gorillas murdered in Congo a couple of years ago were treated (rightly) as an outrage and a tragedy. A few hundred thousand woman brutalized, and the response is, what can you do?
Which is where the
New York Times comes in. The
Times' story about Congolese assaults hit our grid and began its climb up our most-read list. The angle? Men are raping men in the Congo, and the article seems to suggest that, well, they have it worse. It's harder for men—who account for 10% of rape victims—to bounce back, say aid workers; homosexuality is so taboo that there's an extra layer of shame; some men have died rather than seek help.
It's horrific. It's almost enough to make you…care. But more to the point, it's surprising. This makes us sit up, take notice, click, because it's not as ordinary as, well, women being raped in war-torn African countries.
Clinton's trip is being regarded as a sign that the Obama administration is making Africa a priority; she's voiced her desire to make sexual violence her priority. I wish her luck, and hope that when she tries to get some attention for these women, she'll be able to stage a rescue of her own—by catapulting them out of the category of sexual-violence-as-usual.
