Congo's New Horror: Men Raping Men

(AP) - Hillary Clinton traveled to war-ravaged eastern Congo today, where the nation's top diplomat demanded an end to the sexual violence that has claimed at least 200,000 victims. Clinton came to Goma aboard a UN plane over the objections of some top aides who were concerned about security and logistics for the visit. She is the first secretary of state to visit the city. More»

Rate of rape much higher than the rest of the country

(NEWSER) - The official number is bad enough: One in three American Indian women have experienced rape or attempted rape, a rate more than twice the national average. But it gets worse: One survey finds that in some rural villages, the rate of sexual violence is as much as 12 times the national rate, and interviews by the New York Times found that sexual assault is so common that few, if any, Native American women living on tribal reservations escape it. "We should never have a woman come into the office saying, 'I need to learn more about Plan B for when my daughter gets raped,'" says one women's health advocate on a South Dakota reservation. "That’s what’s so frightening—that it’s more expected than unexpected. It has become a norm for young women." More»

And Liz Trotta is not happy with how much money we're spending on the issue

(NEWSER) - The military's easing of the ban on women in combat came just a few weeks after news that sexual violence in the military has risen sharply —and in a recent segment on Fox News, contributor Liz Trotta (who has seen her share of gaffes in the past) found a way to combine the two news items in quite possibly the most controversial way possible. "Women once more, the feminists, [want] to be warriors and victims at the same time," she said in a clip picked up by Media Matters . Noting the 64% increase in violent sexual assaults since 2006, she asked, "Now, what did they expect? These people are in close contact." More»

Weapon of war? That's not the full picture: Laura Seay

(NEWSER) - News that 48 women are raped in the Congo every hour has led to understandable condemnation of how rape has become a weapon of war, writes Laura Seay in the Atlantic . The problem is that "a growing body of literature suggests that the prevailing journalistic and activist accounts of the nature of rape in the Congo are often incomplete, and, in many cases, simply wrong." It's true, for instance that soldiers are raping women (and men), but studies suggest that civilians far from the war account for a significant percentage of the assaults. More»

Women fill the streets with a call to end sexual violence

(NEWSER) - Congo’s rape survivors “have had enough, enough, enough, enough,” says one activist—and to show it, many of them marched yesterday to protest the country’s rash of sexual violence. Some victims even left hospital beds to join up, singing, “My heart is in pain, why are you raping me?” The rape crisis, which has been going on for years , recently led the UN to name the Democratic Republic of Congo the “rape capital of the world,” CNN reports. More»