"the destruction of the female species"

as usual, eve ensler has hit it out of the park with her piece on huffpo from last week.

the women of the congo still live in fear every day.

Over twelve years, this war, this brutally inconceivable violence has raged on.
Almost six million dead. Almost 500 thousand raped. You tell the story of horror
and atrocity one too many times and then you realize nothing is changing and
that the world goes on getting its minerals, supporting its luxuries and the
death, massacres rapes and tortures of millions do not matter. And then you
can't find a real reason for wanting to live in humanity or be part of this
world but you don't want to kill yourself so you start screaming out, screaming
and screaming out and then you get called intense, angry and then mad. Because
that is what people who have crossed over get called.

At what point are we all going to cross over?

let's try this- instead of these women's names sounding unfamiliar and their location seeming remote, why don't we substitute our own names and hometowns? really. read that article again, and insert your name.

Mwamirindi/Carolynn was held as a sex slave and pieces of her flesh were cut every
few days. She was raped for months and watched them rape her sister in law who
they killed and cut open and served for dinner and then when Mwamirindi/Carolynn finally escaped and returned home, she was expelled by her husband who sold her land and house and threw her and her children into the street. Now she is three months pregnant with a baby from the rapes.

terrifying, isn't it? but it is REALITY for these women.

eve calls the situation there "the destruction of the female species of the Congo".

how can it be anything else?

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in related news, evidence is piling up that the recession is indeed sparking an increase in violence against women and children domestically. BIG surprise there.

support V-day, support your local women's shelter, support your lawmakers who DO SOMETHING to stop gender-based violence (and ask those who don't if they consider their mothers, sisters, daughters and wives just collateral damage?)

more than half our population is at risk.