Conquest by rape

Holly's Fight For Justice picked up on the Winnipeg Press article about Sifa Cizungu.............you'd think she was in her late '20s, maybe her early '30s.Two years ago she was kidnapped from her village and dragged into the bush by rebel fighters who hide in patches of jungle.Held captive for three months, she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by 13 men.She's one of tens of thousands of women who have been raped by armed forces here in the eastern Congo, an area between the DRC and Rwanda in constant political flux.

Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has contributed about $170 million of financial aid to the DRC since 1998.Part of CIDA's commitment is a $15-million pledge to the United Nations Population Fund project against sexual violence.The funding -- which continues until 2009 -- includes medical care and pyschological support for victims of sexual violence in Nord-Kivu, who are mostly women and girls.


LINK: Winnipeg Free Press
PHOTO: (by Gabrielle Giroday of Winnipeg Free Press) Sifa Cizungu, gang raped when she was 12, takes classes in Bukava wants to be a doctor