We are trying to give our brief presentation for the country.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is located in central Africa. It is the second-largest country by area in Africa. It used to be the third-largest, but after the new country was established in Sudan, we have become the second-largest. We have a population of approximately 80 million.
We are talking about the conflict in the Congo. This conflict and war in the Congo is described by some as Africa's first world war.
There have been a number of complex reasons for this conflict, and one of them is a basic crisis, such as water, land, and access to and control of rich minerals. We have had the problem of genocide in Rwanda since April 1994.
Since the conflict began in 1994, eight million of our people have died. It has been the world's deadliest conflict since the Second World War. Some say that 45,000 continue to die each month, and the most targeted group is women and children. This is a consequence of the war we are talking about.
The Boston Globe reported that in this conflict 1,152 women are raped every day; 13% of victims are under 14 years of age; 3% die as a result of rape; and 10% to 12% get HIV.
According to the UNHCR, there are two million internal displaced persons.
Since 2006, 350,000 rape cases have been reported, and many more than that number are not reported.
The Guardian reports that 48 women are raped every hour in the Kivu region. And the Kivu region has been targeted as the worst place for women to live.
According to the Enough Project, rape is a weapon of war in the Congo.
The UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict declared the DRC is the “rape capital of the world”.
We have 19% of our population who are children and are affected by this conflict. They account for 47% of deaths. UNAIDS estimated that 400,000 to 500,000 people were living with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2007. Why? As you may recall, most of the conflict in the Congo comes from Rwanda and Uganda, and in the 1980s these countries had a higher level of HIV. And since the conflict, because of the rape, we now observe a higher level of HIV in the population in the Kivu region.
As a result of HIV, 770,000 children have been orphaned, 2.7 million of the deaths have been children, and two in five children will die before their fifth birthday.
Sixty-seven percent of children of primary school age are currently out of school. According to UNICEF, 50% of children between six and eleven years of age are out of school.
Human rights activists and journalists have been targeted and killed, and some just disappear.
These are the consequences of the conflict in the Congo.
The question we have today for you as members of Parliament is does this subject merit our true attention? According to the UN, we have 48 women raped every four minutes. Will we remain indifferent until the number hits 200 rapes every hour?
The question is what are we waiting for so we can be involved in this conflict in the Congo? Are you waiting until we reach this number of 200 rapes an hour? Where precisely is the cut-off point for compassion? Where is the compassion of Canadians towards this conflict in the Congo? How many women must be raped before we start to care enough?