Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to the attention of the House an ongoing human rights crisis: the mass killing of a vulnerable native people in the Congo.
Since the 1960s, the countries and rebel groups surrounding the Congo River basin have displayed utter contempt for the lives of pygmies. To put it simply, pygmies are under threat of eradication. We know this due to the courageous work of intrepid Canadian journalist Geoffrey Clarfield.
Pygmies have endured massacres, the raping of their women and even cannibalism at the hands of their oppressors. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, rebel factions ridicule the United Nations because it has no legal means of stopping their inhumane crimes, so the slaughter of pygmies continues. Since 2003, an estimated 70,000 pygmies have been killed by tribal militias under erase the board campaigns. The remaining population hides in remote areas of the surrounding forests for safety, yet they are still in danger.
I call on the international community to help stop the slaughter of pygmies.