Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We have. We've seen the use of sexual violence as a means to intimidate and to subjugate groups for quite some time. The use of sexual violence varies across different groups. I think it's important to know that some of these groups use it as a way to get soldiers to bond togethe

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes. Of course you have the UN panel of experts that continues to document human rights violations. I have colleagues at Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch who try their best to document and put names on who's responsible. The ICC has also been involved. The problem wit

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It's my pleasure.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I have not. DRC and Rwanda have this agreement where former FDLR from Congo are being demobilized and sent back to Rwanda, where they go through a re-education process and try to reintegrate. I have not heard of people in Rwanda leaving Rwanda to go to the DRC to fight, but we

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think people have focused on Congo.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think one of the reasons is that it's lasted for a while. Congo has been in the news for the past 25 years, almost. Pretty soon it will be almost 25 years. There has been, I think, this resignation on the part of Western donors with regard to various initiatives and the lack

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Absolutely. I wouldn't have the know-how to tell you exactly which regions are difficult and which ones aren't. I remember in 2017, at the height of the violence in Kasai region, people couldn't get in to get water and food to the displaced people because the situation was so ten

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, with some groups, absolutely.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes. In the Kasai, it is prevalent. People have documented young people, young boys, being recruited. It's one of the gendered dimensions of this conflict that a lot of young boys are being taken and forcibly recruited to engage in these groups. Sometimes it's not so forcibly; so

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  In an ideal world, yes. A lot of these resources are not only used by government or people in power but also the informal mining, for instance, is both used by ordinary people to feed their families but it's also used by armed groups who gain control over mining sites to gain res

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Because the elections are a national exercise, the government and the international community have to be involved in the process to make sure that people trust it. There's very little trust between Kinshasa and the regions or among political elites. Surveys show that people are v

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Okay.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That's a really hard question to answer. If you look at a lot of the reports issued by various organizations monitoring this situation, you will notice that they tell you there are various recommendations. There is an issue of governance and rule of law. One the biggest problem

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I could go on and on.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  If you put together this idea that countries in the region are not hallmarks of democracy and good governance—accepting that Rwanda is a slightly different space—you have an opportunity to gain economically out of the chaos. That's what happened in the early 2000s with Uganda and