£1.7 million for Africa's rape survivors

We have launched a new scheme to help women affected by rape and domestic violence in Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Over the next three years, we will be working with six local charities as part of a massive £1.7 million EU funded programme to support rape survivors and their families.

We will also work with community groups in the three countries to help change attitudes towards sexual and gender based violence.

In the war-torn eastern DRC, rape and sexual violence has become so widespread that in some regions up to 70% of women have been raped*.

Often rape survivors are left badly injured. Many are abandoned by their families and children born as a result of rape are stigmatised and feared. Very few men are ever convicted of these attacks and even fewer are sent to prison.

In Rwanda and Burundi, sexual and gender based violence is making it difficult for communities to work together to build a lasting peace.

SCIAF has supported rape survivors in the Great Lakes region of Africa for many years but this new scheme will help us reach out to thousands more women.

The programme will:

• Provide rape survivors with medical care, counselling services, skills training and loans so that women who have been abandoned by their families can support themselves.
• Train doctors and counsellors to treat the terrible injuries and psychological scars which many women are left with.
• Open 16 new ‘listening centres’ where rape survivors and their families can come for support.
• Raise awareness about women’s rights amongst community leaders, soldiers and police men.
• Provide legal support so that women in the DRC can bring their attackers to court and children born as a result of rape can be registered as Congolese citizens.

Mick Quinn, who is coordinating the project said: “This programme will train a network of medical specialists, trauma counsellors, legal advisors and police to provide long-term protection for vulnerable women and their families.”

*taken from the 2008 SCIAF report: Ending Mass Rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo: The Role of the International Community.