Over at Slate.com's XX Factor blog, Susannah Breslin writes:
Not long ago, I was contacted by a representative from Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, who pointed me to Condition: Critical, an online project that seeks to give voice to victims of violence in Congo. I've written about the situation in Congo here previously; New York Times East Africa bureau chief Jeffrey Gettleman has done an amazing job of chronicling the atrocities and their aftermath in a civil war-torn country where rape is used as a war tactic. "According to the United Nations," Gettleman reported, "27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone, and that may be just a fraction of the total number across the country."
Condition: Critical looks to bridge the gap between Congo and the outside world with testimonies, videos, and photographs focusing on Congolese women who are victims of sexual violence, who emerge from the jungle after being kidnapped, raped, and enslaved by soldiers, who in some cases are unable to speak. Gettleman: "Many have been so sadistically attacked from the inside out, butchered by bayonets and assaulted with chunks of wood, that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair."
The entire post is here, and includes graphic and disturbing personal testimony from survivors. Above, a brief clip from the feature-length documentary "Condition Critical: Voices From the War in Congo," which you can watch in entirety online here.
You can follow Susannah's work here, and she posts brief items to Twitter and Tumblr, too.
Update: Down in the comments section of this post, "resident media pundit" adds, "You may also be interested in the excellent documentary film, "Women In War Zones: Sexual Violence in the Congo." Trailer on YouTube."
