DownloadMarch 30, 2009 issue
CPT member speaks at Bethel about women's peace efforts in Congo
By Mayeken Kehr Bethel CollegePage:
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NORTH NEWTON, Kan. — Ask everyone in a group of college students to stand who owns a cell phone, MP3 player or game system, and you’ll likely have the whole audience on its feet.
Sara Reschly, in white shirt with back to camera, and other members of a 2006 Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation to Congo listen to and record the testimonies of rape survivors at Uvira, Congo. — Photo by CPT staff
A convocation speaker March 9 at Bethel College did just that to show the broad impact of armed conflict in Congo.
Sara Reschly, who lives in Chicago, said a key ingredient in all these products is columbite-tantalite, or coltan. An estimated 80 percent of the world’s coltan comes from Congo, with sales helping to perpetuate the conflict as guerrilla groups fight for control of the roads to coltan mines.
As co-leader of a women’s delegation of Christian Peacemaker Teams, Reschly traveled to Congo in 2006 to “learn how Congolese women have been affected by war and to amplify their voices,” she said at Bethel. “Civilians, especially women and children, bear much of the conflict.”
Since 1998, as many as 5.5 million people have died in Congo, she said, with many of the deaths resulting from malnutrition and disease related to the conflict.
Women want their stories to be told in order to create change and stop the flow of weapons to their country, she said.
CPT members filmed and translated the stories of Congolese women. Reschly showed a brief portion of the film during convocation. Women without limbs explained how members of militant groups cut off their hands and feet, gang-raped them, burned their property, and killed their husbands and children.
“These stories are not isolated cases,” Reschly said. “Rape is being used as a weapon in the war.”
Reschly said the rapes are systematic and happening on a large scale. Victims range from infants to 70-year-old women.
Rape is often done in public, leaving men feeling helpless and women ashamed. It also has economic impacts: fear of rape prevents women from working in the fields, selling food at market and collecting water.
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