International Women’s Day is Wednesday March 8. This is one day that women from different ethnic groups around the world, with different languages and cultures, can celebrate. Let’s face it-the remaining 364 days of the year can all seem pretty much Worldwide Men Days, especially for women living under oppressive or tyrannical regimes.

Women in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) will not celebrate International Women’s Day. During the still on-going six-year civil war, territorial control constantly shifts between rebel groups, creating lawless zones-and rape is used as a weapon. Amnesty International estimates that 40,000 women have been raped, more than in any other conflict.

3.5 million people have died in DR Congo, although in the eastern regions where UN peacekeepers have pulled out, no one can say for sure how high the death toll has gotten. What is certain is that the numbers have already dwarfed the genocidal toll made familiar in Hotel Rwanda.

The UN Development Fund for Women, UNIFEM, documented in 2003 that the DR Congo made legislation making rape and sexual assault a criminal offense, while other forms of sexual violence, like harassment, domestic violence, marital rape, and female genital mutilation are also illegal. But the reality is that rape and other forms of sexual violence towards women occur with impunity.

Impediments to criminal justice are exacerbated by a lack of health services and poverty. Even before a woman can pursue legal recourse, she must pay for medical services to prove that she has been sexually violated.

It is no coincidence that DR Congo, despite being rich in natural resources, as its kleptocratic former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko could have attested, has dropped 20 points on the UN Development Index in the past ten years and is now the tenth last country on that list. Similar to many least-developed African countries, DR Congo spends 16 per cent of its GDP paying its external debt, compared to just 1.5 per cent on public health expenditures.

International non-governmental organizations are, however, helping in the DR Congo by bringing valuable medical services and infrastructure to the worst regions. For example, the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, located in the region of South Kivu, is where Dr. Mukwege performs surgeries for women who have been shunned by their communities because they have been afflicted with obstetric fistula, a devastating childbirth complication that has been eradicated in the West.

As the director of the Panzi hospital Mukwege plans to expand services by training other doctors to perform fistula repairs, and educating the doctors in law, human rights, and the social issues their patients experience.

The hospital has the potential to become a symbol of hope and peace, and to become a veritable women’s centre amidst a calamity that Medicins Sans Frontières called one of the most under-reported humanitarian crises of 2004.

At U of T, campus-wide and student-led groups are celebrating International Women’s Day with their feet and their wallets.

Postcard petitions are being sold for only $2 across campus at the Women’s Centre (St. George and Mississauga locations), Sidney Smith, and the Medical Sciences Building on International Women’s Day on March 8. All money raised will be sent to the Panzi Hospital, while the petitions will be delivered to the Honourable Aileen Carroll, minister of international cooperation, the head of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). These petitions will urge her to draw upon Canada’s wealth to deliver much-needed medical aid to the DR Congo and reinforce Canada’s position as one of the world leaders in social justice by upholding fundamental human rights for all women.

Please see http://medicalreform.ca/congo.htm or contact [email protected] for details.

Brad MacIntosh is a graduate student at UofT and the Co-Chair for the Student Medical Reform Group, one of the many student groups supporting this campaign.