The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo

The civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the most protracted and forgotten conflicts in the world. Despite the fact that UN peacekeepers are monitoring the observance of a peace deal after years of war, fighting still continues, particularly in the east of the country. The victims of this drawn–out conflict are hundreds of thousands of girls who have suffered very brutal mass rapes. Besides frequent health problems, the raped women are often expelled from their own families and shunned by their communities. The conflict has also left behind an entire generation of orphans who were conceived as a result of rape. This provocative film by American documentary–maker Lisa F. Jackson offers disturbing testimony of the lives and suffering of women who have been raped in an impoverished war–torn country. The director looks for the causes of a phenomenon where rape is not only a violent act but has also become a systematic tool for defeating and humiliating one's enemy. The film not only contains authentic testimony from the victims of rape but from perpetrators as well. The director's sensitive approach to the film's protagonists is enhanced by the fact that she herself was once brutally raped.