Rape used to control resources in Congo

Inter Press Service reports that international indifference has allowed an epidemic of rapes to continue in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

More than 5 million Congolese have died in an ongoing civil war since the overthrow of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997.

According to IPS, playwright and activist Eve Ensler says that "Rape is being used as a deliberate tool to control people and territory."

Hundreds of women and children were raped yesterday, hundreds more today. This is an economic war that uses terror as its main weapon to ensure warlords and their bands control regions where international companies mine for valuable metals like tin, silver and coltan, or extract lumber and diamonds, Ensler said.

Coltan is a rare and extremely valuable metal used in cell phones, DVD players, computers, digital cameras, video games, vehicle air bags, and more. It has long been implicated as both the source of funding and primary cause of the ongoing conflict and extraordinary violence against women.

"A friend mapped the locations of the mass rapes in the DRC and they correspond to coltan mining regions," she said.