Posts Tagged ‘Congo’
Happy International Women’s Day!
I wish I was in Bukavu today, where I’ve met so many strong, amazing women fighting against not only the horrors (rape) we often hear about but against gender-based discrimination and violence, and fighting for a new way of imagining women in the world — with their own voices, strongly and clearly sharing their own [...]
Regarding more than the pain of others
I have a new essay with the Boston Review, about suffering, compassion and foreign journalism (and other narratives) of Africa. I hope you’ll read it. But here’s a cribsheet: Being the object of compassion is not the same thing as being the subject of a story. A lot, but not all of this, is our [...]
Rape in the DRC: Now complete with statistics!
A few days ago, I got a press release about Congo, the first line of which is this: “A new study shows that women in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been raped at a rate 26 times higher than previously thought. The shockingly high number is equivalent to 1,152 women raped every day, 48 [...]
The double standards of rape reporting — and outcry
Lots of folks have been outraged by the NYT coverage of a gang rape in Texas. The coverage veered often and unnecessarily into blame-the-victim territory. The NYT has defended their story, saying they were just reporting what victim-blamers in Texas were saying, not blaming the victim themselves. I won’t rehash the many sensible objections to [...]
To Journalism, with love from Africa
In a break from a torrent of writing, I was reading a quick take on Adam Hochschild’s talk at a recent writer’s conference. He’s written Bury the Chains, about the antislavery movement, and of King Leopold’s Ghost, which I find in Africa as often as I find the Bible, and “Blood and Treasure,” the best [...]
Rwandans in Congo? “They’re all around us”
Here’s a terrific article by Michelle Faul of the Associated Press about the sort of thing that’s often rumored in quiet dinner conversation in the Great Rift Valley region. Well, we keep our voices down in my part of the valley, anyway. It’s got all my favorite elements — land, conflict, cows — in terrifying [...]
I am a freelance journalist and multimedia producer who covers human rights, Africa and foreign affairs. [