After Radford University’s sold out performance of the “Vagina Monologues” on Friday night, audience members were invited to participate in a candlelight vigil for women from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

This region is the focus of the playwright, Eve Ensler’s Vday.org’s “Turning Pain to Power” tour this year. The spotlight is a global call to focus on the atrocities there.

In the lobby of the show at RU, a bulletin board prepared by Women’s Studies highlighted the following facts sited by Vday.org:

• The United Nations has declared that the sexual violence in the Congo is the worst in the world.
• As many as one in two Congolese women have been the victim of sexual violence.
• Over the last 10 years, more than 200,000 Congolese women and girls have been raped.
• 70% of these women go without medical treatment because of inadequate facilities, poor infrastructure, and poverty.
• The brutality of the sexual violence leaves many women with devastating physical conditions, such as genital lesions, traumatic fistulae, and HIV.

In front of this informative display were letters for government officials to be signed by attendees. These letters urge Sen. Mark Warner, Sen. Jim Webb, Rep. Rick Boucher, and Sec. of State Hillary Clinton to take action on behalf of Congolese women.

Eve Ensler has written about the topic for Huffington Post, Glamour magazine and other publications in an effort to stress the urgency and importance of this cause. On her site, she writes:

“The Congo is the heart of Africa and Africa is the heart of the world. Women live at the core of the heart. They hold the future in their bodies. If their bodies are destroyed, deadened, and traumatized, so is our future. If we focus now and give our attention and resources to this deadly war on women in the DRC; if we, as humanity, support women and men of the DRC, on the ground, are breaking the silence and building a peace and justice movement; if we make this our priority and help support, cherish and empower the women there, the heart of the world will continue beating.”

For those of you interested in doing what you can to help, here are some suggestions.

1.) Educate Yourself

• Read this recent piece in the NY Times.

• Watch this video of women protesting in DRC.

• Visit Vday.org.

2.) Take Action

• Sign the online petition created by RU Women’s Studies, “Southwest Virginians for DRC” and pass the word on to your friends.
• Write letters to the editor of the Roanoke Times and other local newspapers.

• Buy a handmade Congolese bag.

• Write to the President of DRC, His Excellency the President of the DRC Joseph Kabila Kabange, urging the Government to do more to stop violence against women and girls and bring perpetrators to justice. Send letters to P.O. Box 3862, New York, NY 1016 (See draft letter template here.)