To protect and empower Congolese women and girls, the RAISE Hope for Congo campaign works to:

• Raise awareness about the crisis, the resulting widespread sexual violence against women and girls, and the solutions that are necessary to end the conflict.
• Increase news coverage of the conflict in eastern Congo.
• Build a movement of activists who can advocate effectively for change.
• Influence and change policy on the Congo through promotion of the 4Ps – Peace, Protection, Punishment, and Prevention – the four ingredients necessary to END the mass violence against women in Congo.

Enough is enough.

Congo is not hopeless. There are solutions. Together, we can stop the violence.

Where there is hope there can be peace.

WHY CONGO?
Since 1996, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has played host to the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II. More than 5.4 million people have died from the ravaging effects of war and its aftermath. Today, eastern Congo is caught in an epidemic of appalling sexual violence, as militias use rape as a military tactic to destroy communities and exert control over natural resources. The conflict has been marked by cycles of escalation, and the international response has been wholly inadequate.

Following a landmark peace agreement and a tumultuous political transition backed by the world’s largest U.N. peacekeeping operation, the Congo held largely successful elections in 2006. However, elections were not a panacea to eastern Congo’s ills: 45,000 people die each month, mostly from hunger and disease resulting from the ongoing conflict, and over 1 million people have been displaced.

WHY WOMEN?
Congolese women and girls in particular bear the vicious brunt of this crisis. Indeed, eastern Congo right now is the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman or a girl. Used as a weapon of war, sexual violence and rape exist on a scale seen nowhere else in the world. Often successful in its intent to destroy and exterminate, rape is causing the destruction of women, their families, and their communities. Congo’s women are the backbone of Congolese society and are the country’s best, brightest hope. Yet efforts to protect women and girls in the Congo are failing spectacularly.

WHY NOW?
For over a century, the Congo has been plagued by regional conflict and a deadly scramble for its vast natural resources. In fact, the greed for Congo’s wealth has been a principal driver of atrocities and conflict throughout Congo’s tortured history. In eastern Congo today, resources are financing multiple armed groups, many of whom use rape as a deliberate tactic to drive the local population away from mines and other areas that they wish to control.

Despite recent efforts to cement a fragile ceasefire agreement, the Congo remains caught in a vicious cycle of violence and exploitation. Strong U.S. engagement can help end the conflict and the violence against women. Each day that goes by without action, thousands more Congolese are displaced or killed and countless women and girls are raped. Enough is enough. We must tell our leaders that we cannot allow such crimes against humanity to continue, not on our watch.

THE CAMPAIGN
The RAISE Hope for Congo campaign aims to build a permanent and diverse constituency of activists who will advocate for the protection and empowerment of Congolese women and girls. The Enough Project will collaborate with national, grassroots, and Congolese organizations, across various constituencies and the political spectrum, to build this grassroots movement. Enough will also continue to provide policy analysis and recommendations, focusing on the 4Ps – Peace, Protection, Punishment, and Prevention.

This multifaceted and multiyear campaign will provide a menu of actions for activists to choose from in tailoring their own campaign experience:

The first step to building a movement is to raise awareness about the crisis in Congo. The campaign provides activists with informative tools to educate themselves and their communities about the conflict in eastern Congo and the epidemic of sexual violence against women and girls.

No matter how much we know or how much we care, we will only succeed if we speak out and demand action from our leaders. The campaign offers a menu of actions that activists can take to raise their voices and call for an end to the conflict and sexual violence in eastern Congo.

Despite the horrific scale of the violence, and the grave consequences of the conflict in Congo, we rarely see it on television, we seldom hear about it on the radio, and we hardly ever read about it in the newspapers. The campaign works with activists to raise the profile of the Congo conflict in the media and demand that the media shine a light on this invisible yet catastrophic crisis.

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Enough is a project of the Center for American Progress to end genocide and crimes against humanity. Founded in 2007, Enough focuses on the crises in Sudan, Chad, eastern Congo, northern Uganda, and Somalia. Enough's strategy papers and briefings provide sharp field analysis and targeted policy recommendations based on a “3P” crisis response strategy: promoting durable peace, providing civilian protection, and punishing perpetrators of atrocities. Enough works with concerned citizens, advocates, and policy makers to prevent, mitigate, and resolve these crises. To learn more about Enough and what you can do to help, go to www.enoughproject.org.