But the exploitation of those minerals drives much of the violence that plagues the African nation.

In Eastern Congo, the ongoing conflict has included widespread sexual violence.

The details of the attacks are often gruesome: women being brutally raped, beaten and sometimes killed in front of their own children.

We know these horrific details because of people like Chouchou Namegabe.

Namegabe is a Congolese journalist who started a radio talk show in 2001 to air the testimonies of rape survivors

She is also the founder and director of the South Kivu Association of Women Journalists. The group trains Congolese women to report on connection between mass rape and resource extraction.

Now, the issue of mineral extraction and mass rape has reached American College campuses and students want to know what they can do to help the crisis in Congo.

Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Namegabe, who is in the US to deliver keynote address at a conference on the subject at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH in Boston. The Democratic Republic of Congo is blessed with mineral riches. But the exploitation of those minerals drives a lot of the violence that plagues the African nation. In Eastern Congo, the ongoing conflict has included widespread sexual violence. Details of the attacks are often gruesome. Women are brutally raped, beaten, and sometimes killed in front of their children. We know these horrific details because of people like Chouchou Namegabe. She’s a Congolese journalist, who in 2001, started a radio talk show to air the testimony of rape survivors. Namegabe is the founder and director of the South Kivu Association of Women Journalists. The group trains Congolese women to report on the connection between mass rape and resource extraction. Namegabe is in the US now to deliver the keynote address on the subject at a conference on the subject at Clark University, in Worcester, Massachusetts. She says the situation for women in Eastern Congo is not improving.

CHOUCHOU NAMEGABE: Every day there are attacks of militias in rural areas. Even now, civilians are copying.

MULLINS: The civilians are copying the militias who are raping.

NAMEGABE: Yes, they are copying.

MULLINS: Why?

NAMEGABE: Because there is impunity. They are not punished.

MULLINS: Now tell us the link between the extraction of minerals in this part of Congo and mass rape, what is the connection?

NAMEGABE: Where there is the mines, there are communities which live there. But it’s not easy for them to exploit it with the presence of the communities. That’s why they use their weapons and sexual violences to intimidate the population to move from places where there are mines. Because they know that the woman is the heart of the community, so they fight on her body, by using rape.

MULLINS: The women, as you say, are the heart of the community. And so when something happens to them, the community disassembles, and people move out?

NAMEGABE: Yes.

MULLINS: Now, you are going to be speaking this weekend. This is the reason that you’re in Massachusetts now, at the Clark University Conference, about the link, even from Eastern Congo and what you’re talking about, to what all of us basically use on a daily basis, and that is a cell phone, a laptop computer. Anything that happens to use some of these minerals in order to function. Why is it so hard for countries, for instance the United States, to get to the heart of this, and make sure that we know exactly where these minerals are coming from? Why is it hard?

NAMEGABE: It’s hard because the mineral resources which are exploited in the eastern part of Congo, they go out through neighbors’ countries. It means that they are not declared that they are coming from the eastern part of Congo. They are going through Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda.

MULLINS: I see, so it looks like the minerals are coming from there, from Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, instead of from Congo.

NAMEGABE: Yeah, instead of Congo. That is why it is difficult.

MULLINS: And then that leaves in the mining areas, it still leaves the militias. Chouchou, you have put the voices of some of these rape victims on the air on your radio program. Let me just ask you why this entire issue, not just the rape of women, but the whole issue around conflict minerals, and the consequences of that, is so much a part of you and what you do. How come?

NAMEGABE: The issue is important for me because it’s touching the right of men, the right of women. And I feel concerned because I’m a woman too. And also I’m a journalist. I saw that I couldn’t do anything. I don’t have guns to fight against it, but I’ve got my microphone, to use it, to fight against the rape and sexual violence. That’s why we give the microphone to victims, to tell their stories. Because somewhere it’s the first way to heal their internal wound, to talk about it, to make it known, to call for actions, because we want it to end. It’s really a big crime.

MULLINS: These things are very difficult to hear, but tell us what your listeners in Congo have heard, some of these testimonies.

NAMEGABE: There is another woman who were kidnapped with her five children. She was brought in the forest, and every day, she was raped in front of her children. And when she was hungry, they killed her child, and they forced her to eat the flesh of her child. Every day, which practices they killed one of her children. And she was forced to eat the flesh of her children. She was asking to be killed, but they refused. They say we can’t give you such a good death.

MULLINS: Can you comprehend why, when these things are done, they are done with the amount of intentional brutality like that, why?

NAMAGABE: We understood that it’s a plan, it’s a tactic. For them it’s a message that they send to the community.

MULLINS: Chouchou Namegabe is a Congolese journalist. She’s been reporting on mass rape in Eastern Congo for more than a decade. She’s going to be speaking this weekend at Clark University, at a conference on gender violence and the extraction of minerals in Eastern Congo. Clark is in Worcester, Massachusetts. Chouchou, thank you.

NAMEGABE: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Garment workers around 1900. (Credit: Kheel Center, Cornell University, photographer unknown)

“The average work week was 84 hours, 12 hours every day of the week,” said Ellen Rothman with the Jewish Women’s Archive in Brookline, Mass. “During the busy season, the grinding hum of sewing machines never entirely ceased day or night.”

Conditions had begun to improve by 1911, but just slightly. On March 25th of that year, fire erupted at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in lower Manhattan. It was one of the worst workplace disasters in American history: 146 people died, mostly teenage girls and women, immigrant Jews from Eastern Europe and Italians.

Workers had few rights at the time. Garment factories were crowed, noisy and hot. Bathroom breaks were monitored. Workers had their bags inspected when they left for the day. When fire broke out at the Triangle Factory, the exits were locked to prevent theft.

“In trying to escape, there was no choice: be burned alive, or jump. And most of them jumped. And everyone who jumped died,” said Rothman.

Scores of people witnessed the horror, middle class patrons out for a Saturday stroll on a spring day in Greenwich Village. The accident made headlines across the country, and the labor movement in New York City, already in full tilt, was further galvanized by the Triangle Fire.

Within two years, New York State passed more than 30 labor laws, adding teeth to child labor protections, setting a minimum wage, and requiring safer conditions. Federal regulations followed during President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930’s.

Jobs for New Americans

Workers at the Nicole Miller Factory in NYC. Photo Credit: Jason Margolis

For decades after, New York City’s garment district thrived. In 1948, 354,600 people worked in the city’s garment industry, the peak after World War II. The numbers slowly started to decline in the 1960′s and 1970′s, then fell off a cliff. Today, only 16,700 garment workers are there, according to the New York State Department of Labor.

Like a century ago, most of today’s garment workers are immigrants: Jews and Italians have been replaced by Asians and Latinos. Workplace abuses still exist, but generally, conditions are vastly improved.

I visited the Nicole Miller factory in Manhattan’s garment district. The factory was well lit, clean, and ventilated.

“When it comes to the working conditions, I would say it’s good,” said Tony Persaud from Guyana.

Persaud works as a “cutter.”  He’s in a union. He earns $35,000 a year, plus benefits. He came to New York in the 1980’s. “It was very easy to get a job then. You could leave a job in the morning, go down to the 2nd floor and get a job,” said Persaud.

Persaud said he’s worried about his job though. His co-worker Mariana Franke, a pattern maker from Argentina, shared his anxiety. “Everybody is trying to save money so … I don’t know what to say?”

Shifting Work, Shifting Danger

Garment jobs have been shifting to lower-cost operations in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Asia for decades, as have dangerous working conditions.

“Effectively what we have done is exported our sweatshops and exported our factory fires,” said Robert Ross at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. And it’s as if the 1911 conditions had been lifted up by an evil hand and dropped into Bangladesh.”

According to the Bangladeshi government’s Fire Service and Civil Defense Department, 414 garment workers were killed in at least 213 factory fires between the years 2006 and 2009. Last year, 191 people were killed in Bangladesh in a reported 20 incidents, according to Ross’ research. Last December, a fire killed at least 25 people in a garment factory there.

“And the pattern is disturbingly uniform,” said Ross. “The shops are often in high rise buildings, just like the Triangle. The pattern is that an electrical fire starts, and then without adequate, or any fire escapes, without sprinkler systems, the workers surge to get out. And in factory after factory, the newspapers report locked gates and locked doors. It’s a horrific duplication of what we earlier experienced.”

Why?

The question is: Why does this keep happening? Labor laws exist, both international and country-specific rules. But Heewon Brindle-Khym, with the Fair Labor Association in New York City, said laws are often ignored in places like Bangladesh and China.

“It’s cheaper for many factory owners to not abide by the law because it costs them money,” said Brindle-Khym. “In terms of the enforcement of the law, there’s just aren’t enough inspectors to go to each and every factory in China to ensure that labor rights are being enforced.”

New York City garment workers around 1900. Photo credit: Kheel Center, Cornell University. Photographer Unknown.

Most American clothing companies are completely removed from the manufacturing process.  They often don’t know what goes on in their overseas factories, or they choose not to investigate.

Still, part of the blame for unsafe working conditions in garment factories also lies with American consumers, argued Robert Ross.

“The average American has eight pairs of jeans,” said Ross. He said trends show that show Americans continue to spend less and less money on clothes, while buying more and more stuff. “People should buy better and fewer clothes. That would be good for garment workers.”

But that’s not something consumers generally want to hear.

Still, 100 years after the Triangle Fire, labor organizers, activists and social researchers want to remind people that there’s a worker behind the cheap clothes we buy. And in many parts of the world, The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire isn’t just an anniversary marking a bygone era.

• Remembering the Triangle Factory Fire – Cornell University
• PBS American Experience: Triangle Fire

100 years ago, Sigmund Freud made his first and only trip to the United States to deliver a series of lectures on psychoanalysis at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Jeb Sharp talks to Clark University archivst Mott Linn about the historic visit.

“In Europe I felt as though I were despised, but at Clark I found myself received by the foremost of men as an equal.”
—from Freud’s autobiography

Pictured at Clark University in 1909 are, from left (front): Sigmund Freud, G. Stanley Hall, Carl Jung; (back) A.A. Brill, Ernest Jones, and Sandor Ferenczi. (Photo courtesy Clark University)

100 years ago this weekend, Sigmund Freud made his first and only trip to the United States to deliver a series of lectures at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Anchor Jeb Sharp talks to Clark University archivist Mott Linn about the visit.

Pictured at Clark University in 1909 are, from left (front): Sigmund Freud, G. Stanley Hall, Carl Jung; (back) A.A. Brill, Ernest Jones, and Sandor Ferenczi. (Photo courtesy Clark University)

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

JEB SHARP: A hundred years ago a Viennese doctor paid a visit to the city of Worcester in Massachusetts to give a series of lectures. This man had big ideas – about the unconscious, the id, and the ego. Yes we’re talking about Sigmund Freud. But back in 1909 when he made his first and only visit to the US his name hadn’t yet become an adjective. In fact back then Freud was desperate for some recognition. He got it at Clark University in Worcester. At the time the school was renowned for its psychology program. Mott Linn is the chief archivist for Clark University.

MOTT LINN: Today Freud is such a big name but back then he wasn’t. This was sort of his coming-out party. We had some credibility that he was hoping to get. And yet in Europe it may have been because of his new ideas; it may have been in part because he was Jewish but he wasn’t able to get into most areas of academia. And so this was a way to try and …. Okay we’ll go to Clark, get better well known in the US and hopefully that will reverberate into Europe.

SHARP: Let’s go back a little bit. How old would he have been and what stage of his career was he at? And also paint a picture of the journey. This is 1909.

LINN: He was a little over 50 years old. Now he came with a couple of other psychoanalysts – most famously Carl Jung. And Jung was much younger. He was 34. Both of these men ended up getting honorary degrees from Clark University. Freud’s is noteworthy because it’s the only honorary degree he ever received. And so they came over. It took a couple of weeks to sail across the ocean to New York City. Then sail to southeastern Massachusetts, took a train to Boston, took a train to Worcester. And they were there for about a week.

SHARP: So Freud comes to Clark. He gives a series of five lectures on the origin and development of psychoanalysis. Describe the impact both on the people who heard these lectures but also on Freud.

LINN: Well it really kick started his career. Before then not a lot of people knew of him and took his work that seriously. But there was very little of that. His famous book, “The Interpretation of Dreams,” came out in 1909 and even six years later only a few hundred copies had been sold worldwide. So that kind of demonstrates how little cache his ideas had. And this really did kick start his career; was taken more seriously in the US and as he had hoped it translated to being taken more seriously across the Atlantic.

SHARP: I understand Freud and Jung delivered their lectures in German. Was there translation?

LINN: There was not translation there. Back then all your best universities had been in Europe, mostly in Germany. And so if you wanted to be a scholar you had to learn German. And so all these professors of psychology and all the graduate students of psychology would have known German and to a greater or lesser extent would have been able to understand what Freud was saying.

SHARP: Tell me more about his trip. What happened to him? What did he see? What were his impressions?

LINN: Well after Worcester they took some time off. They took a train trip out to see Niagara Falls and then another train trip into the Adirondacks. One of the highlights of the trip, according to Freud, was he seeing a porcupine. And so for whatever reason he thought that this was a wonderful thing.

SHARP: Lovely. Archivist Mott Linn of Clark University. Thanks so much for coming in.

LINN: Thank you very much.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.