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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.

Marco Werman: Religious freedom versus the right to a fair trial – that’s one way to summarize a case heard today by the Supreme Court of Canada. At the center of the case is a Muslim woman. She is the accuser in a sexual assault case and she wants to testify while wearing a niqab, an Islamic face veil that covers the entire face but the eyes. But the defendants assert that it’s their right to confront their accuser and observe her facial nuances as she testifies. University of Ottawa law professor, Carissima Mathen was at the Supreme Court hearing in Ottawa today. Carissima, this case has been ongoing for a few years. What can you tell us about it and how it’s kind of ebbed and flowed?

Carissima Mathen: Well, in this case, what happened was that at the preliminary enquiry accused counsel requested that the complainant remove her niqab. The judge performed an ad hoc questioning of the complainant and determined on the basis of some of the things she said that the religious beliefs was not sincere or valid and was prepared to order her to remove the niqab. It then went on appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal which said that there needed to be a framework to govern these kinds of decisions. So it’s really about the larger question that would arise in any case where you have a witness who comes to court wearing a face covering that is worn for a religious reason.

Werman: And, the woman at the centre of this case says she is going only by the initials N.S. If N.S. is not permitted by the Supreme Court to wear a niqab when she faces the defendants, will she drop the case?

Mathen: We don’t know what the complainant would do in that case, but if you have a reluctant witness, ultimately the witness would be subject to a contempt of court order. That came out in the hearing today that the ultimate result could be that someone could in fact be jailed for their religious beliefs if the Crown determined that it wanted to go ahead. The more likely outcome in these kinds of cases is that the case simply would not proceed.

Werman: One of the Tenets of Islam is a requirement for modesty. Is this being seen as a lack of religious tolerance to ask this woman to remove her veil?

Mathen: Some members of the Muslim community in Canada argue quite strenuously that the Koran does not require veiling and so to see this as a question of religious belief is a bit of a red herring. That’s inconsistent with Canadian law on the scope of religious freedom. You know, there is an undercurrent in Canada, like the U.S. and other Western Nations, has been undergoing some debate about the role of Islam in public life and in society. But here, because it deals with the criminal justice system and the particular rights of the accused, there’s a little bit of a different aspect I think to some of the arguments.

Werman: In the United States a couple of years ago a case – Mohammed v Paruk, a Michigan District Judge dismissed a Muslim woman’s lawsuit against a car rental company because she refused to remove her niqab in the courtroom. Any sense of how this is going to play out at the Supreme Court in Ottawa?

Mathen: It’s really hard to tell at this point. The court was pressing hard about the accused rights here. The court was also wrestling with the aspect of how useful is demeanor evidence in any event. You know, there are studies that cast some doubt on that but, on the other side, we have an entire adversarial system that is predicated upon testimony from witnesses given in the ordinary courts which, of course, is that in our society people generally don’t cover their faces. So, there’s some really deep-seated societal beliefs at play here. To many people too, this is about a sexual assault complainant’s access to justice and while the niqab may make this seem a very exotic case, it’s actually consistent with other kinds of tactics that are sometimes used in a sexual assault trial to discomfort a witness, to make it less appealing for her to go forward. So, certainly, we think that that’s the important perspective.

Werman: It’s pretty complex. Is this a can of worms that Canada’s justice system would have just assumed to have kept sealed?

Mathen: I like to call it ‘a perfect storm’ of issues. I don’t think there would be a way to avoid this though, because, at some point when you have a more multi-cultural diverse society, you will have people who do observe certain cultural manners that will come into conflict with some of our criminal justice traditions.

Werman: Carissima Mathen, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, thanks so much.

Mathen: My pleasure. 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.

Standing on the front steps of a Cairo courthouse, her round face wrapped tightly in a fuchsia headscarf, Ibrahim admits she is nervous. But there is something that gives her confidence. That is the group of about a dozen Egyptian friends, activists and lawyers who came to court to support her.

A young bearded Egyptian engineer named Hossam al-Din introduces himself to me as a Salafi, an ultra-conservative branch of Islam.

Al-Din says he met Samira Ibrahim in early February in Tahrir Square. He has gotten to know her since then and he’s here on Tuesday because what happened to Ibrahim could happen to any Egyptian girl – Christian or Muslim, he says – under this military government. He says, that is not acceptable.

Ibrahim has described what happened to her – in detail – in a video posted online (below in Arabic with English subtitles). But the broad outline of her story goes like this.

Ibrahim, along with 16 other women, were detained during a demonstration on March 9th. She was held for four days. During that time, she says soldiers beat her repeatedly. They subjected her to electric shocks. They screamed at her and threatened her. Then, worst of all, they made her strip so that a man in military clothes could check to see if she was a virgin. She felt like she had been raped.

In June, Ibrahim filed a criminal case against the army. But that case has gone nowhere. So, she is also pursuing a case in civil court, with the help of several human rights groups. They are asking judges to rule on the legality of Ibrahim’s treatment by the military. If they win the case, it could amount to a most serious legal blow to the Egyptian military’s supreme political control over Egypt.

Ahmed Hossam is Ibrahim’s lawyer. In a smart grey suit, he stands outside the courtroom smoking one cigarette after another. He says this case is incredibly sensitive politically. Hossam is not sure which way it will go.

Observers say it is hard to overstate just how much courage it takes for Hossam’s client to go through with her case. Ibrahim is not the only woman who has been subjected to forced “virginity tests” while in military detention. But the subject of sexual abuse carries a powerful stigma, says Heba Morayef of Human Rights Watch.

“Egypt remains a very conservative society and even talking about the fact that these virginity tests took place is very difficult for young women, in fact most of the women who’ve been subjected to these forced virginity tests have not wanted to come forward.”

Tuesday in court was a big disappointment. The judge did not make a ruling. Instead the case was postponed until late December. After the announcement, Ibrahim was visibly frustrated.

“I’m not angry,” Ibrahim says. “They’re just stalling, trying to kill my case. But I’m not going to give up.”

Ibrahim’s lawyer said the case is probably being held up because the political atmosphere is so sensitive right now, with the recent violence and ongoing parliamentary elections. “There’s not much to do now,” he said. “Except to wait.”

As for Samira Ibrahim, she will be not waiting for anything. Minutes after the disappointing announcement in the courtroom, she joined a small group of demonstrators and together, they marched straight back to Tahrir Square.

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.

Read the Transcript
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.

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is “The World”, a co-production of the BBC World Service PRI and WGBH Boston. The Democratic Republic of Congo has long been mired in conflict. The civil war that ravaged the country for years ended in 2002. But even today, Congo remains overrun with weapons and guerrilla groups, especially in the east. And within that desolate reality, rape is routinely used as a weapon against civilians.  Now, a new study reveals that the incidence of rape in Congo was far higher than previously estimated. The study, published today in the American Journal of Public Health, suggests that more than 1,100 Congolese women are raped every day. That’s twenty-six times higher than previous estimates. Lisa Shannon is a writer and has spent a lot of time in Congo speaking with victims of sexual violence. She says the study is a milestone, in part because it shows skyrocketing rates of rape in Congo are not limited to conflict zones.

LISA SHANNON: It’s big news. Not only because the scale is so much larger than what we thought, but in particular, in this study, one of the interesting findings is that the pandemic is not contained to eastern Congo. So, traditionally, rape in Congo has been framed as women being caught between two armed groups, and what you see in Equateur Province is actually rates of rape that are higher than South Kivu. That’s remarkable. I was in South Kivu the year that this was collected, and I visited women’s groups where half of the women had been raped just in the last six months. So, to say that a non-conflict area has higher rates of rape is extremely significant, and points, really, to the categorical failure of the Congolese government to protect it’s own citizens from mass atrocity.

WERMAN: Well, break that down for us. Again, as an activist, how do you use this, this data to make progress out of this miserable situation and create consequences for the perpetrators?

SHANNON: Well, you have to begin with a comprehensive security sector reform program that’s led by the government of Congo. And the way you do that, is leverage the financial, uh, clout that we have in order to get them to engage in measurable milestones. So, on the ground, that means, for instance, paying soldiers, so that they have something to lose, ’cause right now they’re just given guns and expected to basically free-range. So that’s one thing. You have to prosecute. Um, you have to remove the war criminals from Army ranks. Basic stuff like that would go a long way towards securing the country. And I think, for us, um, looking at the larger systemic problem, I think the other thing you have to look at, is that the United States and the international donor community gives billions of dollars every year to the government of Congo, and yet makes very few requirements, few conditions, and it’s really not coordinated. So, in fact, the international community is actively participating in that systemic problem, and, in fact, enabling it. Uh, Congolese Army and police are primary perpetrators in the violence in Congo. For instance, there’s one woman on the ground in Congo who runs a coalition of thirty-five women’s organizations, trying to fight impunity. As punishment for her speaking out, soldiers actually came to her home and raped her daughter. She got her daughter to safety, and has continued her work. So that’s the kind of heroic, uh, work Congolese women are doing on the ground, but we have to look at the systemic issues that are  feeding this violence.

WERMAN: Finally, this is a difficult question to frame, but is there a danger in focusing so intensively on rape in Congo? I mean, maybe the focus becomes more on this inexplicably cruel and wanton violence in a part of the world we generally ignore, and, Lis, I’m really trying to better understand the fundamental problems in Congo.

SHANNON: Yeah, I would say for sure that the sexual violence in Congo is a symptom of a more systemic problem, which is the Congolese government’s failure to protect. You see, in, the Congolese Army is also known to murder people. They’re also known to steal regularly. Um, so in this case I would say one key, very concrete thing that we could do immediately, is appoint a Great Lake Special Envoy. So, we’re giving a billion dollars a year, but we’re not coordinating it; we’re not leveraging it. And there’s not coordination even within the government of the United States, in terms of programs. It would cost the US government less than two million dollars a year to coordinate and leverage that clout to help end the violence. Yet, up until this point, it really has not been prioritized. So that’s a very simple, concrete step that will lead to a comprehensive plan and really start to go after the key drivers here.

WERMAN: Lisa Shannon is the author of A Thousand Sisters and the founder of Run For Congo Women, a group addressing the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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.

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Displaced Congolese (Photo: Michael Kavanagh 2008)

“Congo has been poorly governed for at least the last 40 years,” said Tony Gambino, an independent consultant who has worked for the US government, the United Nations and the World Bank.

He says next year’s elections will be key to stabilizing Congo and reducing the violence there.

“If you think about it, there are only two ways that can happen: it either happens through normal order which is elections or it happens violently,” Gambino said.

Gambino says the international community has a big role to play in laying the groundwork for those elections, including the United States. Congo needs an estimated 300 million dollars from donors to prepare but the Obama Administration has only allocated four or five million dollars for Congo election aid.

“That’s a scandalous level!” Gambino exclaimed.

Cynthia Akuetteh, the US State Dept.’s director for Central Africa, says Gambino’s right that the funding could be higher but she says she has to confront the reality of current budget constraints. And she doesn’t want to take money from other Congo aid projects.

“I don’t think anything we’re doing is fluff,” Akuetteh said.

It sure doesn’t sound like fluff. US aid to Congo runs close to $200 million a year and goes to treating and combating sexual violence, reforming the army and police, development aid, and dealing with diseases like HIV and malaria.

“All of these are also critical,” Akuetteh said.

As always there’s a bigger picture to contend with. But even if money wasn’t an issue, some Congo experts say national elections shouldn’t be the top priority.

“We know from previous research that elections by themselves don’t lead to democracy and to good governance unless specific conditions are in place,” said Severine Autesserre, a former aid worker turned academic who’s written a new book called “The Trouble with the Congo.”

“We need freedom of press, freedom of campaigning, freedom of speech and we don’t have these conditions in the Congo as of now.”

Autesserre thinks the whole international peacebuilding apparatus in Congo focuses too much on top down solutions and not enough on bottom up ones.

Hold national elections by all means she says, but if you want the violence to stop, start devoting far more resources to helping Congolese villagers in rural areas resolve their local conflicts over land and power.

Download MP3

This story followed Anchor Marco Werman’s conversation with reporter Michael Kavanagh on Friday, Nov. 12, 2010. Kavanagh was at the trial of eight police officers facing accusations of killing human rights activist Floribert Chebaya. Click here to listen.

Jeb Sharp’s Congo coverage on The World:
• The UN’s fight against sexual violence
• Rape as a weapon of war
• Jeb’s award-winning 2008 series on rape in Congo

See also: DR Congo: Celebrating 50 years of chaos

Helmet and flack jackets of a South African contingent of the UN Peacekeeping Mission in DR Congo (Photo:Marie Frechon)

A top UN official is briefing the Security Council today on her recent trip to eastern Congo to investigate the mass rape of civilians in the Walikale region in late July and early August of this year. The World’s Jeb Sharp looks at what UN peacekeepers can do to better protect civilians and prevent sexual violence by armed groups in the eastern DRC. Download MP3

More: Harvard’s Jocelyn Kelly on her research on perpetrators

• Lisa Shannon’s A Thousand Sisters
• Rape as a weapon of war (2009)
• Jeb Sharp’s award-winning series on rape in Congo (2008)
• Harvard University video: armed groups in Congo

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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.

LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH in Boston. The United Nations is still grappling with a devastating failure in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This past summertime, hundreds of civilians were raped by armed groups in the Walikale region. UN peacekeepers were stationed nearby, but they failed to act. Today, the UN Security Council heard a briefing on the matter. The World’s Jeb Sharp looks at what more can be done to prevent these atrocities.

JEB SHARP:  The scale and brutality of the sexual violence in eastern Congo is not a new story, but this incident was particularly shocking. More than 300 people, mostly women but also men and boys, were raped over the course of several days. Margot Wallstrom, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict says it could happen again.

MARGOT WALLSTROM:  The peacekeepers have to become much better in catching the early warning signals that were there when these rebel groups are on the move when they start to block off roads, when they start to pillage or loot the small villages then you can assume rape.

SHARP: Anneke van Woudenberg of Human Rights Watch agrees. She says UN peacekeepers have to patrol more often and be more visible in the communities they’re trying to protect. And they have to ask questions.

ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: There was a patrol that was done in the days as this was unfolding but the UN peacekeepers didn’t know that rape was happening. They hadn’t spoken to women in that particular case. So I think one of the lessons learned here is that peacekeepers need to be asking the right questions and asking the right questions of the right people. Not just talking to men, or not just talking to the community leaders, but proactively seeking the view of women.

SHARP: Van Woudenberg says that’s especially true in eastern Congo where an estimated 250,000 women and girls have been raped in the past decade. Lisa Shannon wrote a book about the sexual violence in Congo called A Thousand Sisters. She says it’s not surprising no one in Walikale told the peacekeepers what was happening.

LISA SHANNON: One of the issues people have talked about is that the UN wasn’t notified that perhaps one patrol drove through the area but no one told them. Well I’m trying to imagine who the Congolese woman is that would flag down a foreign man and tell them she was just raped.

SHARP: You have to establish strong relationships with the community Shannon says. And that means getting peacekeepers out of the barracks and out of their vehicles.

SHANNON: I’m not an expert on how you train military to reach the hearts and minds of locals, but I do know simple things like getting out of the car, shopping at the local market, saying hello, would probably make a big difference.

SHARP: UN peacekeeping officials acknowledge the failure in Walikale. Spokesman Nick Birnback says it has shaken people throughout the UN.

NICK BIRNBACK:  From our perspective and from a human perspective that’s really hard to come to grips with. That you’re there and that you fail in the most fundamental of your mandates, which is to try to do everything  you can to protect the vulnerable populations of the Congo.

SHARP: Birnback agrees the UN mission can do a lot more, including better communication and intelligence gathering. For a start it’s working to get more radios and cell phones into the villages so people can stay in touch with UN bases. But Birnback says more expensive fixes are harder to come by.

BIRNBACK: The first thing that comes to mind is helicopters. That in dealing with these distances if we had more air assets to move around we would be able to get to these places in a more timely fashion when we get news that things are happening. We don’t have the helicopters. The helicopters are provided by the member states and we have a great deal of difficulty in getting them to provide them.

SHARP: Peacekeeping in eastern Congo is notoriously challenging because of the vast distances, forested terrain and lack of roads.  In the end though, peacekeeping is only a bandaid. The larger task is to tackle the root causes of conflict and to end the near total impunity for crimes of sexual violence. There was a bit of good news in eastern Congo last week when one of the alleged perpetrators of the Walikale attacks was apprehended. One human rights advocate said “That was a good day. We need more of them.” For The World, I’m Jeb Sharp.

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.

'Baptism of Saint Augustine' at Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul de Troyes

Last month, the Catholic Church in Belgium had to face revelations of widespread sexual abuse of children by priests. A report by an independent commission determined that the abuse was widespread, and took place over a number of decades. The Church vowed to help the victims, and hold those responsible to account. But for many Catholics in Belgium, the report was the last straw. More and more are even going so far as to formally leave the Church, in a process called “de-baptism.” From Brussels, the World’s Clark Boyd reports. Download MP3

• Pervasive abuse in Belgian Catholic Church
• Vatican reaction to Belgian scandal

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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.

LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Last month, the Catholic Church in Belgium was rocked by a report on sexual abuse of children by priests. The report by an independent commission determined that the abuse was widespread, and that it took place over a number of decades. The Church vowed to help the victims, and hold those responsible to account. But for many Catholics in Belgium, such promises are too little, too late. For them, as for those disillusioned Catholics in other parts of the globe, there’s an option of getting “de-baptized.” The World’s Clark Boyd reports from Brussels.

CLARK BOYD:  Eric Lorio was born in a small town not far from Brussels. For Lorio, the Catholic Church was central to his community, and his life as a youngster. He attended Mass regularly, and served as an altar boy. But as he got older, he began to change his mind about his faith.

ERIC LORIO:  When I became to think, as an adult, I took distance from religion and God. And I found more and more that the Catholic Church more and more aggressive and more conservative, about abortion, about same-sex marriage, about modern life.

BOYD: Lorio says he became an atheist. And then last year, he decided to make his break with the Church more formal.

LORIO: I wanted to express, officially, to the church that I wanted to go away

BOYD: He did some research, and discovered a process for doing just that. It’s called, colloquially, “de-baptism.” The process is simple. You send a letter to the diocese where you were baptized formally stating your desire to leave the Church. Church authorities then put an X next to your name in the baptism register, and send you a letter confirming that it’s been done. Lorio’s not the only Belgian Catholic going through with de-baptism these days.

BJORN SIFFER: It’s a very popular act right now here in Belgium, and I don’t think the Catholic Church can do anything about that.

BOYD: Bjorn Siffer is the spokesman for the Antwerp-based Humanist Association of Belgium.

SIFFER: Since the continuing atmosphere of scandals about child abuse in the Catholic Church here in Belgium, we’ve received hundreds and hundreds of emails, questions by telephone, by people who were really angry at the church.

BOYD: Siffer says the Humanist Association is actively campaigning for de-baptism. They not only help people with their paperwork, but also take to the streets to ask Catholics if they might consider leaving the Church. For Catholics, baptism is the first sacrament, the initiation into the Church and the faith. Siffer says there are serious consequences should one choose to get de-baptized, so the process shouldn’t be done on a lark.

SIFFER:  One of the consequences is that you can’t have any more sacraments, from the moment you are de-baptized. So, when you want to marry it’s impossible, a funeral in the Catholic Church is impossible. So, it’s very important that people know that these are the consequences.

JURGEN METTEPENNINGEN: I want to emphasize that you cannot de-baptize yourself

BOYD: That’s Jurgen Mettepenningen, spokesman for the Catholic Church here in Belgium. Mettepenningen says he understands why people are upset with the Church these days. And, he says, he also understands why people want to formally leave the Church. But a mark in the baptism register, he says, doesn’t change the symbolism of the sacrament.

METTEPENNINGEN: A sacrament is given, once upon a time, you are baptized and you cannot say at a certain moment, I am not baptized. It’s not like your clothes. You put your clothes on, and then you take your clothes off. That’s not possible. A sacrament is on another level. So, you cannot ignore that you were once baptized.

BOYD: To some Catholics, though, the formal act doesn’t matter all that much.

DANIEL LECLERQ: I don’t care. They have no influence on me one way or another. They never have.

BOYD: That’s Daniel Leclerq. He heads a secularist group in Brussels that’s been helping people get de-baptized since 1986. He was baptized as a child, but says he feels no need to go through the formal process of leaving the Church. But for Eric Lorio, the process has helped him to be more comfortable with his own beliefs. And he’s set up a website to help others who wish to go through de-baptizing. He’s had 6,000 visitors to the site so far this year. He says the point is not just to give people practical information, but to explain to other Catholics his reasons for leaving the Church. For the World, this is Clark Boyd in Brussels.

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• BBC coverage
• Crisis for Pope Benedict

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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. An independent commission set up by the Belgian Catholic Church has issued a report and it’s not easy reading. It details widespread sexual abuse of children by Belgian priests. More than 500 men and women gave testimony about the abuse they suffered. Some were younger than seven years old at the time. More than a dozen victims are thought to have committed suicide because of what they went through. From Brussels, The World’s Clark Boyd reports that the head of the Belgian Catholic Church has responded to last week’s report.

CLARK BOYD:  Andre-Mutien Leonard told a news conference today that the Belgian Catholic Church wants to cooperate more closely with the police. That it does want the abusers to be punished. The Archbishop acknowledged of Friday’s report, that the record of sexual abuse stretches back decades, and that it happened in every diocese in Belgium. Archbishop Leonard said Church officials want to help the victims.

SPEAKING FRENCH

ANDRE-MUTIEN LEONARD: In the wake of this report, the first thing we will do is look at individual cases. We want to be as receptive as possible to the wishes of the victims. We must listen to their questions to restore their dignity and help heal the suffering they have endured.

BOYD: To do that, the Archbishop proposed the creation of a Center for Recognition, Reconciliation and Healing. But, he gave no details. San Duerinck was eleven when he says he was molested at a Catholic boarding school. That was more than 50 years ago, but he still remembers what happened when he went to people in authority with his story.

SAN DUERINCK: When I was at that boarding school, I told it to one priest in the confessional, and he didn’t react. He was like a block of stone. And then I told to the superior of the school, and he said oh, it’s the past now, you shouldn’t think about it any more. You should get over it and go on with your life.

BOYD: Duerinck now works with an organization that helps victims of abuse come forward. He says that a Chuch-run center of reconciliation isn’t enough.

DUERINCK: The Church is a private organization, and they should give all of what they have, the material, archive, documents, they should hand it over to the state authorities.

BOYD: At his news conference today, Archbishop Leonard did not spell out how the Church would work with police. He did warn, though, that those found responsible for abuse would face sanctions, including possible lifelong exclusion from the Church. In April, the Bishop of Bruges resigned after he admitting abusing his nephew years ago. The Church has yet to defrock or sanction him. But most of the people who stepped forward to testify for the report did so after the Bishop resigned. Austin Ivereigh of the British-based group Catholic voices says the Belgian church is now on the right track.

AUSTIN IVEREIGH: Clearly now the Church is saying we want to hear from victims more than we have.

BOYD:  That applies to victims not only of the Catholic Church, but of all institutions that care for children. Ellen Stassart is with Child Focus, a Belgian group that works with abuse victims.

ELLEN STASSART: I think what we have seen now is abuse and misuse of authority. I think this was misuse of authority of the church, and of priests and other Catholic persons. I think we can’t tolerate this kind of abuse from no institution whatsoever. Not an educational system, not another system and not in the church. I think really in general we cannot tolerate it.

BOYD: For its part, the Vatican has been silent on the abuse revelations in Belgium. For The world, this is Clark Boyd in Brussels.

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• Jeb Sharp on Clinton’s demand for an end of the sexual abuse
• Jeb Sharp’s award-winning series on rape in Congo (2008)
• UNIFEM homepage

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JEB SHARP: Wars are not just what happens between armies.  Civilians get caught up in the fighting.  We’re going to focus now on a particularly disturbing tactic of war that is aimed at civilians.  That’s the use of rape as a weapon.  The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to tackle this issue tomorrow.  Perhaps the worst recent cases have been in places like eastern Congo where armed groups have used rape to terrorize communities.  I visited eastern Congo last year and spoke with rape victims at a place called Panzi Hospital. Here are some of their voices and I should warn you their stories are disturbing.  Here’s one girl I met, a tiny ten year old in blue jeans named Marie.

MARIE:  I’ve been raped by a Hutu soldier who came in my house.  They first of all killed my parents and then they raped me, there were three.

SHARP:  Another young patient at the hospital, also called Marie, was traveling to the local market with six other women when their vehicle was ambushed by armed men.  She says the attackers dragged the women into the bush.

MARIE:  So they took off all our dresses and we were naked.  They killed one woman among us; one man raped me and another one make sex with me, put his sex in my mouth.

SHARP:  Those are the kinds of stories you hear all too often in war zones like eastern Congo.  Joining me now is Anne-Marie Goetz.  She’s the chief advisor for Governance, Peace and Security at UNIFEM, the UN Development Fund for Women.  Anne-Marie Goetz, first just let me ask you what strikes you about those women’s voices and their stories.

ANNE-MARIE GOETZ:  These are awful experiences and what’s horrifying is that if anything, rape in war seems to be increasing.  Particularly in this context, in eastern Congo where in spite of the signing a peace agreement earlier this year and the effort to round up remaining militia, rape has if anything been on the increase and in parts of eastern Congo, for example in North Kivu, three out of four women have been raped by men in uniform.  This is an emergency on a phenomenal scale and that’s exactly what’s so important about the Security Council resolution which will be discussed tomorrow on Rape in Conflict.

SHARP:  Now tell us about that.  The U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to chair the session.  The council is expected to pass a fresh resolution on preventing and punishing rape as a weapon of war but what’s in the resolution–and I don’t mean the flowery UN language–I mean what are the two or three tangible things in there that are actually going to make a difference?

GOETZ:  What’s going to happen tomorrow is that the Security Council is going to recommend the Secretary-General appoint a senior Special Representative of the Secretary-General on sexual violence, whose sole job will be to address this horrifying feature of fighting.  In addition, there’s going to be a task force of technical advisers on judicial systems who, at the initiation of governments in the post-conflict phase, will be able to come in and strengthen judicial response.  This is exceptionally important for addressing the problem of impunity, de facto impunity enjoyed by perpetrators of this violence.

SHARP:  One of the problems in eastern Congo is a huge number of rapes are reported and a tiny percentage makes it into the court.  How does this change the judicial picture?

GOETZ:  The idea is to go into a place where the judicial system is in dissarray, the corrections system is virtually non-existent and to quickly support the country, to set priorities for fast tracking investigations and prosecutions of these crimes.

SHARP:  Anne-Marie Goetz, this sounds really, really good.  How can you persuade us though that we should not be really skeptical, given the nature of the UN bureaucracy?

GOETZ:  I think we are seeing a sea change in the way that this issue is being approached by the United Nations.  There is no question that there’s an uphill battle, that a great deal of peacekeeping troops need to be trained in a different way.  The challenges are huge.

SHARP:  The former UN Under-Secretary-General (for Humanitarian Affairs), Jan Egeland, had a good way of explaining the way rape as a weapon of war had been viewed at the UN, really right up until now.  Let’s hear that tape.

JAN EGLAND:  I think it may be one of the biggest conspiracies of silence of history, this. And we treat it at best as a humanitarian problem.  So you’ve been gang-raped, have a blanket.  You’ve been gang-raped again, have another blanket.  Whereas it should be a political and a security and a justice problem.

SHARP:  Anne-Marie Goetz, it sounds as if you would agree with that but do you see the mentality, the emphasis shifting to the degree it needs to?

GOETZ:  Have mentalities changed?  Within the humanitarian sector, as Jan Egeland rightly points out, there has been much more willingness to detect and to do something about sexual violence but very much in the sense of responding to the needs of its survivors.  Within the uniformed personnel of the UN and certainly within for example, even the peacemakers, the mediators, yes, lots of work has to be done to raise awareness.  That this is a way of fighting, it is a prescribed method of war, just as landmines and cluster bombs are and therefore this must be addressed and attacked.

SHARP:  Anne-Marie Goetz is the Chief Advisor for Governance Peace, and Security at UNIFEM, the UN’s development agency for women.  She joined us from the UN.  Thank you.

GOETZ:  Thank you.

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Earlier, following talks with Congolese President Joseph Kabila, she said there should be no impunity for the perpetrators of sexual violence. The UN estimates 3,500 women have been raped in DR Congo so far this year. And in a report released to coincide with Mrs Clinton’s visit, the aid agency Oxfam said it had monitored 20 communities and found that children, some as young as four, had been raped in half of them.

Jeb Sharp will report on Clinton’s visit on The World later today, >>> click here for her award winning series on rape in Congo (Jan 2008)

Read more about the war in Congo and listen to coverage on The World

BBC coverage of Clinton’s visit in Congo