Lemur's of Madagascar

http://humanosphere.kplu.org/

Way to measure African health

One of the international communities goals for poor nations is to get them to improve their health care. That’s a good thing. How you get there is another thing.
A decade ago, at about the same time the world launched the Millennium Development Goals,many African heads of state gathered together as members of the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union) in Abuja, Nigeria, to promise to increase health care spending to 15 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.
Whose dumb idea was that?
IRIN News
Health Spending in Africa
Apparently, one of the key ways we are continuing to evaluate progress in Africa is by measuring how much each country is spending on health care. (To the right is a bad screen capture — sorry — of an interactive map that is much better at the link above.)
Is spending really a good way to measure of how they’re doing at improving health? I don’t think so.
The U.S. spends much more than any other nation (about $8,000 per person per year, or about 17% of our GDP and our health performance is pretty bad, about where Slovenia ranks, and by some accounts getting worse).
Clearly, as we have demonstrated to the world, you can spend more on health care and not get better health.
Let’s find a better indicator for health progress in Africa than money.

http://humanosphere.kplu.org/

Faces of War: Mass rapes, 5.4 million deaths span decades in the Congo | Posted | National Post

Faces of War: Mass rapes, 5.4 million deaths span decades in the Congo | Posted | National Post: "Faces of War: Mass rapes, 5.4 million deaths span decades in the�Congo"

UN report into atrocities committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo details many distressing cases, noting that it was primarily women and children who suffered during the decade of violence.

“Over the course of this 10-year period and to this day, many women were raped several times, by different groups, ironically in retaliation for having supported an ‘enemy’ that they had in fact suffered at the hands of. If they survive these rapes, instead of being supported by their communities, the women are generally rejected by their husbands and families. With neither moral nor financial support, they have to face the consequences of rape — sometimes including the birth of a child — in the wake of being mutilated, impoverished, traumatized and ostracized. Women are therefore victims several times over,” says the report.

Our features on the report: “Faces of War”

Some excerpts:

• “At Bunia, the [Forces Armées Zaïroises] allegedly raped the girls of Likovi secondary school so savagely and so systematically that seven of them died. They also reportedly raped women in the maternity unit of the town’s hospital and raped and battered nuns in the town’s convent.”
• “Assailants often forced members of the same family to have incestuous sex, mother and son, father and daughter, brother and sister, aunt and nephew, etc. Families were also forced to witness gang rapes of one of their members, most often their mother or sister(s). The victim’s family members were sometimes forced to dance naked, to clap to or sing obscene songs during the rape.”
• “According to some victims in South Kivu, there was a deliberate policy among the warring factions of spreading HIV/AIDS to as many women as possible so that they would, in turn, infect the rest of their community.”
• “Following an AFDL decree banning women from wearing trousers, leggings or mini-skirts, some who flouted this ban were publicly humiliated, stripped, manhandled and even severely beaten with nail-studded pieces of wood. One female student in Lubumbashi was allegedly undressed, whipped and threatened with death by AFDL/APR soldiers for having worn trousers.”
• “Rape of women and electric shocks to the genitals of men were used as a means of torture in different detention centres, particularly in Kinshasa.”
• “In North Kivu, the Ugandan rebels of the ADF/NALU [Allied Democratic Forces/National Army for the Liberation of Uganda] attacked and looted several villages in Beni territory, abducting children, young girls and women whom they used as slaves, including sex slaves.”

CHILD SOLDIERS

• “The acts of sexual violence committed against children associated with armed forces and armed groups (CAAFAGs) were particularly appalling as they were in addition to the multitude of other violations to which these children were subjected. During their ‘enlistment’, many of them witnessed their mothers and sisters being raped. It was reported that elements of the ANC/APR/RDF raped young girls for the whole night and whipped them if they tried to run away.”
• “Male CAAFAGs known as Kadogo (“little ones” in Swahili), were forced to commit acts of brutality, including rapes, to ‘toughen them up’. During attacks, girls would be taken to them so that they could rape them in the presence of villagers and adult soldiers. If they refused, the Kadogo would be executed.”
• “It was common practice that female CAAFAGs would act as sex slaves for the commanding officers.”

National Post

Posted in: Posted, World  Tags: Congo, Democratic Republic Of Congo, Faces Of War

Read more: http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/09/03/faces-of-war-congo-%e2%80%94-victims-several-times-over/#ixzz0yXLjqs4z