Political Quotes

“Congress often considers issues that have far reaching consequences for millions of people, but in 2010, a law was enacted that literally meant life-or-death for millions of people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The law stems the flow of financial support to warloads in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many may not realize that more than 5 million people have been killed during long-running conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which have been the most deadly since World War II. Tragically, women and children have suffered the most, as is too often the case when it comes to conflict. Millions have been displaced from their homes, and the prevalence of rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war is almost beyond belief, earning eastern Congo the grim distinction of being the ``Rape Capital of the World.'' Sam Brownback first took me there in 2005, and I returned again in 2010. At the time, the U.N. reported that about 1,000 women were sexually assaulted every day in Congo, roughly equivalent to 12 percent of all Congolese women. I can still vividly remember walking across the lava-strewn refugee camps and visiting the victims of sexual assault in the heroic Heal Africa Hospital. I also recall the hearing I held in the Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law about rape as a weapon of war. Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege testified about the horrors of the region's sexual violence he helped treat at Panzi Hospital.…”