this is a story from anderson cooper's 360 blog

i read it yesterday but i decided not to post it. after thinking about it, i changed my mind. mr cooper has been in the 'democratic' republic of the congo and the sudan along with dr sanjay gupta and jeff koinange.

in the comments section of another posting both pissed off patricia at morning martini and i thought we may NOT be able to do anything about these sorts of occurances. of course i know she will never stop trying nor will i

This is not a fairy tale

There are some things you see, some things you hear that simply are unspeakable. In a hospital in the eastern Congo city of Goma, we met a little girl. She never said a word to us, she could barely look us in the eyes. When she did, her eyes told the story."She never says anything to men," one of the hospital counselors explained, and then she told us why.The little girl was raped. Gang-raped. It was allegedly done by soldiers engaged in a complicated regional war that has claimed millions of lives. The war officially ended in 2003, but outbreaks of violence and rape continue. The girl is now five years old. She was raped when she was three.I wish I could tell you this was an extraordinary event. I wish I could tell you she was the only child attacked. The hospital was full of rape victims, and the doctor had seen other small children victimized.Because the rapes are so violent, women often develop fistulas -- ruptures in their vaginas or rectums that make it impossible to control bodily functions. A charity called Heal Africa was running this hospital, and the doctor said he was able to fix about 70-80 percent of the fistula cases, but of course some wounds never heal.Heal Africa has opened up a residence for women with fistulas that can't be surgically fixed, at least not here in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The women can't go home. Often they've been rejected by their husbands because they were raped. The stigma here is strong...............