Rape in Congo: 'I'm not sure I'll ever get over it' | Life and style | The Guardian

Chris Jackson was so haunted by what rape victims in Congo told him he decided to run 12 marathons in 12 months to raise awareness of their plight

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• Veronique Mistiaen
• The Guardian, Friday 3 December 2010
• Article history

Chris Jackson running through Congo . . . 'How can you live with that fear day after day?' Photograph: Fjona Hill for the Guardian

In a sprawling refugee camp near Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the summer of 2009, Chris Jackson met a woman who had been violently raped. "She was pregnant at the time of the attack and her unborn baby was slashed from her. And there she was, in this huge, claustrophobic refugee camp without any treatment, and the only thing I could say to her was 'sorry'. It was so pathetic."

Hours later, armed men broke into his hotel. "They dragged us all out and made us kneel in the parking lot while they looted the place. Women and children were crying. I knew I could go home in a few days, but kept thinking: 'How can you live with that fear day after day?'"

Back home, Jackson, a 26-year-old lobbyist with a London financial firm, was haunted by the woman's story. "I felt guilty and frustrated. Congo is almost the size of western Europe, but people in Britain don't really know where it is and what's happening there. I wanted to do something to help." And the only thing he could think of was running.

So Jackson, who was not particularly athletic, decided to run 12 marathons in 12 months to try to raise awareness of the largely ignored humanitarian crisis in the eastern provinces of Congo, where rape is routinely used as a weapon by militias and soldiers, 5.4 million people have died and 2 million have been displaced. The lure of profit from gold and diamonds, as well as from minerals such as coltan, which is used to make mobile phones, have turned eastern Congo into a battlefield.

To alert people to the situation there, Jackson used social media – blogging and tweeting regularly, despite the fact that he is dyslexic.

This Sunday, Jackson will run his 12th and last marathon in Luton. His feat includes the London and New York marathons, a marathon on a treadmill in the Asics store in central London ( ) and a gruelling marathon through eastern Congo, one of the most dangerous places on earth.

While running the first ever marathon there this summer Jackson stopped to speak with women who have been attacked by soldiers and rebels. He met them with the help of Women for Women International (WfWI), an NGO helping survivors of war rebuild their lives and regain their dignity. He says they seemed content, strong and determined. "They wore colourful skirts and headscarves. They liked to show their houses and were proud of their children, just like any other women.

"But when they started telling what had happened to them, it was like all the colours had been sucked out of the room. Their eyes filled with tears, their hands would shift under their shawls or touch and rub an injury sustained during the attack. One woman, Florence, kept touching her bright headscarf. Later she took it off and I could see that half her scalp had been burnt off." Florence and 70 other women were locked in a house and set on fire, but she managed to crawl out.

Jackson is almost whispering now and has to stop a few times to choke back tears. "I can still see Generose's big smile. She used to be a nurse. She was vibrant and warm, but became quiet when she told me that one day, armed men came to her house and asked for food and money. She fed them and gave them all her money out of fear. But they were not satisfied, so they shot her husband and with a machete sliced off a piece of her thigh and cooked it over the fire. The men forced her five children to eat her flesh. One brave child refused, so they shot him in front of his mother. They then set fire to her house and left.

"What I heard was so shocking that I am still trying to get over it," says Jackson. "I am not sure I ever will."

One day while begging on the road, Generose was taken to the WfWI office, where she enrolled in its programme. There she received post-trauma and confidence-building counselling, business skills and a monthly stipend through a sponsor. She now runs a small business drying fish and selling it at the market and can send her children to school. "I regained hope," she told Jackson. "She walks with sticks because part of her leg had to be amputated, but you can hardly see it because her eyes are so full of life," he says. Like Generose, 30,000 women survivors of war have been empowered through WfWI's programme in Congo.

After speaking with the women, Jackson visited Panzi hospital, where many rape victims arrive with wooden sticks or broken glass bottles stabbed into their genitals. The victims are mainly women and children, but increasingly men too. The sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world – about 160 women are raped every week in the Kivu provinces, according to a 2010 report by the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs.

"Rape dehumanises, breaks down communities, creates fear and prevents women from being able to go about their everyday lives. Many are infected with HIV, and are also rejected by their families and communities," says Kate Nustedt, WfWI's executive director.

In Congo, Jackson also spoke with soldiers and other men who have raped, but now claim to have reformed after enrolling in a men's leadership programme, also run by WfWI. The men explained they considered women as objects, and rape was part of their military training. The programme tries to "re-educate" community and military leaders, sensitising them to women's rights issues and the impact of rape, then turning them into role models for other men.

Friends who accompanied Jackson to Congo (a film-maker, a photographer, a journalist and a running buddy) helped put together footage, reports and photography recording his marathon and encounters there. This led to programmes on the BBC World Service and Channel 4 News, among others.

Now that his mission is almost over, Jackson is in a reflective mood. He has wrecked his knees and ankles, lost his girlfriend, bored his friends with his single-track dedication and missed important family events because he couldn't miss a marathon. Yet running was the easy part, he says. "Much harder is dealing with all the horrible stories I have now in my head and the feeling of not having done enough. And trying to decide what to do next."

Nustedt says Jackson's contribution has been invaluable. After his last marathon on Sunday, he will have run more than 2,000 miles, including training, and raised more than £4,000 for Amnesty International and WfWI. But, more importantly, he has helped reach people who may otherwise not have heard about the brutal war in Congo, she says. More than 10,000 people have read his blog, a few hundred follow him on Twitter and many have heard him speak. "Chris has been an amazing ambassador. Having a young man as an ambassador has helped us reach out to new audiences," she says.

Amnesty International UK media director Mike Blakemore adds: "What Chris has done this year is amazing. If there were more like him, the DRC wouldn't be such a forgotten conflict."

Jackson says he is determined to carry on playing his part for Congo: "By running some arbritary distance an unnecessary amount of times I wanted to get people to be aware of Congo and those who have and continue to suffer in silence . . . But what I now realise is that this race is coming to an end for me and I need to look beyond it. I'll be spending the last 26.2 miles on Sunday thinking about how I can do this, because this year is only the beginning."

• WFWI is part of the Big Give on 6 December where donations will be doubled. Go to womenforwomen.org/help-women/help-women-globally-uk.php. Chris Jackson is fundraising on justgiving.com/eonanddonate

via guardian.co.uk