Rape, abduction and displacement

Tonight I went to another PRIO film night, where a small group from my class watched three short documentaries produced by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The first film looked at gender-based violence, focusing on women and children who are victims of rape and sexual abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who suffer serious physical and psychological damage as a result of both their sexual abuse and the social stigmatisation that follows.

The second film moved east to the 17-year-long and oft-forgotten civil war in northern Uganda. The Lord's Resistance Army kidnaps children on a large scale to be used as child soldiers and sex slaves. The film featured interviews with workers and former captives at a camp that aims to rehabilitate these children.

The third and final film for the night moved north to Sudan and the conflict and mass displacement in the western province of Darfur that erupted in 2003, which happened despite peace talks that were underway and recently resulted in a peace agreement between the north and the south.

Although these films played for less than an hour in total and we have another 5 or 6 in this series of short films, there is only so much brutality and suffering that one can take in an evening.
On the other hand, the films were very effective in bringing home what we have been studying for the last 3 months. Reading about violence against women in war, child soldiers and ethnic cleansing is not the same as seeing interviews with the perpetrators, victims, or those trying to help them.

So much of Africa is stuffed. I have a very depressing map of Africa in front of me in which the countries that have suffered civil war are shaded. Most of the continent is black (no pun intended). Among the unshaded states are such centres of happiness and harmony as Zimbabwe, Libya and Equatorial Guinea. For some reason Morocco/Western Sahara is also unshaded, which does not seem right to me - Western Sahara has many similarities with pre-1999 East Timor.

This morning I read an article on the responsibilities of bystanders to genocide. I felt guilty of indifference, which can be tantamount to complicity.
I have an interest in genocide and conflict, especially after the excellent history course on "Genocide and Persecution, Revenge and Reconciliation" that I took in 2001. And yet I have (at times intentionally) kept myself relatively ignorant of contemporary conflicts, and until this year made no effort to learn about what is happening in Africa in particular.
I have ambivalent feelings about what I should do with myself. I want to be involved, whether working with the delivery of humanitarian aid, formal peace processes, or informal peace building activities. On the other hand, I am very conscious of the burnout and trauma suffered by many people who work in these fields. Working where conflicts are underway I think would be too much for me, but maybe there is scope for post-war field work, perhaps combined with research or policy work in more hospitable surroundings.

This is a bit pie-in-the-sky at the moment as at the end of January I'll be returning to my cushy desk job at employee-friendly Treasury in oh-so comfortable Canberra. But maybe in another year (armed with my Masters ;) I'll take some more small steps out of my comfort zone toward some work I actually care about.