by James Oliphant

A Senate subcommittee Tuesday tried to give voice to hundreds of thousands of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other places around the world who have been victims of sexual violence during wartime.

"They're the forgotten women in a forgotten war," Lisa Jackson, a filmmaker who recently completed a documentary about rape victims in the Congo, told the committee. "They're the walking dead."

The Judiciary subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law is chaired by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). Tuesday marked the first congressional attempt to hear testimony on the use of rape as a weapon in wartime.

"We have a moral obligation to take action to help these brave survivors," Durbin said.

Jackson and other witnesses spoke, sometimes in graphic detail, about the endemic nature of the act in the Congo and elsewhere. It is not a new problem, the witnesses said, nor is it confined to Africa. Widespread rape was reported during the Rwandan genocide in early 1990s, the civil war in Sierra Leone, the conflict in the Balkans and it has been reported in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Kelly Dawn Askin, a lawyer and scholar with the Open Society Justice Initiative, called it a "spreading practice" that destroys women and destabilizes families and communities. She testified that rape victims she has interviewed share commons stories. "They were used and abused by men with weapons, often attacking in gangs, often committing the crimes in public, often in front of cheering crowds or before the victim's own families," she told Durbin and Republican Sen. Tom Coburn.

Askin called on the United States and other countries to treat rape as a war crime. She mentioned that the international war crimes tribunals set up to prosecute crimes committed in the former Yugolslavia and Rwanda have led the way in redressing sex-related acts of violence in a wartime context.

She said the U.S. must amend its criminal statutes to deny safe harbor to any escaped perpetrator suspected of rape or other sexual violence. Currently, Askin said, a federal war crimes statute only is enforceable when the perpetrator or victim of a war crime is a U.S. citizen or member of the U.S. Armed Forces. "The U.S. should return to the forefront in promulgating legislation on wartime sexual violence," she said.

Also appearing before the committee was Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist who works at a hospital in Eastern Congo. Speaking in French, Mukwege said women in the Congo have faced "sexual terrorism" for almost 10 years.

"This is known by the national and international community, without anyone making a serious decision to end this shameful crime against humanity in the 21st century," Mukwege said. he said hundreds of thousands of women in the country had been victimized.

"The analysis of this phenomenon shows that rapists are not doing this to satisfy some kind of sexual desire, but simply want to destroy the woman," he said. "They want to destroy life."

In 30 percent of cases, he said, he must perform surgery to repair damaged bladders, genitals and other organs, as women are often raped using pieces of wood or other instruments.

He urged Congress to become involved. "Members of this subcommittee," he said, "the eyes of these women are now fixed upon you."

Click here to watch a video presentation by the committee on the issue.