Physicians for Human Rights

Without Justice We Will Simply Continue to Say: Never Again - and We Will Say it Again, and Again, and Again

On April 10, 2008, PHR CEO Frank Donaghue addressed the Global Philanthropy Forum's Seventh Annual Conference in a plenary session on "Women, Children and Conflict".

From Frank Donaghue's written remarks:

At PHR our work is to use medical and scientific research to document and shine a spotlight on the human rights violations throughout the world and to provide data, rigorous research and court-admissible evidence. From Chad and Sudan to Sierra Leone to Bosnia, we believe that our niche is investigating from a medical perspective mass rape and rape as a weapon of war. Relatedly, in Uganda, Kenya and now Zimbabwe, we are documenting the failure of governments to fund the fight against the feminization of AIDS. Most importantly, we demand change.

This week Dr. Dennis Mukwege visited us in our Cambridge, Massachusetts office. Dr. Mukwege is a highly trained, Congolese pelvic surgeon. He has seen 20,000 rape survivors in the clinic that he runs at the Panzi hospital in Eastern Congo. Dr. Mukwege spoke about the need for training in how to gather forensic evidence. Under government surveillance for doing this work, Dr. Mukwege is under constant threat, but this is not his largest challenge. Nor are the medical and psychological hurdles and the stigma faced by rape survivors. "The largest challenge," he said, '"is there is no justice."

Without justice and reparation there will be no future prevention, and there will be no lasting or meaningful protection. We will simply continue to say: Bosnia, never again; Kosovo, never again; Rwanda, never again; Sierra Leone, never again; Darfur never again; and we will say it again and again and again.

See the videos of his address. (on the video page, click "2008 Annual Conference Plenary 4_8"; the address finishes on "2008 Annual Conference Plenary 4_9.")