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PHR has been documenting human rights violations in the Congo since 1997 as a part of its Public Health Effects of Conflict exploration.

In June of 1997 we published our report on Investigations in Eastern Congo and Western Rwanda, released at a hearing sponsored by the US House International Relations Committee. The report outlined the roles of key figures, governments, and policies contributing to political and economic unrest, insecurity, and vulnerability, as well as exposed the killing of 2,000 to 3,000 civilians in Western Rwanda.

PHR Asylum Network volunteer doctors also work with victims of rape and injustice from the Congo, documenting the abuses and violations they've suffered for asylum applications.

International Criminal Court Finds Lubanga Guilty of War Crimes (March 14, 2012)

Today the International Criminal Court issued a landmark decision in the trial of Thomas Lubanga Djilo, a leader of a rebel group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). PHR welcomes the decision in the Court’s first major judgment where Lubanga was found guilty of conscripting children under the age of 15 to actively participate in hostilities.

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Feeling at Home in DRC - Reflections of PHR's Kenya Coordinator (February 14, 2012)

As a first time visitor to Bukavu, I fell in love with the region’s natural beauty and its people. Being able to converse in Swahili with people I met in town and at PHR’s forensic training workshop allowed me to feel right at home and made the cultural interchange very rich.

We Are All Connected (February 13, 2012)

Day one of the training: A 12-year-old school girl walked home with a male friend from class. On the way home, he invited her into his house and she found herself alone with him there. She stated that he forced her to take off her dress and then violated her. (role-playing exercise)

City of Joy (February 10, 2012)

It turns out we’re the first guests to stay at the brand new and modest guest house on the campus of the City of Joy (Panzi, South Kivu, DRC).

It Takes a Network to End Mass Rape (February 9, 2012)

On the second morning of PHR’s training in Bukavu, DRC, Dr. Désiré Alumeti Munyali, a pediatric surgeon at Panzi Hospital who was helping with the training received a call from his colleagues...

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Rape as a Weapon of War: Accountability for Sexual Violence in Conflict (April 2008)

At the request of Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), PHR submitted a statement for the record as part of "Rape as a Weapon of War: Accountability for Sexual Violence in Conflict" hearing held on April 1st, 2008 by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee.

Investigations in Eastern Congo and Western Rwanda (June 1997)

Physicians for Human Rights released the following report on human rights violations in Eastern Congo and Western Rwanda on 16 June 1997 at a hearing sponsored by the House International Relations Committee.

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Featured Expert

Coleen Kivlahan, MD, MSPH

Coleen Kivlahan MD, MSPH

Dr. Kivlahan is a long-time family medicine practitioner, and an Asylum Network volunteer and trainer. She also provides child sexual and physical abuse evaluations, and rape evaluations for women of all ages. Read More »