Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Saturday a federal program dubbed the Fight Against Impunity and Support to Survivors of Sexual Violence Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Harper is currently in the DRC capital of Kinshasa for the 14th annual Francophonie summit.
Formerly known as the Belgian Congo, DRC was known as Zaire until 1997.
The program announced Saturday is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and will provide $18.5 million from 2013 until 2017.
On his website, Harper said the program "will help the DRC enforce laws to hold perpetrators of sexual and gender-based violence to account and provide much needed medical care, and legal and psychosocial services to victims, thus facilitating their recovery."
According to a London Free Press article written by Daniel Proussalidis of Sun Media, Harper criticized the DRC for "violations of human rights, difficulties, problems (and) unfairness in some of the electoral process ..."
According to the Foreign Affairs website, the Canadian government is concerned about the situation in eastern Congo.
"Canada notes the DRC government’s efforts to increase accountability, efforts which notably led to indictments of high ranking officers in the Congolese Armed Forces accused of collective rape in eastern DRC in 2011," according to a federal government website. "Canada encourages the DRC to continue these efforts in order that those who commit serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights are held accountable."
According to the CIA World Factbook, DRC has a population of 17.6 million, making it the fourth most populous nation in Africa.
"Democratic Republic of the Congo is a source and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking for the purposes of forced labor and forced prostitution; the majority of this trafficking is internal, and much of it is perpetrated by armed groups and government forces outside government control within the country's unstable eastern provinces," according to the CIA.
Amnesty international said in a press release Wednesday that one of its delegations recently "documented cases of rape, summary killings, forced recruitment of civilians including children, looting and illegal taxation by different armed groups."
A backgrounder issued by the Canadian Prime Minister’s Office goes into some detail on how it will help the DRC government enforce its laws.
"The Fight Against Impunity and Support to Survivors of Sexual Violence Project in the DRC will help fight impunity by increasing access to justice in underserved areas, establishing appropriate mechanisms to investigate sexual crimes and prosecute offenders, and building the capacity and independence of judicial personnel," according to the backgrounder. "The initiative will also increase the involvement of communities in preventing sexual and gender-based violence and help build the capacity of government and civil society organizations to meet the medical, legal, psychosocial and vocational training needs of victims. Particular areas of focus include North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri district of Orientale Province, Bandundu and Kinshasa."
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