I'm normally not an Oprah person, I mean I'll watch it every now and then, but I'm not obsessed and disappointed if I miss a show. But today's show was extremely powerful . . . especially if you're a woman, but men need to hear this as well. I highly recommend you see this episode if you can. The rest that follows is directly copied and pasted from Oprah's site: www.oprah.com.

As she often does, journalist Lisa Ling risked her life to tell us a very important story. She recently travelled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to uncover what's been happening to women in the middle of this war-torn country. The country's most recent conflict stems from a struggle for resources and power, both among domestic and foreign interests—four million people have already been massacred. Lisa spoke to brutalized women in the village of Bukavu who are speaking for the first time in hopes the world will hear their voices. Every single day in the Congo, rape is used as a vicious weapon against women in this war.
"More than any other place I've been, life in the Congo can really be like living hell," Lisa says. "If you're a woman, you're constantly in danger of rebels who are hiding in the forest coming and attacking your village and gang raping you, possibly in front of your children."
Read the emotional letters from women who survived horrific sexual cruelty and torture in the eastern Congo.
Lisa: Women in the Congo are considered "war booty," essentially. They are the ones who are suffering the most. The villages are attacked in the middle of the night by young soldiers. They violently rape the women. They've killed so many people already in six years. Four million people—and no one is paying attention. … This is happening right now.
Oprah: It's happening right now. And I feel a responsibility that we have a voice to let people know what's going on, and to not to do that, I think, would be a crime.
Find out how you can help women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo through the organization Women For Women International.
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Rape, not matter when or where or whatever reason, is just wrong. An ex-police officer from my church is currently over in Iraq, somewhere because for security purposes he can't tell us anything, training Iraqi policemen. One day he was talking to one of the Iraqi men (translator) who he was working with and the topic of rape came up. The Iraqis believe that it is always the woman's fault, that she brought it upon herself. He told us that if a man knocked on a door and the woman was to call out that she was home by herself and for the guy to not come in and he did anyway, as soon as his foot crossed the thresh-hold, then he could be killed. But if a woman was outside in her own back yard unaccompanied by a male hanging out laundry, if she was raped, she'd be killed. Now the guy at my church is very respectful of women and was losing his temper trying to explain to the Iraqi man that it is not the woman's fault, it is the man's, and he finally got through when he gave the guy a sceneario . . . (I can't remember word for word, so the below is a gist of what he told us in Sunday School.)
This guy from my church, Arnold, asked the Iraqi if he had anything that was extremely valuable to him at his house. The said yes, a belt buckle (or something) from his great-grandfather, maybe great-great, that had been passed from generation to generation.
Arnold: Ok, now I'm going to go into your house and take that belt buckle.
Iraqi Guy: No, you can't do that.
A: Yes, I can.
IG: No, you can't.
A: Yes, I will, and you can't stop me. How would you feel if it was taken?
IG: Upset and very angry.
A: Now what if I told you that it was your fault that I took it.
IG: What?
A: It's your fault that it's gone.
IG: But that's not possible.
A: But don't you see, that's exactly what you're doing to the women. There virginity is something that is very percious and valuable to them. Once it's gone they can never get it back. When you rape a woman, you are stealing something of great importance from her. YOU are stealing it, SHE's not at fault. Do you understand?
IG: (starts to cry) No one has ever explained it to me that way before . . .
I'm sure Arnold's actual words are more powerful than what I have written here, but I'm sure you get the idea. And please don't quote me on anything he said, I'm going on memory that happened on a Sunday morning a little over a month ago. I'm not exactly sure how to close this entry out other than to say this: Rape is wrong no matter what or where, We need to be informed, and We need to take action.
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