"Playwright Fights for Congolese Women" [View All]

NEW YORK (AP) - Eve Ensler has just returned from hell. That's how the author of "The Vagina Monologues" describes her trip to Congo, where thousands of women have been sexually attacked and mutilated in the African nation's civil war.

The 54-year-old playwright has joined with the United Nations in a campaign against what a U.N. expert called the worst violence against women in the world.

"In Congo, you're talking about a situation where Africans are hurting Africans, black people are hurting black people," Ensler told The Associated Press in an interview from Italy. "And it's harder to make people care. People say, 'Oh, it's just Africa.' And nobody is held accountable."

She spent weeks at the Panzi Hospital in the city of Bukavu, in eastern Congo, where Dr. Denis Mukwege is helping to repair the broken bodies of war victims. The hospital sees about 3,500 women a year suffering fistula and other severe genital injuries.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20070823/D8R6NUDO0.html