The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo

Since 1998 a brutal war has raged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Competition for control over mineral resources – including coltan, which is used to manufacture electronics – has attracted foreign militias and soldiers from the Congolese Army who use sexual violence to control villagers in mining areas. Over four million people have died and tens of thousands of women and girls have been systematically kidnapped, raped, mutilated. For far too long the world has known nothing of these women. Emmy Award winning producer/director Lisa F. Jackson spent 2006 in the war zones of mineral-rich eastern DRC documenting the tragic plight of women and girls in the country’s intractable conflict. Background and context are provided by interviews with peacekeepers, politicians, activists, doctors, priests and – chillingly – soldiers who unabashedly admit to raping and torturing women. Above all there are the wrenching testimonies of dozens of survivors of sexual violence. This film gives them dignity, a face and a voice. Winner of the Special Jury Prize for Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival and inspiration for a U.N. Resolution classifying rape as a weapon of war, “The Greatest Silence” journeys into the literal heart of darkness, a search for survivors who play witness to their own experiences, and break the silence surrounding their plight.