They took her from her home, and for two years, raped her nearly every
day. She finally escaped into the Congolese jungle, one of the world’s
most dense, then discovered she was pregnant with the child of one of
her captors.
Tuesday the actor
the nightmare of the young woman — now 22 years old, studying law and
advocating for women’s rights — to argue that more needs to be done for
the central African country whose vast mineral resources and dangerous
geography have kept it mired in civil war.
“If we continue to place Congo on the back burner of
U.S. policy, it will come back to haunt us,” Affleck said at a
congressional hearing in
Affleck, who founded a nonprofit group called
Eastern Congo Initiative to help people like Kamana, said the Congo
continues to be one of the most dangerous and unstable countries in
The actor called on
to protect Congolese civilians from rampant violence, provide support
for the elections that will take place in November and appoint a
special U.S. representative to the
“This is an ambitious agenda, but it can be
accomplished,” Affleck said. “The federal budget may be seen as a zero
sum game but our morality, our sense of decency, our compassion for our
fellow human beings, is not.”
The actor, who first visited the Congo more than
five years ago, founded ECI in 2010. The organization supports
community-based organizations and works to bring stability to the
war-torn region of eastern Congo.
Affleck was joined at the hearing by
“Part of the reason that I came on board with ECI
was … their absolute ability to pick and choose the community-based
organizations that are having a huge impact on the local areas,” McCain
said in an appearance on “Good Morning America” Tuesday morning.
“That’s really how you begin this.”
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(c) 2011, Tribune Co.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
