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In the DR Congo, women are considered inferior to men, therefore their involvement in politics and government is rare, and frowned upon. Political parties are having trouble recruiting women in their ranks to run for parliament, even though women can legally do so, many women choose not to get involved in the government. Prince Bushiri, leader of the Citizen Alliance for Public Safety says, “We are going around meeting women [in DRC], telling them to join our political party to represent us in the next parliamentary polls, but most of them are afraid. When we ask them what they fear, some will tell you, ‘I don’t like politics,’ others will tell you, ‘I have to ask my husband’s opinion first’.”

In addition to attempting to better the women’s rights in the DRC, the government is left to persuade women, that are scared of acting as individuals, to become political leaders and speakers. Having more women involved in the DRC’s politics will further help the women’s rights situation in the country, however many [women] have trepidations about this bold advancement in government and socially. It has been reported that when some women involved in speaking out against unfair treatment and rape, they have in turn been raped after the fact. Justine Masika, coordinator of the organization, Synergies of Female Victims of Sexual Violence, elaborates on that issue, “A woman in our organization was raped on three occasions. The aggressors said that she was speaking out against violence against women when she herself had never been raped and that is why she should also be raped.”



Also, women in the DRC have been held back from becoming educated and therefore cannot impact on the politics like people want for the up and coming political parties. The unfair treatment of women greatly impacts politics with domestic violence and rape. These issues spread and then negatively impact the politics. Many “outside” organizations are involved in helping women’s rights and treatment in the DRC, so then the government has felt the need to get women into the politics and such.The feeling is that more women in the politics and government could help the conflicts and hardships women are enduring due to unequal rights. The lack of equal rights for both men and women is now negatively affecting the politics of DRC. Women are prohibited from acting on their own, and as a result, they rely greatly on the men. The lack of rights for women in the DRC has set back the political advances geared toward bettering the women’s rights. It’s somewhat of a vicious cycle in which attempting to make the women’s rights situation better, there needed to be more women’s rights to begin with to allow the change in politics involving women in the DRC.

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