Not a week goes by without reports of fresh fighting in the eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Violence and destruction have ravaged the Great Lakes region of Africa for two decades, claiming more than 5 million lives.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been dubbed the rape capital of the world.

The United Nations says more than 200,000 people have been raped in the country since 1998. And now the UN has issued an ultimatum to two army battallions accused of mass rape.

Wednesday September 19 2007 marked the official launch in Kinshasa's Grand Hotel of UN resolution 1325 in the DRC, entitled "Women, Peace and Security." The resolution envisages an action plan aimed at empowering women in order to have gender equality and a durable peace, where there is no impuni

Cooper and a 60 Minutes team report that the most frequent targets of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo are women. The war is, in fact, a war against women, and the weapon used to destroy them, their families and whole communities, is rape.

A United Nations envoy on Monday urged the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to empower women politically and socially to help them fight the high rate of sexual crime in the country.

On September 19, the week of candidate school began with the official launch of iKNOW Politics; an online platform to support women’s political participation around the world. Over 250 women attended the launch, the largest event held by iKNOW Politics in Africa.