Extracts from the interview with Dr Mukwege

Strasbourg

interview

Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought 2014 (T)

MUKWEGE, Denis

Sakharov Prize 2014: interview of Denis MUKWEGE, Sakharov Prize laureate 2014

SOUNDBITE (French), Denis MUKWEGE, EP Sakharov Prize laureate 2014, On the fact that this Prize is not a prize for Dr Mukwege in particular, but to all the women in Congo who have survived sexual violence, it is a prize for the Congolese people: "Our hopes with this Prize are huge, and this prize will only have all its effect if the EU commits itself to the fight against sexual violence during conflict, where the body of women are used as the battle field and rape is used as a war weapon".

SOUNDBITE (French), Denis MUKWEGE, EP Sakharov Prize laureate 2014: "Our hopes are high, and everything is concretised by the peace agreement for the great Lakes region. The EU is the guarantor of this agreement which gave us a lot of hope in 2013. But today we see a slow down on the implementation of this agreement. We want the EU and the member states to engage in the revitalisation of this peace agreement, because we think that in doing so we could start solving the core of the conflict".

SOUNDBITE (French), Denis MUKWEGE, EP Sakharov Prize laureate 2014: "15 years ago we launched the first signs of alarm when we saw that sexual violence against women was extending and we thought that was very dangerous; when the battle moves from the field to the women's body, with all its consequences of not only rape, humiliation and dishonour, but also the vaginal destruction, this becomes the denial of humanity itself. There is a common mistake, the confusion between a rape as a war weapon, which is a rape with extreme sexual violence, and a sexual assault. And the first ones have nothing to do with sex; they are a massive destruction weapon, which target is the weakest ones in trying to destroy them. We are seeing that more and more babies are attacked on this way, and when this happens, there is no sexual component here.It has been very frustrating to see how slow the international community has reacted to this problem.

(cont.) There has been some progress though: rape is now considered a crime and this is a step on the good direction; but there is still a big gap between what the law and international conventions say and the reality on the ground. We need much more action."

SOUNDBITE (French), Denis MUKWEGE, EP Sakharov Prize laureate 2014: "Participation of men in the fight against this practice is essential. In Panzi, we have created a national movement with men that want to engage to fight sexual violence against women".

SOUNDBITE (French), Denis MUKWEGE, EP Sakharov Prize laureate 2014: "Fighting impunity is the most important element in order to discourage the use of rape as a war weapon. We underline the importance of this, so we can all bring up ideas in the same way as we delimitate a red line against chemical weapons, biological or nuclear weapons; we should be able to do the same in the fight against rape as a weapon; because it is the will of society which determines the future of a society".