UNICEF has received a donation of 8 million ISK (about 44,000 euros)
from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to assist in getting aid to
children in east Congo.
Vísir reports that the aid will specifically help children who have been sexually abused by soldiers as well as young women who have been raped. Systematic rape has become an endemic problem in the bloody civil war, which has been ongoing for the past ten years. UNICEF estimate that the victims of rape in the region number in the hundreds of thousands at least.
Iceland’s donation will among other things be used to build a shelter for women and children who’ve been raped but have nowhere else to go but their home villages, where they risk being attacked again. The shelter will provide healthcare, education, ways to develop skills but most of all, security and comfort.