Originally posted by the Voice of America. Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America, a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in the public domain. AIDS Advocacy Group says UN Has Failed Congolese Women Joe DeCapua 22 September 2010 An international HIV/AIDS advocacy group says the United Nations has failed the women of the Democratic Republic of Congo. AIDS-Free World says itâs time for the U.N. to stop passing resolutions on the Congo and take action. The estimated number of rapes in the DRC since 1996 range anywhere from 200,000 to about 600,000. Recently, during a five-day period in July and August, at least 500 women, children and men were raped and ganged raped by rebels in the eastern part of the country. It happened even though U.N. peacekeeping troops were camped just a few miles away. AIDS-Free World Co-Director Paula Donovan says despite troops, resources and good intentions, the United Nations offers little or no protection to women. AIDS-Free World Paula Donovan, co-director, AIDS-Free World âIn every single aspect of its work,â she says, âthe United Nations has failed the women of the Congo. It seems never to reach a top priority and sustain its place at the top of the U.N.âs concerns for any period of time. Something like the recent spate of rapes occurs. Itâs in the headlights for a couple of days and then it just disappears.â Donovan says plans to deal with the problem are just âsitting on shelves.â âIf the U.N. just went back to those shelves and pulled out and dusted off every resolution that it has agreed upon since 1996 â including, importantly, one that was agreed five years ago this week â the responsibility to protect â and act on them, then we could have some hope that the women of the Congo would actually be protected by more than just goodwill and words,â she says. She says despite the deaths of millions of people and the rapes of hundreds of thousands since 1996, the DRC seems easy to forget. âItâs not a strategic country for most of the Western world as far as trade and so forth are concerned. Although the mining operations that are at the core of the problems in the DRC yield all sorts of minerals and other things that the Western world relies upon and wants.  Itâs just very easy to ignore the DRC because war in the DRC poses no immediate threat to the Western world, which holds the power and basically decides where weâll intervene and where weâll turn a blind eye,â she says. She says one way to help drive out and track rebels and militias in the Eastern DRC is to use helicopters. âDeploy the appropriate number of helicopters. Deploy the numbers that you would send to an earthquake or to a conflict in a wealthier country. Just 14, 15, couple dozen helicopters, would frighten these militias,â she says, adding, âTheyâre not organized. They canât really even be called armies, theyâre so ragtag.  And this would be something that I would think almost immediately demonstrate to the militias that now the opposing forces are in charge. The AIDS-Free World co-director says the sexual violence in the DRC is based on a âfoundation of extraordinary discrimination against women.â In recent testimony, the U.N. assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, Atul Khare, said, âWhile the primary responsibility for protection of civilians lies with the state, its national army and police force, clearly, we have also failed.â He added, âOur actions were not adequate, resulting in unacceptable brutalization of the population of the villages in the area. We must do better.â The United Nations is instituting more night patrols and random checks on villages. It will also improve communication in areas where there is no mobile phone coverage by installing high frequency radio transmitters. Rape is frequently used as a weapon of war in the Eastern DRC to terrorize and demoralize populations. .