Last spring, British actress Sienna Miller traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to document the lives of the women who are embroiled in the inescapable political conflict of the region. The documentary, titled ‘8 Minutes’, is named after a horrifying statistic: a woman is raped in the Congo every 8 minutes. The journey changed Miller’s life, and the story she tells is undeniably poignant.
From her travelogues on Take Part:
I met a mother who was running away from a group of militia three days earlier with her baby strapped to her back. They both got shot, but survived and thankfully made it into the facility in time. Her boy is so little and the huge bandages on his arms break my heart. Everything about this place breaks my heart.
These people all have stories which they share with me and there is just simply too much to try to grasp. Everyone has lost something, everyone has lost someone. I meet malnourished babies, mothers, fathers, widows and widowers, malaria sufferers, their eyes glazed, victims of rape and pillaging.
They are all here in massive numbers, and their stories are agonizing. I meet a group of about a hundred who have selected an old man to read out on behalf of them all, their list of grievances. They have no homes and no possessions and they need others to recognize they are in crisis.
Read the rest over at Take Part – and watch the documentary in its entirety at Ecorazzi.
