- Earlier this week when I was contacting some of my colleagues about how to introduce our guests, I wrote to a journalist
who has covered Congo, and I asked him about Denis Mukwege, and he responded very concisely that he is the closest you will ever get to meeting a living saint. Dr. Mukwege has devoted his adult life to treating the wounds of
women who have been raped. The number of patients,
traumatized patients who he has treated is I think over 50,000. He is the world's leading authority on treating sexual violence in war, and in 2008, he was honored
with the Nobel Peace Prize to the surprise of absolutely no one. But my favorite story about him is that in 2012 when he and his family were forced to flee his country
for their own security, it was ordinary women who raised money to buy him a return
ticket so that he could continue treating them, and he got on that plane. He'll be joined in
conversation with another guest who certainly needs no introduction from a middle aged newspaper reporter. (audience laughs) Emma Watson was a acclaimed
and powerful person when she was still a little girl, and what's happened since then is maybe even more unusual, which is that she has
shown how it is possible to cross over into womanhood without turning down the
volume on your opinions. Without worrying about who
you will please, or displease when you say what you think. She is unapologetically herself, and unapologetically feminist, and I can say as the mother
of two young daughters that she is bringing a
lot of people with her. Emma supports more than 30 organizations in the equality and
women's rights movements. She is a Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women, and along with Dr. Mukwege, she sits on the G7
Gender Advisory Council. We all woke up today to the news that Alabama has all but
outlawed abortion in that state, which is a reminder I think to all of us that this is not a
struggle that was fought and won in someone else's lifetime. The New York Times is
delighted to host this event with How To: Academy which
brings global thinkers to London to share new ideas. There are two events coming up that you should keep an eye out for. One of them is David
Brooks, our own columnist, who will appear I think on Monday to talk about how to find a purpose. Something I would like to do. (audience laughs) And later on, something
I'm quite excited about, Caitlin Moran and Jess Phillips
on how to change your life. As I understand it, these
two extraordinary people have known each other for a while, and we are all just lucky to be able to eavesdrop on them tonight. So, without further ado,
Denis Mukwege and Emma Watson. (audience applauds) - [Denis] Thank you. Thank you. (audience applauds) - [Emma] Hello Denis. - [Denis] Hello Emma. (both laugh) - We have a bit of an audience here. It's been such a pleasure to
spend so much time with you in the last seven days. I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to begin right at the kind of point when your work started, which was 1996, the First Congo War. What started the conflict? What were some of the
longstanding, underlying issues that contributed? - Yeah. In 1996, it was just after the genocide in Rwanda. So millions of refugees,
Hutus refugees fled to Congo, and they create some
camps just at the border of Rwanda and Congo. And this last for two
years, but after two years, Rwanda decide to destroy all these camps. And at this moment, really we thought that it was just for to destroy the camp, but something terrible
happened at this moment. So I was a medical doctor
at Lemera Hospital, doing my job as a medical doctor. But on the night of the sixth of October, the hospital was attacked and 30, more than 30 people were killed, including my patients
and some of my staff. And I can say that my life
really changed since this moment. - It was less than a year
after the First Congo War ended that the Second Congo War began, and this time you were forced to leave, and you left where you
were working in Lemera and you went back to
your home city of Bukavu. And it was here where you
first started Panzi Hospital. Can you tell me a bit more
about this part of your story? - Yeah, in 1998, the Second War start, and this was just because
when the war start in 1996, it was with the AFDL. It was a group army led by Desire Kabila, and he was backed by Rwanda with the military from Rwanda. So, after two years, he asked all these militaries to go back in Rwanda and it was maybe they
didn't really accept it because two weeks after,
they create a new army group who is called RCD, and they
attack again the Congo. So at this moment, I went to Bukavu. Bukavu is the city where I born, and my big, I was so touched to see that Lemera
was in the rural area and there really the maternal
mortality was very high. I can say that even more
than 10 women were dying for 1,000 deliveries,
and this is very high. So in this situation I just decide that when I went in Bukavu, I saw that the situation was the same. I was thinking that maybe in the town, women have more obstetrical care, but I was wrong. And I just saw that it
was the same situation, so I decide to create
just a small hospital where I can perform
Cesarean and help women to fight against maternal mortality. That was my goal, but unfortunately the first
patient I treated at Panzi in Bukavu area, she didn't come for the childbirth, but she came because she was raped
with extreme violence. And this was a terrible thing. It was for me, the first
time to see a woman raped, but after to be raped to get
all the genitals destroyed by shooting in the genitals. And really, I just get
impression that what I saw at this moment, I think that
it should be a crazy man who just did it because
he was maybe under, under drug or something like that, but I was completely wrong because three months after I treat more, I treat 45 women with the same stories, and women who were really
raped with extreme violence to be shot in genital, to introduce objects in the genital, to burn the genital, and really for me it was, I can say that for my
experience as an obstetrician it was the first time to see
all these terrible things. And after three months, I
start to understand that there is really new things
were happening in my region. Rape with extreme violence
was a new pathology. - Wow. And, gosh, first I just have to say, how do you emotionally
deal with it dawning on you that perhaps these injuries were not the work of one single madman, but you were seeing
men, boys, grandmothers, babies even sometimes
that were coming to you with these kinds of injuries. How did you deal emotionally
with it dawning on you that this was, someone
had thought about this? Someone had calculated this, someone was using this as
an intended tactic of war? - Yeah, at the beginning really I was, I took my time to talk with victims, and discuss with them. It was not only because I would
like to know what happened, but most of the time, even for victims it was very important to get someone who can listen to them,
who can support them, and you can't support if you don't listen to what they're telling you. So, at the beginning really
I start to support them, and to listen at this
time in the hospital. We were working without psychologists, so I was only the one to
receive them, talk with them, support them emotionally. But, at the end, I just feel that myself, I was impacted
by what was happening on the bodies of women, and it's become very hard for me to go on doing my job because an operation that I
could do maybe in two hours, after to listen, to be
so close of victims, I start to be impacted myself. And operations that I
could do in two hours, sometimes could even take more time because I would like to be perfect. I would like really to
answer to their expectation, and you know when you have a girl of 12, 14 years who asks you what will be my future? Can I get the possibility
to be continent again when they are losing feces or urine? And all these kind of questions. To ask you if they will
be able to get married. It was very hard for me, and when you are making
operations in this condition, you are trying to get a good result, as good as you can. And it's just taking a long time, and I just felt at this moment I feel that I was really impacted by what was happening in the hospital. And not only in the hospital, even for my daughters. I have four daughters
and I start to feel that my relation with my daughters was really a little bit changed because I was so afraid if
something happened to them. And to start to do even the nightmare
with all this situation. So at this moment, I really think that I should not go
on talking with victims and know exactly what happened. I change my way to see things. Even my emotions were there, but I just try to do only surgery so I can be more
effective in doing surgery in spite to do all sorts of psychology. - It's amazing to me though that considering, I mean I've read that at times you'll perform
up to 10 surgeries in a day. And when there's so many patients that need to be seen that you felt that the value of your time to sit and listen to someone was something really important
that you could offer, and that feels really impactful to me. I read that you really pioneered this new approach, this holistic approach, that doesn't just treat, that kind of acknowledges
that you can't just treat a survivor's physical symptoms. You have to provide for
the emotional trauma, financial aid, legal help if they need it. There's so many other angles to look at. Can you talk a little bit about, I read a lot about that. - Yeah of course we didn't really start to do the modern surgeries
we are doing now in one time. As I said, when I start to treat patients of victims of sexual violence, it was really the medical side. But slowly I discovered
that when women are raped in this situation, when rape is used as a weapon of war, it's not only to destroy them physically, but it's also to destroy them mentally. And most of the time, the
rape is happening in public, in front of the husband, the children. Rape in front of the parents, and women are raped in front
of their husband and so on. So the consequence is not
only physical consequence, but is also mental consequence, and after a few months we
start to understand that even if we succeed with physical healing, but the big question was mentally. And women would not like
really to leave the hospital, and they were coming with other questions and at the end we discovered
that it was a kind of somatization of their pain. And the only one way was to
support them psychologically, so we create the second pillar of our, the holistic care is
psychological support. And now we have psychologists, we have also social assistants, and psychosocial assistants
who are supporting women before the surgery, and after the surgery, but also they're supporting them to do the family mediation, because this is really needed. Most of the women are
rejected after to be raped, they are rejected by their
families and community, and it's very important for them to treat their emotion also is to integrate them in their community. The third pillar just come
because when women are rejected, they don't have family, they are alone, how you can send them back in that village if you don't give them a support so they can be autonomous in their village? So we create the third pillar with the socioeconomic support, and when girls are very young, we have a program to send them to school and we have more than 5,000 girls in all levels we are supporting to go to school because this is very important for girls when they are rejected by their family because they have a child born after rape, and they don't have another possibility is really to send them to school. But when they can't go to school, we have many programs to support them to be autonomous, and this is the way to reintegrate them in their community, because when women are
strong enough economically so they don't need really
other kind of restoration. And I was really, really happy. Maybe I can just tell you what one time I treat women coming from somewhere where they have a lot of oil palm, and when they returned back we give them some products to make soap. And I was so impressed. After one month, these
women sent me some soap and they said Dr. Mukwege, we want you to wash your
hands with this soap. And each time when you wash
your hands with this soap when you are treating patients, think about us. When we come in the hospital,
our name was raped women, but today we are soap
makers in our village, and everyone is treating us with respect because now if they want to buy soap, we are doing the best soap in the village. And our future completely
changed with this program. And you can see that some time
to accept people in their community is just to give women the
capacity to be autonomous. The last pillar is the legal assistance, and this is very important because when women are
physically they're good, mentally they're enough strong, economically their
children can go to school, they can eat without problem, and maybe they have a small shelter. The last thing is dignity, and for the dignity most of the time women are coming back at the hospital to ask us how we can support them to go to justice? So at the hospital now we have a program with seven lawyers who can
make the files for victims and accompany them to the court. And this is really
something where I think that we need to do more, because the government
is not helping us enough to support women to recover
and restore their dignity. And justice can help
also to do reparations because for most of the
women we are treating, they need this reparation. They need that the society. The community can accept that
we didn't protect them enough. They need to understand as a community, recognize that they should
be protected as humans, and they didn't. So this recognition and reparation is really the steps that
we are fighting for, and women deserve it because I think that they need to be protected
and it didn't happen. - Yes.
(audience applauds) This was a question I was
going to ask you later, but perhaps I'll ask it now in connection to what you just said. You recently worked on some language, you worked on a UN
resolution with Nadia Murad with whom you share the Nobel Peace Prize. And the resolution was
almost scrapped entirely, but the language got watered
down a lot by the USA, and I'm just curious how ah, how did you feel about that? How do you feel about
our ability to continue to move forward, and form broad coalitions when domestic politics often will kind of interfere with that? - Yeah, I think that this really was, I can say, a terrible
moment for me and Nadia because to be at the UN, and just to see that Russia, China, and Americans can come together to veto a resolution fighting
for the rights of women, and especially the rights of reproductive care health, I think that this was a really terrible, especially for me as an
obstetrician and gynecologist. How can you think that one moment that in taking care of
victim of sexual violence you have not to talk about
reproductive healthcare? And this really was a terrible thing, but I think we need to be
a little bit more positive about this resolution. (audience laughs) Yeah, because we really, I think that what happened is in this resolution,
it's the first time that we talked about children born after rape, and you can't imagine how
this question is very hard not only for our community, but it's also a hard question for victims of sexual violence. Because to get children without identity, to get children without any
affiliation in the community is very dangerous because
it's like you have children, you don't want to give them identity. So they are very dangerous
for the community. But also what I saw for women when they have children born after rape, it's like every time when this
child can do something bad, all the symptoms come back again. So we need really to find how
we can protect these children so they can't be a
problem for the victims. And for the first time, we talked about children born after rape, and I can say that this is a progress. We have really to take this progress. Can you imagine that
with Yazidi women for example, it's clear that the community said we can accept women back. But we can't accept
Muslim's children back, and what it mean? I can't believe that a child of two years he decide to be Muslim. Maybe their father was
Muslim, but the child, we have to give them a chance to choose what they want to be. But as a community just
stigmatize them already, and just puts this stigma
and say you are Muslims. We can't accept you in our community. It's terrible for the future. And in my community, we have thousands of thousands of children
in this situation. They can't even take the name of the community because the
community has the impression that the father of these children are enemies of the community. So we need to deal with this question and find a good solution. Children have the right to be protected, whatever how they can, but we have to protect them. And this is the first thing. The second thing, we succeed to get an approach center, survivor centered approach in the way to treat the victim of sexual violence. And this also is really I
can say a progress in what we got last time. The second thing, the third is the global fund for reparations. - [Emma] Yes. - And the last thing is
we talk about sanctions, and I can say that the big problem with sexual violence is impunity. You can see that in many cases. We are fighting a lot against impunity, but most of the time we don't have enough tools to fight against impunity. If it's already very difficult for women in the peacetime to get
proofs when they are raped, how can you use the
same laws in the wartime and ask women to collect proofs for to go to justice? And I think that this
is really some questions where we need a kind of innovation so women can feel that they can go to justice and don't be humiliated
for the second time. Because the big question is when they come and you ask women, she came
after six months to be raped, and you ask her to give
proof of what happened. It's just I think that at the end, women will just stop to go to justice because they know that the first question will be prove what happened. And they can't give this proof, because when people are shooting, if someone shooting, I think that that everyone will try to protect himself and don't try to see who is shooting, why he is shooting, and shooting with what. And all these questions to ask women all these kind of questions
after is nonsense. So I think that now, we are
trying to push on this question so it can be sure that women in conflict, how we can help them to get justice. And I think that this is not nothing. It's really a progress. (audience applauds) Thank you. Thank you. - I just, I'm just blown away by your, well yeah in the face of
everything that you do and you deal with, and your positivity and the fact that you continue despite all sorts of things that we'll talk about in
a minute, but just wow. One of the things that
just hearing you speak now, and when I was reading my
notes that occurred to me is rape as a weapon of war would seem to me to be
a form of terrorism. Is rape as a weapon of war
ever considered in those terms, as a form of terrorism? - Yeah, I think that
rape as a weapon of war can be used in a different way, and it's a form of terrorism of course. I will just give you an example. In one village in Congo, this
village is called Kavumu. One army group started to rape
children under five years. The way that all the children were raped was to take them in their house, bring them in the bush, and rape them, and bring back the
children in their house. But when you rape a child of one year, you are adult, It means that you destroy her completely. The vagina, the rectum, and the bladder. And you just bring this child back to show the parents,
to show the community, what kind of anger is that You just did on the child. I think that it's a way not
only to traumatize the child, but also to traumatize all the family. The parents. And I think that if you
can see rape in this case, it's really, it's a terrorism. To rape a woman in front of
the husband, the children, and after to rape her, to destroy her, to shoot on her in front of the family, it's a terrorism because
why they are doing this? It's just to create a terror. So the population can be afraid, the population can respect you. You can use even the population as slaves. So I think that rape as a weapon of war can be used in different way, but for me, it's a form of terrorism. - I was going to go on
and talk about this, but again I want to connect
it to what you're saying now. You gave a speech in 2012 at the UN, and in that speech you condemned the Congolese government
for not doing enough to prevent these rapes. And less than a month later, an assassination attempt
was made on your life. Your two daughters were kidnapped, and your bodyguard was shot, and he died. I can't imagine what it's like to speak about this at all, let alone in front of an
enormous room of people. So you know I would only
ask if you feel comfortable to talk a little bit about
that part of your story, but specifically I would ask how do you find the courage and the strength in the face of all of
this to just keep going? You've just, it's remarkable to me that even after this attempt on your life, you decided to go back to the DRC. You decided to return to Panzi Hospital, and to continue doing this work. And I'm just astounded by that. Could you talk a little bit about what gave you the strength
to make decisions like this and to be able to do this awe-inspiring work? - Yeah. (audience laughs) Really, I have to look
for my answer because, yeah maybe when we are talking
about rape as a weapon of war I want maybe to come back a little bit on rape as a weapon of war. I think that working with
women for many years, and just see how women and the strategy of war to destroy women in different ways. And when rape is used as a weapon of war it means that there is, they are using a kind of method where here you can see
that it's to destroy not physically, but also mentally. It's also massive, because one village can be, you can find entire village, women of an entire village
are raped in one night. And it's not taking care of age. So it's systematic. And in this case where really women are, they are going through torture. Coming at the hospital in the condition that I'm receiving them, most of the time I have
impression that they will never stand up again. I have impression that
they are destroyed forever, and when you are treating, you have just impression
that you are doing what you have to do, but what will be, the impact on them. So, but let me tell you that I was so surprised to see that when women wake up, they don't wake up for themselves. Even if they come
unconscious in the hospital, or even if you make
operation under anesthesia, when they wake up the first question is how are my children? How is my family? Where is my husband? And for me, this is really to think about others
when you are suffering and people around you have impression that there is no hope for you, but you're still thinking about others. This is something that touch me a lot when it come to women and their attitude. Because I'm treating also men, and I can see that when
a man after to be shoot or something bad happen to him
to be operated for example, the question is what is my future? (audience laughs) What will be the future of my hands? I'll be able to walk again? And I think that you can see that with these two different ways of the approach of the life,
for me is really special. And what I'm trying to do is really very very small, if I can compare for what women are doing for all of us have just to think about it. And for me I think that to
go on doing what I'm doing, I have just impression that
what women are doing is a lot. And if I can just bring
my small contribution it's just a small contribution, but what women are doing
is really great, great. And I admire them, I support them, and I can do even more, but I know that I'm so
limited to help them. But women in each circumstance, they
are thinking a lot about others, and not
only about themselves. And this is something
which is just pushing me to go, to move forward. (audience applauds) - Ah! (audience laughs) Just to take a, hoo, a small moment. I wanted to, just for a minute so I can catch my breath. Ask you, I mean I've spent
the last seven days with you and you are relentless in your activism, and I mean a whole room will just stop and listen to you speak because you speak in a way that's so concise and honest and
also you're so ego-less and results, you know you really, you know exactly what it is that you want and you have such a clear picture, but this is just a small
part of what you do. When you go home, you'll be
working as a doctor all day and I'm curious what does a typical day look like for Denis in the DRC? Will you walk me through a typical day in your life, in your home? - Yeah. Normally, the days are not the same because I have two days per week when I'm doing my clinics
to receive patients. And I can say that this is
really the very hard days, because to talk with people who come, they come with many questions and most of the time
you don't have answer. And when you don't have
answer, it's very hard. So I have two days where
I'm doing my clinic. I have also two days where I'm working in the operating room to perform surgery, and I can say that for me
is maybe the more easier, because there it's, what you say, practical things. So you have a plan and you
try just to accomplish it. It's not like to talking with someone who is rejected by all the community, who is rejected by their husband, who is thinking about their children who were killed or things like that. It's more easier to, but
I have two days of surgery and all the time I have impression that in the operating room, I'm more, I can more relax and working even it's hard, but
it's more relaxing for me. And I'm using also two
days, one for my staff to talk with my staff to discuss
with my staff, Wednesday. And Saturday is a day that
I'm doing other activities, especially things that don't
relate with the hospital. And every day, I have time with my family, and this is really very important because when you can spend all the day with big questions regarding trauma, it's really very important to get yourself people
who can support you. And I can say that my family
is supporting me a lot. I'm eating the morning, and the evening, and on the table in the
evening with my family is a time really to do my own therapy. (audience laughs) - Wow, so that's your form of self-care. Just as a human being, I often find when someone I know is going through something really difficult, the fear of not knowing what to say when they're going through it, or what can I offer in this moment? And I'm curious, you say that's kind of one of the hardest things that you do is you spend time and you listen, and I'm just curious how you approach that when you don't have an answer, or you don't know what to say to someone. - Yeah, as I said really
it's sometimes a hard moment, because when you don't have an answer, and you have someone
who is in front of you, crying without someone to support her, I have experience of girls
who come to my hospital after all their family to be killed, so they are alone. And not alone with all their capacity, but to be pregnant at 12 or 14 years is a big consequences on their body. So when they come at the hospital, it's like they already
lose their childhood. And now you have to explain them that after to get a complication
of just the childbirth where they destroy everything. Their bladders, their
rectum, and their vagina. You have to explain to them that they'll never get their femininity. This is something really terrible to be in front of someone who
is asking you the question about something that you can't solve. And most of the time when I'm
facing these kind of problems, I can say that it's a time that I'm losing even my capacity to sleep, because you just have an
impression, what can I do? But you know that you don't have solution. You can't solve the question, and there I think that it's still only one thing that you can do when you are in this kind of situation is to give love, because
everyone, everyone need love. And I've seen how love can
help girls who lose everything. They don't have family, they lose all their femininity, but when they have love, you can see that their whole life can change totally. It's really for me very important to think that everyone can give something if just you think about the
person who is in front of you, and maybe you can't give him material. Maybe you can't treat her surgically but you still are able to give the love. (audience applauds) - Throughout the whole of your career, you've championed girls',
women's, survivors' voices. And I'm curious in terms of activism, what you think that movements like Me Too or Ni Una Menos, or Time's Up, do you think that these
movements are important? Do they play an important role on tackling gender-based violence, on de-stigmatizing sexual violence? Do they play a role, what do you think? - Yeah, you know, the rapists they are using silence as a tool. And when they are raping,
they are creating a situation where women can feel
that it's their fault. Where women can feel that if I talk about it, I'll be humiliated again. So there is a kind of
to create a situation where women are forced to keep silence, because they have to protect their family, they have to protect
their children, and so on. So there is many reasons
they don't talk about it, but my big question why? Why women have to protect the honor of the family? Why women have to protect the honor of the community? And don't protect their own body. It's a big question, and I think that for to use rape in any circumstances, even in the peacetime, silence is a tool to help the rapist to go on doing these atrocities on women, because they know that
women will not be able to talk about it because they want to
protect not themselves, because when women is raped, they are suffering in themselves. So to keep silence is
not to protect themself because they are suffering inside. So it's to protect others. And this protection is not only to protect the family and the society, but it's also to protect the perpetrators. So it's very important for me, for women, to speak out and really talk about when it happened. To break silence is really a strong weapon against rape in any case. In peace moment, or in the war moment, and for me all these movements is really something new. And it's a hope for me
that we are on a path to fight against sexual violence, because when we'll be
able to shift the shame from women to perpetrators, then I think that all men before to rape have to think twice. But today, it's just to create a situation where women will feel guilty, even if she is victim, and this is protecting more
perpetrators than victims. So I want just to tell
to women here, speak out. Be strong. Just break the social norms. And go ahead, it's not your fault. You have to understand that you don't need to feel guilty about what happened to you, break silence. It's only the one way that I think men can take more responsibility, and for me all these
movements I support them 100%. (audience applauds) - You're my hero. (audience laughs) - Thank you, you are my, you are my inspiration. (audience laughs) I'm just dreaming to see
more youth in my country doing what you are doing. (audience applauds) - I was going to ask you a
question about commentators who say that the Me Too
movement has gone too far, but I think perhaps I
won't ask that question, because the answer seems obvious. Eve Ensler is our dear mutual friend, and it was through her that we first met at the City of Joy premier in New York. She calls you a beacon
for all men to follow, and I'm curious I think that there are a lot of men in the world now that want to do something to help, that want to participate, but sometimes don't know what
to say or how to do that. And I'm curious what advice
you would have for men that want to be effective allies like you. When I think of male feminist in my head, you know it's you, and for men that want to
show solidarity with us, what advice would you give? - Yeah, I will ask all
the women in this room to applaud the men who are here. (audience applauds) Sexual violence is not
really a feminist question. It's not a question of women. It's a human question, and I think that most of the time you can see that if you can see in the room we have maybe 90% of women
talking about this question. And I think that women did a lot. If you can see the last century, women fight a lot to get their rights, and even so, there is no single country where we can say that
equality is now there. Men and women are equal. And for me it's really very important for women to understand that. Fighting against sexual violence, fighting for equality, men and women, is to fight also for our own rights. And this is very important, because I think that women did a lot. Now I think that it's
time for men to stand up. It's time for men to
change their behavior, and just support what women are doing. We have a lot of examples
where you can see that when you support women in the community, all the community is just moving forward and with the result. And this is not what Mukwege's saying. We have statistics on it. So, why have not used what we know that can help our society to be better? So men, we have to stand
up and support women. (audience applauds) - Since the days of colonialism, the DRC has often been stereotyped and stigmatized by Europeans, and I want to read a quote from The Heart of
Darkness by Joseph Conrad. "In front of the first
rank, along the river, "three men plastered
with bright, red earth "from head to foot strutted
to and fro, restlessly. "When we came abreast
again, they faced the river, "stamped their feet,
nodded their horned heads, "swayed their scarlet bodies. "They shouted periodically
together strings of amazing words "that resembled no
sounds of human language. "And the deep murmurs of the crowd "interrupted suddenly
were like the responses "of some satanic litany." I'm curious, you've borne witness to so much pain and suffering and brutality, and whether you feel the need to balance these stereotypical notions of the DRC, with things that you
love about your country. Your beautiful, beautiful country, and things that you feel proud of. And how do you, balance
that very real need to spread awareness of what's
going on on the ground, but also kind of not play
into these stereotypical notions of what your homeland is. - Yeah. Really it's so sad, this
stereotype on Congo. But I would like just to
say that we need really to make a difference
between the people of Congo, and the leaders of Congo. And it's so sad because since one century, the leaders that we got really don't care about the population. And this stereotype may become from this. If you talk about, for example, the King Leopold II, during the colonialism he was really, the Congo was his property and 10 million of Congolese were killed just for to get, to boom the industry of car with the tire. This was terrible for Congolese people, and I think that to see
the Congo and the Congolese in this truth you have to
think about what happened, and who is talking about
the 10 million people who died at this moment? No one. After I can say that today, we can see the kind of
leaders that we have who don't care about the population. The population are starving. Children are dying with malnutrition. In the country where it's
raining nine month per year. Where everyone can get food, but the bad governance
is just pushing to do really very bad things on the population. And for me, I think that the people of Congo are really a good people. And if you can see especially women of Congo, they are strong. And they care. But, the big problem for
Congo is the bad governance, and is now for one century
of really bad governance is pushing that we can get
this stereotype on Congo. And this is so bad. So I'm dreaming one time maybe, Congo will be different and with a good governance I'm sure that the population of Congo
can do better things. (audience applauds) - Would you share something that you love about your country? Something that you love about your home? - You know, I don't know
if you already visit Congo, but crossing the Congo from east to west, and the nature, the biodiversity is really something that I
appreciate in a lot in Congo. You can see that we have good lakes, we have forests, we have good rivers. We have many kind of animals, and so on. So Congo is really a paradise, but the big problem is that to don't have good governance is just changing everything. And really, if you meet
with women of Congo to see how they are singing, dancing, beautiful in many colors. I can say that really this country needs really to get strong leaders who can just bring all
these beautiful things to be seen in a good way, and not be a kind of
stereotype of only bad things. - In preparing for this interview, I didn't know this, but the
DRC is one of the only places in the world that you can
mine the specific mineral that we make our electronics
with here in the West. And I wondered, I'm sure you're probably
the right person to ask, what is safe to buy? What doesn't contribute to
more conflict and bloodshed? Are there ways to be mindful
about which electronics and which things to buy and not buy that doesn't contribute,
or make things worse? - I think that the problem
is not what you are buying, because I think that
we have capacity really to do things better. Today the question is about the mobile telephone, and
you can't get the telephones that you all of us have, we can't get it without
the contribution of Congo, because the telephone is using tantalum, and this metal is really needed and it's a specific metal
in the mobile telephone. But I can say that the way
that this mineral is exploited is really a bad way. And you know that the war of Congo is behind this war,
the reason of this war, the war is that in these wars are using the bodies of
women as a battlefield is really to push the population
to leave their village, and create an area where there is no law, no faith, so they can exploit
mineral in the conditions that they can get it cheap and put it on the international
market very cheap. So I think what really
we can think about this is how we can control that, we can get this mineral
in our mobile telephone, in our laptop, in all
our electronic gadgets without killing, raping,
destroying children, using children as slaves in mines. And I think that we need really to get this mineral to be export. and get legally binding treaties who can really support that. We have to control all the chain of production of these minerals. This is what we are lacking today to get transparency in its exploitation and the use of these minerals. And this is very sad, because
the war don't want really to get this chain to be controlled. Of course, there is some good direction. We can talk about the Frank Dodd law who in the US, where really
they can do a control, but the control is at
the end of the chain, but not beginning, or on the ground where they're digging this mine. And the European Union also have a law. This law will be in vigor on the 2021, but this law also is really not enough strong to push companies to do right things. But what I can really ask you, all of you, you have the capacity to use your voice. You have the capacity to raise your voice against the use of children
as slaves in the mine. To use rape as a weapon of war in Congo just for to get this mineral cheap. There is a way to export
it in a transparent way, and I think that if you raise your voice, I'm sure that your
leaders can listen to you and make this big difference that the Congolese people are waiting for. We need you, and we need your voice. - So as activists and consumers, we can use our voice to ask for stronger legislation, for-- - [Denis] Sure. - Around this technology, which is making huge sums of money. - Exactly.
- Yeah. - And I'm sure that if you
can use really your voice, it's only the one way that I think things can happen in a good way, because in all this region
we don't have companies who are exploiting for example tantalum. We don't have companies, so
it's more easier to use children as slaves in mines, but I think that for our
conscience and ethic and moral, how can we accept that
children be used in this way? How can we accept that women can be raped and use rape as a weapon of war in the area where this mine exist so the soldiers can exploit it and get it on the international market? I think that really, your voice
can make a big difference. - I recently read this quote from you that really resonated with me. You said that, "Taking action "means saying no to indifference. "If there is a war to be waged, "it is the war against the indifference, "which is eating away at our societies." I just thought that that was so well put, and I suppose echoing my last question again, specifically around the
issue of sexual violence, what can we do in this room to kind of, yeah, to combat our indifference, and take some form of action or show some form of solidarity? What would you suggest? - Yeah, really I think
that if you can see our, the history of our humanity, you can see that all the time when the humanity decides to be indifferent, the consequences were very huge on our humanity. And for me, indifference is
one of the worst adjectives that the human can get. And talking about indifference, I think that we have just to feel that what can I do for another? How can I support another? And the answer is for me, clear. If you want people to
do something for you, you have to think that I would like to do the same for them, and this is the way to
combat indifference. Because sometimes we have
impression that okay, this can be good for him. This can be good for this country, or these people. It's a way just to escape
our responsibility as humans, but I think that as humans, every time, when someone, someplace, some people are in struggle, the big question is me as a human sharing the same humanity as these people, or this place. What can I do to change their suffering? And this for me is very
important in the life, because when you don't think like that, we can just let things happen and at the end, we have all
these terrible consequences that I don't want to come back on it, but you know that every time indifference is a way to destroy our common humanity. And what is happening when
it comes to sexual violence, especially, I think that
everyone can do something to fight against sexual violence. We can't be indifferent
when we know how women who went through rape are suffering, and this is not something very far because when we are talking about rape in conflict for example, in Europe people have the impression that oh it's happening in Africa. It's something really far off us, and it's a culture. Even I heard people talking about culture, but this is very wrong
to talk about culture when it comes to rape. And I used just to say in Yugoslavia, it's in Europe. It's happening in Syria, in Iraq. I was in South Korea. Rape happened with the Japanese army, and when I heard women of 90, 90 years old talking about what happened for them 70 years ago, it was the same language
as the language used by girls I'm treating at
Panzi 70 years after. And it's the same in Latin America. So I think that rape is really a question that we should not be indifferent, because we are all concerned by this question. And everyone can really think what he can do to make things happen. I'm a surgeon. I'm doing what I can do. Today I'm activist to bring
more awareness on this question, and I know that yourself
you are doing a lot. And I would like really if
you can address some more, to I see in the room we
have many young people. How do you think that we
can really help others? To fight against sexual violence and be really active? - I would echo what you've said, which is that it's very easy to think that this is something that's just happening in a far, distant, far
flung corner of the world that we will never visit or see. In communities that we aren't part of, but like the most common
UN statistic is that I see that this room is
mostly full of young women, which will mean that almost
1/3 of the people in this room will experience some form of violence, sexual or otherwise, in their lifetime. That's the whole of the
section of this room. It's massive. This isn't an issue that will not touch us. It's going to, at some point or another which is awful. I think there's a sort of strange acceptance as women that not feeling safe, not being
completely safe in our societies and our communities is
just a fact of life. And it's something that we have to accept. That's the way of the world. }It's dangerous to be a woman. But I don't think that we
do have to accept that, and I do think that there are other ways that we could live and be. And beyond that, I think we deserve it. We have to demand it. We have to believe that it's possible. We have to believe in that world. It can't be a utopia. I suppose that's what I'd say. - [Denis] Good, good. (audience applauds) Thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you. - And by the way, Panzi, the hospital that Denis works at clearly does so much. So much more than just a hospital. It's a symbol, truly, and if you want to
support Denis's foundation and the hospital, then that is something that you can also do. I have some audience questions,
if you'd be up for that. Divyashri, and I hope I'm
pronouncing your name correctly, wherever you are, wants to know what lessons from history help you to understand the present day? - Yeah. (audience laughs) You know, I was reading what happened in 1930, around 1930. And I have an impression that when you can see the media today, you have an impression that we are not thinking a lot about what is happening around us, but you can see that hate is just going up, and you have impression that people are talking about things regarding hate as its normal sense. And people don't really, they don't feel ashamed
to talk about minorities. And I'm so afraid that we really don't learn enough from what happened in the history. And you have impression that
you are in a normal time, but I think that we should be aware about what is happening now. People are talking about racism, talking about other people just building walls in spite of, to build bridges. And I think that this is very dangerous, and I can just make the comparison and this is a lesson
for me for the history that we should think a little bit more about what is happening today, and be really clever that we
don't repeat the same mistakes. (audience applauds) - The next two questions were questions that were asked by a
number of different guests, the same questions a few times. So I will read those now. Is a full psychological recovery
from rape ever possible? What techniques can help mitigate against the sense of guilt and shame that many rape victims feel? - Yeah. I think that this question
is really a crucial question because I don't see and think that after to be traumatized, after rape, most women who are coming at our hospital are living with the
syndrome of disassociation. So it's like their life
and the spirit's there, their body and their spirit
are completely disassociated. And we can do our best to try to bring this symptom, to bring the spirit in the body, but my impression is that
it's so hard to say that women can get the healing and forget what happened. So the life of all women that I met is the same. They can change their way of life to be more activists, to fight
for the rights of others, but all these things
is completely different of their life before to be raped. So I can say that even if
you have many techniques. In Congo now we are trying
to use the musical therapy and see how this can support. We have art therapy, we have many things that we are doing to try to
see how we can support women. And we can see that women are really becoming very strong and fighting for the rights and so on, but you can see in the attitude that when someone rapes you, deny you your humanity, put you in a condition that you have this feeling that
you are not human at all. It's very hard to become normal. You can just change your
way to get a positive way to live, but you can't really say that it's already finished in my life. So I think that we have many techniques, but it can just transform
maybe the pen in power, but not to change completely the life when it's happened in the life of a woman. - I want to ask one more question before we have to conclude, unfortunately. Who has inspired you? Is there a particular
mentor that you've had? Is there a particular inspirational figure that you've carried around with you as you've done this work? - No, I don't know. I have just to say my mother. (audience applauds) - You're killing me, Denis. You're killing me! - [Denis] She is my mentor. - She is your mentor. - Exactly. (Denis chuckles) - Wow. I don't know how to thank you for giving up your limited time to be here and have this conversation with us. I don't know how to thank you for being so inspiring, and just thank you so much for being here and doing this with me and everyone who's in this room. We are indebted to you. We are awe-inspired by you. We thank you, we deeply thank you. - I want really to thank
you for what you are doing. I know how you are committed
for women around the world, and what you are doing is so inspiring, and I hope that if
really you can bring more young women, as you to fight for the rights of
others as you are doing, I think that you can make
really a big change of our world and I hope that maybe one day you will come to Congo and
just talk to women of Congo. I think that this will make
a big difference for us. Thank you a lot for what you are doing. (audience applauds)
