KINSHASA, Congo - Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean drew a raucous reaction Monday when she devoted an entire speech to women's rights while addressing lawmakers in a nation dubbed the world capital of rape.
Her reminder that the United Nations dubs the practices in Congo a "crime against humanity" drew standing ovations from women - amid impassive stares from a sea of men - in the 1,000-member audience in the Great Hall of the People.
Congo is home to a conflict where gang-rape is a weapon of war, where boys are forced at gunpoint to assault their own mothers, and where women's bodies are used as a tool to terrorize villages.
The most brutal crimes are being committed by armed rebels who mutilate women's genitals, sending civilians fleeing and taking over their villages. Soldiers in the national army are also part of the problem.
Jean used a carrot-and-stick approach in her speech.
She saluted the country for including in its constitution the promise to punish sexual violence. But she said more criminals need to be punished.
The crowd, which included national leaders, parliamentarians and foreign diplomats, applauded her remarks, the loudest cheers by far coming from groups of women who repeatedly sprang to their feet and chanted loudly up in the public balcony.
There was no grumbling in the chamber, as there was when Jean delivered a similar speech in Mali in 2006, but the men watched silently and only applauded politely at the end of her address.
"Give women the means to live in security and dignity," she told the audience.
"Give women the means to act. And, as I like to say, you will see less violence, corruption, poverty, sickness, injustice, illiteracy.
"It's by giving women these tools that we give the families, the communities, and the countries they belong to a chance for a better and more just life."
So far, very few soldiers have been punished for rape; the country's institutions are completely overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of unsolved or even unreported cases.
Canada has 12 soldiers in the country, several of them working to help build a military-justice system.
There is a strong possibility that Canada will send more - it's considering an offer to take on leadership of the 20,000 UN peacekeepers already in the country.
In her speech, Jean described Canada as a place "where anything is possible" - and which wants to believe in Congo's hope of peace and justice. She added in the next breath that one of Canada's most cherished values is the equality of men and women.
Congo's minister of gender, family and children sat in the crowd, beaming among her more stone-faced male colleagues.
Marie-Ange Luciane Mufwankolo said that the Congolese have heard such talk before.
"(But) not with so much heart. It's like she came to lance the boil," Mufwankolo said. "This is a big problem that is killing the country's governance. It shocks us, it hurts us."
Several Congolese journalists said they were surprised to hear a foreign dignitary come to their country and speak almost exclusively about one single issue. One said the speech might have an impact because Jean herself is powerful, black, a foreigner and a woman.
As Jean herself noted, the country has already declared a "zero-tolerance" policy for military rape, has inscribed that principle in its constitution, and has launched a public-awareness campaign.
But prosecution is another matter.
With no roads in vast swaths of the country, scarce police resources, few hospitals, and an overburdened legal system, international observers say many of these crimes are carried out with impunity.
Women have a hard time travelling from a village to places where they can seek treatment and report the crime and, in some areas, there are almost no police vehicles even available to go out and gather suspects.
An international official this week described a Canadian-funded clinic, which has treated thousands of women in eastern Congo, as a welcome grain of sand on a beach full of violence.
Jean will visit that clinic in eastern Congo on Tuesday. Canada's $15-million effort has helped treat 36,000 women, provide legal assistance to almost 2,000, and track down scores of criminals.
The UN's new special representative on sexual violence in conflict zones saluted Jean's efforts.
"Without leaders and the whole political elite taking political ownership of this issue it will be terribly difficult to address problems like (criminals') impunity," Margot Wallstrom said before the speech.
"(Jean) will have a very strong voice, and I feel confident that she will be a good advocate."
She suggested that Congolese authorities are struggling to make strides against the problem, and need encouragement.
"The image of the Congo is that this is the capital of rape ... they know this. Some of them are very upset that this is the image of the (country)."
A Canadian soldier here this week said the country is far safer than it was a few years ago. A variety of construction sites are even sprouting up in the neighbourhood where Jean spoke.
The Chinese, now ramping up their presence in the mineral-rich region, are building roads and other infrastructure. While she addressed the chamber Monday, a group of Chinese workers was busy digging across the street.
After Jean's speech, President Joseph Kabila used part of his toast at a luncheon to call women's rights a priority. But he conceded that rebuilding the country, after decades of war and dictatorship, won't be easy.
"Look at the complexity of the challenges to surmount," Kabila said. "We think we can count Canada among our sure and credible partners."
