On April 25, the House approved, by voice vote, legislation (H. Con. Res. 7) sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) calling on “the League of Arab States and each Member State individually to declare the systematic torture, rape, and displacement of Darfurians a genocide” and to increase their efforts to end it.
“I ask that this resolution be supported so the raped women can have relief and response,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX). She stated, “I am reminded of the time that I sat on the ground in Chad with refugees fleeing from the Sudan, and looked in the faces of women who had been brutalized and raped only because they left their village to get firewood to survive. That is what is going on today in 2007.”
Referring to his recent trip to Darfur, Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) said, “I spoke with many women who told me personal stories of rape, senseless beatings and massacres by the Janjaweed and the Sudanese militias…all that the wonderful people of Darfur really want is to love God and their families and their friends and to earn a living and to live in peace, and yet they have had atrocities imposed upon them that no human should have to bear.”
