The underlying issue of gender inequality that leads to violence against women in civil conflicts is a problem in many parts of the world, but there is a difference in "scope and intensity" of the violence in some African nations, a State Department official told Congress May 13.

Gender-based violence "as a tool of war is in no way limited to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan, or in Africa," Ambassador Melanne Verveer told a joint hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy and Global Women's Issues and the Subcommittee on African Affairs

Verveer, the State Department's ambassador-at-large for global women's issues, was joined at the hearing by Ambassador Phil Carter, acting assistant secretary of the State Department's Bureau of African Affairs, and Esther Brimmer, assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs.

"We've seen this in Bosnia, Burma, Sri Lanka, Nepal and elsewhere. The underlying problems -- gender inequality and the dehumanization of women -- are often the same," Verveer told lawmakers.

In Africa, however, there is a difference in the intensity of the violence against women, the official said.

In the DRC, for example, a civil conflict in the nation's eastern region is reaching its 12th year and, Verveer said, "The scale and enormity of the violence directed at women can scarcely be adequately described. Some 1,100 rapes are being reported each month, with an average of 36 women and children raped every day."

The perpetrators, Verveer said, in many cases are the security forces citizens expected to protect them. They include: "elements of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Congolese National Police and illegal, nonstate armed groups that are reportedly responsible for 81 percent of reported cases in conflict zones and 24 percent in nonconflict areas."

Describing the violence against women in DRC as "horrifying," Senator Russell Feingold, who co-chaired the joint hearing, said, "In the past few years there has been an increased focus on the urgent need to address these brutal tactics ... and the United States has an important role to play."

USAID is working with NGOs to provide assistance in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Co-chair Senator Barbara Boxer said, "I know that efforts have been made to address sexual violence in conflict zones to date. But it is entirely unacceptable that we continue to hear reports of thousands of women and children being brutally raped. Some are merely infants."

"This must stop. ... We must come together across all the lines that normally divide us [politically] and ... end this madness," Boxer said.

The U.S. government is doing its part to do just that, Verveer told lawmakers.

Since 2000, the State Department has funded a special program for the prevention of gender-based violence and response measures for refugees. The program has provided more than $27.8 million for projects in cooperation with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

In 2008, the department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration provided more than $6 million for programs seeking to draw attention to and prevent gender-based violence. The bureau also supported $3.2 million of gender-based violence initiatives in a health program for Burmese refugees in Thailand and a radio program for refugees fleeing violence in Darfur, according to Verveer.

The State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor gave more than $2 million for 10 women's centers in Darfur that helped victims of gender-based violence receive psychosocial counseling and referrals for medical services, Verveer added.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) also allocates resources for helping women victims of violence in Africa. In December 2008, the agency signed a $5 million three-year cooperative agreement with the international NGO Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI) to work with women victims of violence in the DRC.

John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project, an initiative to end genocide and crimes against humanity, told the Senate hearing that "in my 25 years of working on African conflict resolution, Congo [DRC] is by far the most complex war I have witnessed."

Prendergast, an Africa adviser in President Bill Clinton's administration, said one of the biggest drivers of the conflict is competition for the country's rich mineral base, much of it located in the eastern provinces.

"Let's be absolutely clear," he told the Senate panels, "measures to deal with rape as a weapon of war in isolation will fail and fail miserably ... [unless we] move from managing conflict symptoms to ending the conflicts themselves."