Robinson pleads for support to tackle rape crisis

FORMER President Mary Robinson has appealed to the Irish public to champion the protection of women in the developing world from an increasing wave of rape and violence.

Ms Robinson, who now travels the globe as a human rights campaigner, said aid agencies and the ordinary people who supported them needed to view violence against women as just as critical an issue as famine and refugee crises.

She said the problem of rape of women and young girls in the Darfur region of Sudan had worsened over the past year and it had become a serious concern in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).