
Witness - Field of Hope
Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has one of the highest rates of wartime sexual violence anywhere, with an estimated 48 women raped every hour, roughly 1,100 a day. Masika, herself a survivor, rents a plot of land where other survivors sow, tend, and harvest crops together, turning the work into both income and a reason to keep going. The film follows her as she counsels women who arrive with nowhere else to turn, including mothers raising children conceived through rape, children who are frequently shunned or abused alongside them. Masika speaks on camera about why she keeps taking in more women despite having almost no resources of her own, describing rape as a weapon used deliberately against Congolese communities during looting raids. The Field of Hope is small and improvised, funded by whatever Masika can raise, but it gives its members something the surrounding society denies them: an income, a routine, and a claim to dignity after violence that most of the world never hears about.