Editor’s Note: Our friend, Ashley Judd, joined YouthAIDS as Global Ambassador in 2002, after seeing the effects of HIV/AIDS on communities and children in the United States and around the globe. With no cure in sight, and the realization that education is the only way to prevent the spread of this disease, Ashley uses voice and platform — on behalf of those without a voice — to promote YouthAIDS’s programs and to provide young adults with immediate solutions for fighting the global epidemic. Most recently, Ashley went to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where she kept a daily personal journal detailing the heart-wrenching experience. Each week this summer, wOw shares one diary excerpt. The following journal entry was written on April 27th, 2008.

King Leopold of Belgium, an insane man who never should have been free in a society much less allowed to “rule” one, kept this unimaginably fertile area, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, (equal in size to everything east of the Mississippi) for his personal exploitation and whim. During his lust for its minerals, gems, trees – basically everything, he had ten million people murdered. What an achievement, in one short lifetime! When men would not work frantically enough to suit Leopold the Lunatic’s ever-expanding need for Africa’s natural resources, he would have families kidnapped and tortured as incentive for the men to run deeper into the forests and bring out her treasures faster. The country was raped and pillaged, ancient cultures and social systems were decimated and the people were utterly lost. They were ill-prepared for self-rule, their own historical ways and any self-efficacy they had was dismantled and the ways of the West were out of reach. In 1960, as self-rule began, there were only 17 college graduates in this vast country. At present, in a nation of 2.34 million square kilometers, there are a mere 2,794 square kilometers (roughly 1600 miles) of paved roads. I am lurching spastically along a typically rutted and potholed road right now, oi vey! Papa Jack describes the roads as ravines. Destroyed by the Belgians then kept down by their first native ruler in the 20th century, Mobutu Sese Seko, who has the notorious distinction of a type of rule being named after him, kleptocracy, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly known as Zaire and a lot of other things, has not known peace and stability since before the blood-sucking Europeans arrived. This country, the third largest in Africa, heaving with a massive population growing at a catastrophic rate, is chaos.

Click here to see photos from Ashley Judd’s Rwanda Diaries Part Six.

Right now, after having taken an hour to pass through a simple-looking border, which involved Papa Jack reaching into this pocket for a steady presentation of $20 bills (we joked he should be used to it as the parent of a teenage daughter), we’ve been stopped by “police” in uniform with heavy weaponry. No traffic violations, just a simple and typical moment of attempted extortion. Our driver, James, spoke Ngali and said we didn’t have any money. I am surprised the police believed him; I have binoculars around my neck and am working on this computer. (Binoculars were a fantasy. There is no wildlife here compared to Rwanda; the habitat has been destroyed.)

I am here to visit our clinics that specialize in family planning, maternal and child health, and the treatment and prevention of malaria. (We also do safe water and HIV-prevention in this area of the DRC). I also hope to visit with women who are rape victims. Rape is an epidemic here. It is an emergency. It is everywhere, on a massive scale. It is not altogether unreported in the Western media, but it is grossly underreported. An ancient and common tool of warfare, this area’s female population has been hostage to gender-based violence for decades.