Eve Ensler, the playwright behind "The Vagina Monologues" – has found a new focus: to battle “femicide.”

Ensler, the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls, says to describe what she has seen in the Congo is helping women and girls who have been viciously raped and attacked there, where by some estimates, a ten-year war has cost more lives than any other battle since World War II.

United Nations officials have called the Congo the place of the worst sexual violence in the world. Rape has become a primary weapon in the war ravaging the Congo. Victims are usually shunned by family members and society. Many young boys are forced to watch their mothers and sisters attacked. Women often see their husbands and children killed in front of them.

"Obscene. Horrible. Out of control …," Ensler tells CNN after a recent trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

"It’s ‘femicide,’" Ensler says in describing the treatment of Congolese women. "It’s the systematic destruction of women. It’s an economic war fought on the bodies of women. It’s the destruction of the Congolese people and life itself."

Ensler and others are launching a series of campaigns to increase world awareness of the plight of Congolese woman. But Ensler laments that the world’s reaction has so far been quiet.

"A lot of it is flat-out racism," she says. "When we see conflicts that involve white people, the world responds faster. Bosnia is a perfect example."

The centerpiece of Ensler’s campaign is "The City of Joy," an all-female village in Congo where rape victims can recover from their physical and psychological wounds. Other groups such as UNICEF have launched similar efforts to empower Congolese women and encourage the world to act.

Other Congo activists say the world hasn’t acted because they don’t know what’s going on.

"They are astonished and they care when you tell them," says Candice Knezevic, the "RAISE Hope for Congo" campaign manager for the Enough project. "I haven’t met a single person who doesn’t care about what’s happening in the Congo. The problem is so few know about it."

"They wanted to destroy me, destroy my body and kill my spirit," recalled Lumo Furaha, who was repeatedly raped by scores of armed men. "I am speaking out because I don’t want any child of the next generation to have to live through what I have lived through."

Here are several more stories Ensler heard, in the victims’ words:

AMUDA: 54 years old. Five militias Tutsi’s and Mai Mai. I was naked in front of my kids. Her husband and children were killed in front of her. They beat her legs. She will never forget the feeling of the rifle inside her vagina. She has no kids to take care of her when she is old.

JANET: When I hear a boom, I am terrified. The pain they felt when they took my leg over my head as they raped me. They leg was lose [sic] and they were pulling it. I was screaming the pain was so great. I had two surgeries — nothing they could do. Head of the thigh bone was gone. I will be on crutches for the rest of my life. I’ve always been courageous. Always will be courageous. If the military want to kill me for telling my story, I am ready to die.

MARTA: Men threw her to ground. She banged her head. She fought one off. The other soldier accused the soldier of being a girl. He raped her and picked up her baby. She was sure he was going to throw the baby against a wall. He threw baby on bed. Then they set the house on fire. Locked her in the house while it was burning. Her brother let her out. She went back for the baby and was burned from head to toe. She ran and jumped in the lake which was a very bad idea. The baby died three days later. I had no value until I came here. People were afraid of me. They thought I was a monster. Then they changed when they heard my story.

More efforts are being made to increase awareness in the world of what’s happening in the Congo.

European aid agencies are spending tens of millions of dollars building new courthouses and prisons across eastern Congo — in part to punish rapists — while mobile courts are holding rape trials in remote villages. The American Bar Association opened a legal clinic in January specifically to help rape victims bring their cases to court.

"Rape is designed not just to injure and dehumanize the women but impact their families and communities," UNICEF spokesman Geoffrey Keele told CNN. "A lot of the women we talked to had said that this is just their lot in life and it is something to be endured.”

Here’s a UNICEF video about the situation facing women in the Congo, and its "Stop Rape" campaign.