When the Democratic Republic of Congo was dubbed the “rape capital of the world” in 2010 by Margot Wallström, the former UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict, understandably the government of DRC was not happy. Besides that, putting one country above all others when it comes to violence against women is a debatable move: So many places have horrifying records of rape and impunity for such cases. But Wallström had good reason for aiming her words at what is unambiguously a truly terrible place for women.

I was stopped by the police one night in January 2015 as I rode the New York City subway. I was making the long trip back downtown from Washington Heights at around 2 a.m. and had fallen asleep. Suddenly, I jolted awake to find an NYPD officer standing over me. The officer asked me to step off the train. I asked him why. He insisted I do it.

Refugees. Srebrenica. The siege of Sarajevo. Burning villages such as Ahmići and Stupni Do. The Omarska camp. Captured in these words are some of the most powerful and lasting images of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. The media captured many of the crimes committed in this conflict, while one particular set of crimes typically occurred behind closed doors.

The scale of sexualized violence in South Sudan has been described by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as “shocking.” In a March report, the office counted more than 1,300 rapes in just five months in 2015 in a single area of the country, Unity State. And this number is only “a snapshot” of the real total, with women and girls being considered “a commodity” by soldiers.

The Honorable Mary Robinson is the founder and president of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice and serves as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Change. She was the first female president of Ireland from 1990-1997 and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002, and is a global leader on issues of women’s empowerment and human rights. In July 2013, I sat down with her to discuss climate justice and the role of women in the fight for peace.

James Dawes writes in the preface of Evil Men: “How can we look at violently invasive and traumatic events with respect and care rather than sensational curiosity? How do profoundly private injuries fit into our mercilessly public spaces? At the center of the answers to these questions is a single, structuring paradox: the paradox of trauma."

A middle-aged woman, her face not shown, her hands painted with henna, is talking about “haraam ki boti,” Hindi for “an amorous lump of flesh.” She is referring to the clitoris in female genitalia that a number of cultures around the world believe must be cut to control or tame sexual desire in women.

The mountains of Itombwe are home to some of the rare gorillas of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. An area about the size of Rwanda and Burundi put together, the Itombwe Plateau is one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest countries in the world. It is also home to 23,785 adolescent girls, according to Maman Shujaa, a women’s empowerment organization based in the South Kivu capital of Bukavu.

There’s a darkish room, maybe 12 feet by 13 feet, tucked into the back area of the ground floor of a school called Lycée Wima. Seated along walls of peeling paint are more than a dozen women sewing patterned bags, shoes, dresses, and dolls on elegant Singer sewing machines from the time between the last world wars. The work is exacting.

Effects of a conflict linger differently on different people. The following excerpt from my book, Mother, Where’s My Country?, is a story of struggle, loss, lack of closure, and denial of memory and justice. The book and excerpt are set in the northeast Indian state of Manipur, a gritty landscape.

When we talk about rape and sexualized violence, there is a tendency to think of it as something that happens to “others,” somewhere far away. But legal scholar, professor, and advocate Sarah Deer knows all too well that gender and sexualized violence is not limited to Syria, or Bosnia, or the Democratic Republic of Congo. It continues to happen right here in North America.