New York - A group trying to stop the rape of women and girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday launched a campaign to raise awareness in the United States, which it said could be critical in ending violence against women.

Eve Ensler, playwright and artistic director of the Broadway play The Vagina Monologues, said the campaign to stop the rape of women in Africa could become global if the American people take the issue in their hands.

"Really if this country wakes up to the issue, the world will change," she said at UN headquarters in New York in launching the campaign dubbed V-Day's Turning Pain to Power. V-Day is an international effort to end violence against women often promoted with performances of Ensler's play around Valentine's Day each February 14.

The campaign is also in support of the UN Children's Fund's own efforts to end gender violence.

Ensler said Congo's rich mineral resources have been used in electronic gadgets, like cell phones, as well as by the computer industry worldwide. She hinted that a boycott of those commodities could solve the fighting and end rape in eastern Congo.

The group said the campaign is "exposing the devastating impact of rape on Congolese women's health, their families and their communities, and calling for specific measures to end impunity for perpetrators."

Dennis Mukwege, a medical doctor at the Panzi hospital in eastern Congo, where fighting among African rebel groups raged for years over control of natural resources, said the V-Day campaign began 10 years ago after he treated rape victims. He estimated the number of women and girls raped at between 400,000 and 500,000.

"We saw incredible things happening concerning rape in the area," Mukwege said.

He said the fight for control of the rich natural resources in eastern Congo and the culture of impunity have made females the prime targets for fighting forces.

Mukwege was touring the United States to campaign for V-Day and to describe his experiences treating rape victims and performing life- saving fistula surgery on thousands of Congolese women and girls "destroyed by unspeakable rape and mutilation," the group said.

The group will explore also the causes of brutality, ways to stop the ongoing violence and Congo's growing movement of women leaders.

It said the Kinshasha government has joined the campaign by allowing public testimony and taking legal action against the rapists. (dpa)