Mukwege, Denis, 1955–, Congolese gynecologist and human-rights activist. He studied medicine at the Univ. of Burundi (grad. 1983) and worked as a pediatrician in a hospital in Lemera, Congo (Kinshasa), then completed a residency in gynecology and obstetrics at the Univ. of Angers, France (1989), and returned to Lemera. Congo's civil war subsequently forced him to relocate to Bukavu, when he founded (1999) the Panzi Hospital. Originally planned as a maternity hospital, it soon began receiving numerous victims of brutal sexual violence inflicted during wartime. Mukwege and his staff have performed countless surgeries to repair mutilations from sexual violence and also have provided psychological treatment, and he has become a campaigner to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. In 2018 he and Nadia Murad were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work. He also has been awarded the UN Human Rights Prize (2008) and the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize (2014).
See The Man Who Mends Women (documentary, 2015).
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