In many parts of Africa, a Kalashnikov costs around $20. It would only take a few volunteers to show all the women in a village how to use one (ease of use and durability were what they were designed for), and do basic lessons in hardening positions. When the militias run through, they’d be met with something they probably wouldn’t want to deal with.
Funny thing is, I was almost involved in starting an organization to do just that: collect funds to arm poor women and train them.
The problem is that, like @Hypocrisy_Central mentioned, there’s no incentive for the U.$. to step in. More than that, is that the civil wars that cause much of the rapes in the DRC are what allows Western companies to cheaply buy conflict minerals, chief among them coltan. This means that not only will the U.$. military not step in, but they or a private corporate army (Blackwater/Xe) could be involved in stopping anything that threatens the coltan supplies. Which means we then would need an army even better prepared than mercenaries.
So, can you see why this didn’t get off the ground? I’m willing to fight, kill, and potentially die to save a bunch of innocent people, but not if it won’t do shit for the situation.
@Bellatrix One thing that you can do to support them is to stop buying new cell phones. One of the main component materials necessary for our phones is the coltan I mentioned above, and to my knowledge the DRC is the primary, maybe only, source for that mineral.