A senior UN official calls the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) the “rape capital of the world”. Even though a peace process was begun between the government and rebels in 2003, rape continues to happen at epidemic rates in the eastern provinces.
A UN report states that 8,000 women reported being the victims of rape in 2009. Last summer also saw a sharp increase of male-on-male rape reports. How many rapes have gone unreported in the DRC is unknown. The rapes are being committed by soldiers in the Congolese army, militia members, UN troops, and, increasingly, civilians. It is estimated that there could be as many as 200,000 survivors of rape still living in the Congo today.
This most recent history of sexual violence in the DRC began in 1998, when the Rwandan genocide spilled across the border. Militia groups in the DRC forced boys to join their ranks under threat of execution. These children were “politically re-educated” through forcing them to kill and rape –often starting with their own family members.
War rape has been around as long as war has. It has traditionally been viewed as the spoils of war – the victors have a right to take what they wanted from the defeated. Only recently has the international community begun to recognize that rape is more than just an incident that happens during wartime, but that sexual humiliation and degradation is a military strategy, a weapon used to subjugate, demean and control the populace.
In Amnesty International’s Lives Blown Apart report from 2004, they also recognize sexual violence as a tool of war, describing it as a strategy used to make soldiers feel powerful, to extort information, to intimidate, punish and humiliate. It can be used systematically to get rid of unwanted populations from an area, or to thin unwanted ethnic lines. This confirms what feminist activist and journalist Susan Brownmiller wrote in her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, “The body of a raped woman becomes a ceremonial battlefield, a parade ground for the victor’s trooping of the colors.”
This changing understanding of rape as a tool of war, is very recent. It wasn’t until the 1949 Geneva Convention that rape and forced prostitution were even recognized by the international community as inhumane and unnecessary. In 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda established legal precedence that rape is an aspect of genocide, and a 2001 verdict in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia firmly established that rape, forced prostitution and sex slavery are crimes against humanity.
Although the current DRC government has established a no tolerance policy for rape, very few perpetrators are caught, let alone arrested and tried.
Online there are hundreds, if not thousands of stories about survivors from the “rape capital of the world”. They are difficult to read, and it’s often easier to turn away and pretend it’s not happening than to face the cruelty of humanity. We have a global responsibility to do what we can to help. In our society, there is so much talk about educating ourselves in order to change the world for the better – here is a chance to stop talking and take action. From raising awareness, to supporting those already making a change, to helping directly, all of us can do our small part to make a big change in these people’s lives:
Donate or join organizations that are helping the survivors of War rape in the Congo:
Stop Raping our Greatest Resource: An organization that is helping raise awareness about rape in the Congo
Doctors Without Borders: They provide much needed medical care to survivors of the war in the Congo
War Child Canada: Are revitalizing broken communities through child education
Avocats Sans Frontieres: This organization is dedicated to helping countries establish rule of law
