Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

In war, rape accomplishes a number of objectives. It spreads fear, humiliates, terrorizes civilians for political purposes, obtains information, rewards soldiers, and can eliminate ethnic groups.[1] During the past two decades alone, women were raped in Rwanda, Liberia, the former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, Colombia, Sudan, Timor Leste, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).[2] War rape is not a new phenomenon, but war rape was “documented with increasing regularity in the 20th century”[3] and statistics indicate it is increasingly prevalent, due in part to the fact that “the nature of warfare is changing, in ways that increasingly endanger women and girls.”[4]

The use of rape as a weapon of war is as old as war itself. While war rape is not unique to any particular country, region, ethnic group, religion or time period, the level of sexual violence reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) during the past fifteen years is extreme. Though it is difficult to determine the exact number of women and girls who have been raped and mutilated by armed groups, soldiers, and other civilians during this conflict, most experts working in the region believe the number has reached the hundreds of thousands.

Statistics reveal a serious problem exists in the Congo. From 1998 to 2004, a coalition of members of the Congolese government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the UN, called the Joint Initiative on the Fight against Sexual Violence towards Women and Children, recorded over 40,000 reported cases of sexual violence.[5] This number is only a small percentage of actual cases, however, since many women do not report rape because they fear abandonment by their families, rejection by their communities, and reprisals by their attackers.[6] These factors in turn impact the gathering of accurate statistics.

No one has been able to quantify the scale of what human rights groups call the “war on women” in eastern Congo. Tens of thousands of rapes have been recorded by the UN in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu over the past year, but as only a fraction of the women assaulted make it to hospital there is little doubt that the total number of victims runs into hundreds of thousands in recent years.[7]

Despite the importance of gathering accurate data, statistics on the number of women impacted by sexual violence in conflicts around the world are difficult to collect. The chaos of conflict, the failure of humanitarian organizations to cooperate and coordinate, and the fear and shame surrounding sexual violence are factors contributing to the “great scarcity of data on the prevalence, circumstances, characteristics of perpetrators, and physical or mental health impacts” of sexual violence in conflict.[8] Even when faced with these obstacles, however, several national and international organizations collected statistics that highlight the severity, intensity, and prevalence of sexual violence in the DRC.

Working with Congolese human rights organizations, International Alert gathered statistics on the types of rape committed in this conflict through interviews with 492 survivors of sexual violence in different regions of the country. The organizations identified four main types of rape and concluded that “The rapes and sexual abuse were committed with unprecedented cruelty, the perpetrators having devised the most humiliating and degrading treatment they could inflict on their victims.”[9]

Individual rape was reported by 105 survivors (21.3%) and described as when a “single perpetrator rapes a single victim,” while 390 women (79%) reported they were raped by two or more attackers. A third form identified was family members forced to rape each other or to watch the attack on a family member, usually their mother or sister. The final category is rape where objects, such as sticks, bottles, bananas, pestles coated in chili pepper, and the butt of rifles are forcibly inserted into victims’ genitals; 61 women (12.4%) interviewed reported this.[10] Many women (71.7%) reported that they were tortured during or after the rape (especially if they resisted) and described being “beaten, wounded with machetes, or [having] their genitals mutilated or burnt with drops of plastic melted by a flame.”[11] These findings provide insight into the types of rape committed, while other organizations gathered data focusing specifically on the number of women and girls subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence in the Congo.

Malteser International runs a medical-social support program for rape survivors in South Kivu. From 2005-2007 the organization registered 20,517 female rape survivors.[12] Since 2003, the International Rescue Committee has assisted more than 40,000 rape survivors in the country.[13] The number of survivors who came to Panzi Hospital in Bukavu to report rape and/or mutilation increased from 290 in 1999 to 1,289 in 2003.[14] According to data provided by local health centres, as of January 2007, an average of 40 women were raped daily in South Kivu; thirteen percent of these victims were younger than fourteen-years-old, three percent died as a result of the attack, and ten to twelve percent were infected with HIV/AIDS.[15] From January to September 2008, more than 3,500 cases were reported to the Joint Initiative on Sexual Violence in North Kivu.[16] At one hospital in Bunia, more than 7,400 rape victims were treated between 2003 and 2007.[17] According to Human Rights Watch, 16,000 rapes were reported in 2008 alone.[18]

These numbers indicate a serious problem, but they do not fully describe the extent of sexual violence in the DRC. Many survivors of sexual violence do not report the attacks due to fear of reprisal or ostracism, shame, and continued insecurity caused by ongoing violent conflict in the region.[19] Elisabeth Roesch, Gender and Advocacy Advisor for CARE in the DRC underscores this problem, “We know rape is typically under-reported, and feel that this number doesn’t even come close to reflecting the actual number of cases – the actual number is unimaginable.”[20] This sentiment was corroborated in a 2004 report from USAID:

It can be estimated, however, that based on the statistics presented by the two referral hospitals, a minimum tens of thousands of rapes and/or mutilations have taken place since 1996, and untold thousands more back to 1994.[21]

It is important to determine the reasons why rape is such a prevalent, severe, and effective weapon of war in the Congo. According to academic journal articles and reports from human rights organizations and governments, as well as interviews with survivors, humanitarian workers, doctors, and soldiers, sexual violence is used as a systemic and strategic weapon in the DRC because of its effectiveness in accomplishing economic and military goals, the Congo’s hostile political environment, perpetrators’ impunity, the large number of actors in the on-going conflict, and the many physical, psychological, and social consequences associated with rape that benefit perpetrators. Future posts will examine all of these factors in detail in order to better understand the causes and consequences of the widespread use of sexual violence that has been used as a weapon in the DRC for the past 15 years.

Sources:

[1] Amnesty International USA, “Stop Violence against Women: Rape as a Tool of War: A Fact Sheet,” Amnesty International USA (2007), http://www.amnestyusa.org/women/rapeinwartime.html (accessed January 26, 2010).
[2] Jeanne Ward, “Broken Bodies-Broken Dreams: Violence against Women Exposed,” OCHA/IRIN (November 2005): 177-189.
[3] Patricia Weitsman, “The Politics of Identity and Sexual Violence: A Review of Bosnia and Rwanda,” Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association (2007): 3.
[4] Jeanne Ward, “Broken Bodies-Broken Dreams: Violence against Women Exposed,” OCHA/IRIN (November 2005): 177.
[5] Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, “Struggling to Survive: Children in Armed Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict (April 2006), http://www.watchlist.org/reports/files/dr_congo.report.20060426.php?p=11 (accessed January 17, 2010).
[6] CARE International, “Tens of Thousands More Women and Girls at Risk of Rape and Attack in DRC, Warns CARE,” CARE International (November 6, 2008), http://www.care-international.org/Tens-of-thousands-more-women-and-girls-at-risk-of-rape-and-attack-in-DRC-warns-CARE (accessed May 20, 2009).
[7] Chris McGreal, “Hundreds of Thousands of Women Raped for Being on the Wrong Side,” The Guardian (November 12, 2007), http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/nov/12/congo.international (accessed January 19, 2010). AND Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, “Struggling to Survive: Children in Armed Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict (April 2006), http://www.watchlist.org/reports/files/dr_congo.report.20060426.php?p=11 (accessed January 17, 2010).
[8] Birthe Steiner, Marie T. Benner, Egbert Sondorp, K. Peter Schmitz, Ursula Mesmer and Sandrine Rosenberger, “Sexual Violence in the Protracted Conflict of DRC: Programming for Rape Survivors in South Kivu,” Conflict and Health vol. 3 (2009): 3.
[9] International Alert, “Women’s Bodies as a Battleground: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls During the War in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Réseau des Femmes pour un Développement Associatif (RFDA), Réseau des Femmes pour la Défense des Droits et la Paix (RFDP), International Alert (2004) : 33.
[10] Ibid., 33-34.
[11] Ibid., 34-35.
[12] Birthe Steiner, Marie T Benner, Egbert Sondorp, K Peter Schmitz, Ursula Mesmer and Sandrine Rosenberger, “Sexual Violence in the Protracted Conflict of DRC: Programming for Rape Survivors in South Kivu,” Conflict and Health vol. 3 (2009): 3.
[13] Wairagala Wakabi, “Sexual Violence Increasing in Democratic Republic of Congo,” The Lancet vol. 371 no. 9606 (January 2008): 15.
[14] Marion Pratt, Ph.D. and Leah Werchick, J.D. with Anaia Bewa, Marie-Louise Eagleton, Claudine Lumumba, Katherine Nichols, and Lina Piripiri, “Sexual Terrorism: Rape as a Weapon of War in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,” USAID/DCHA Assessment Report (March 18, 2004): 11.
[15] Claudia Rodriguez, “Sexual Violence: Weapon of War, Impediment to Peace,” Forced Migration issue 27 (January 2007): 45-46.
[16] CARE International, “Tens of Thousands More Women and Girls at Risk of Rape and Attack in DRC, Warns CARE,” CARE International (November 6, 2008), http://www.care-international.org/Tens-of-thousands-more-women-and-girls-at-risk-of-rape-and-attack-in-DRC-warns-CARE (accessed May 20, 2009).
[17] Wairagala Wakabi, “Sexual Violence Increasing in Democratic Republic of Congo,” The Lancet vol. 371 no. 9606 (January 2008): 15.
[18] Human Rights Watch, “Stopping Rape as a Weapon of War in Congo,” Human Rights Watch (September 18, 2009), http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/09/18/stopping-rape-weapon-war-congo (accessed January 5, 2010).
[19] CARE International, “Tens of Thousands More Women and Girls at Risk of Rape and Attack in DRC, Warns CARE,” CARE International (November 6, 2008), http://www.care-international.org/Tens-of-thousands-more-women-and-girls-at-risk-of-rape-and-attack-in-DRC-warns-CARE (accessed May 20, 2009).
[20] Ibid.
[21] Marion Pratt, Ph.D. and Leah Werchick, J.D. with Anaia Bewa, Marie-Louise Eagleton, Claudine Lumumba, Katherine Nichols, and Lina Piripiri, “Sexual Terrorism: Rape as a Weapon of War in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,” USAID/DCHA Assessment Report (March 18, 2004): 11.