Rape during the Congo civil wars

Last updated

During the first and second conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), all armed parties to the conflict carried out a policy of genocidal rape, with the primary purpose being the total destruction of communities and families. [1] Such was the violence directed at and carried out towards women that Human Rights Watch (HRW) described it as "a war within a war". [2] [3] HRW has reported that as of March 2013, civil conflict had reignited when the militia, March 23 Movement (M23), resumed hostilities following a ceasefire.

Contents

Girls from the age of five to women aged eighty have been assaulted and sexually mutilated. Others were raped and their families forced to watch. [lower-alpha 1] By 2008 the United Nations (UN) had estimated that up to 200,000 females had suffered from some form of sexual violence. [5] The brutality of the rapes have caused long-term health, social, familial, and psychological problems. There have been reports of infants aged one being raped, as well as women in their nineties. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported that over 50 percent of survivors believed that the use of rape was a deliberate tactic used for the extermination of the Congolese people.

While females have been the primary victims of sexual violence, men and boys are also sexually assaulted. In 2009, several non-governmental organizations including HRW and Amnesty International (AI) reported that the rape of males in the DRC was systematic, and on the increase. [6] The majority of the rapes have been carried out by militias, such as the Lord's Resistance Army, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, the Mai-Mai and the Congrès national pour la défense du peuple. Since 2009, rapes, killings and human rights violations carried out by the armed forces (FARDC) of the DRC have increased. [7]

Rape as genocide

"Photo: USAID/Leah Werchick; Rape victims who have been successfully reintegrated into their communities assemble in a "peace hut" near Walungu, South Kivu in DRC." DRC Rwanda line.jpg
"Photo: USAID/Leah Werchick; Rape victims who have been successfully reintegrated into their communities assemble in a "peace hut" near Walungu, South Kivu in DRC."

According to Amnesty International, the use of rape during times of war is not a by-product of conflicts, but a pre-planned and deliberate military strategy. [8] In the last quarter of a century, the majority of conflicts have shifted from wars between nation states to communal and intrastate civil wars. During these conflicts the use of rape as a weapon against the civilian population by state and non-state actors has become more frequent. Journalists and human rights organizations have documented campaigns of genocidal rape during the conflicts in the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Liberia, Sudan, Uganda, and the DRC. [9]

The strategic aim of these mass rapes are twofold. The first is to instill terror in the civilian population, with the intent to forcibly dislocate them from their property. The second is to degrade the chance of possible return and reconstitution by inflicting humiliation and shame on the targeted population. These effects are strategically important for non-state actors, as it is necessary for them to remove the targeted population from the land. Rape as genocide is well suited for campaigns which involve ethnic cleansing and genocide, as the objective is to destroy or forcefully remove the target population, and ensure they do not return. [9]

In the DRC the genocidal rape was focused on the destruction of family and communities. An interview with a survivor gave an account of gang rape, forced cannibalism of a fetus taken from an eviscerated woman and child murder. [1]

Estimates of victims

In 2006 Jean-Marie Guéhenno reported to the UN that in the preceding six months 12,000 women and girls had been raped. [10] [11] In 2009 it was estimated that there were 1100 rapes per month, with 72 per cent of survivors stating they had been tortured during their assaults. [12] In 2011 alone it was estimated that there were up to 400,000 rapes. [13] In 2013 HRW reported that M23 had killed 44 civilians and had raped at least 61 women and girls near the city of Goma. [14]

An article in the American Journal of Public Health gave an estimate of two million victims of rape by 2011. [15] According to statistics of rape victims shown to Shelly Whitman during a visit to Panzi Hospital in Bukavu in 2010, 66 girls under the age of three and 50 women over the age of 65 had been admitted to the hospital for treatment due to sexual violence between January and July 2010. [16] Statistics provided by local health centres show that 13 per cent of all survivors were under fourteen years old. The HRW operative to the DRC, Anneke Van Woudenberg, has said of the widespread use of rape that "it has become a defining characteristic" of the conflict. [17]

Aftermath

HRW reported that girls aged five to women aged eighty were assaulted with exceptional brutality, with knives and razor blades being used to mutilate the vagina. Families were forced to watch women being sexually assaulted. Survivors of the attacks have reported major health issues as a result of the rapes. 87 percent reported vaginal discharge and 79 percent have reported lower abdominal pains. Fistulas were commonplace among survivors, 41 percent reported the discharge of fecal and urinary matter from the vagina. [4]

Psychological trauma includes nightmares and insomnia, with 77 percent reporting that they suffered from these. 91 percent of survivors reported that they lived in fear and felt ashamed over the assaults. At the Saint Paul Health Center in Uvira, in a review of medical records from 658 survivors nine percent returned positive for HIV. Other sexual infections were syphilis, with thirteen percent infected, and a further 31 percent were infected with gonorrhea. Few victims seek medical attention, due to the costs associated with health care, and also due to the fact that should it become publicly known that they were raped, these survivors would then be socially stigmatized. [4]

In a report from MSF over 50 per cent of survivors indicated they had been assaulted while at work in the fields. These assaults were usually carried out by groups of men who were armed, women were beaten then raped and left lying on the ground. Others stated they had been assaulted during raids on their villages and a large number of women stated they had been raped in the undergrowth where they had gone to hide when they fled their homes. [4]

When surveyed on their opinions as to the motivation behind the sexual violence, 83 per cent believed that poor organization, training and a lack of discipline played a contributing role. 57 per cent believed that the sexual violence was used as a tactic for the deliberate extermination of the Congolese people, from the witness statements MSF came to the conclusion that the "Sexual violence has been so clearly linked to the military strategy of warring parties and has occurred in such a systematic way that it is wrong to think of it as a side effect of war" [4]

War crimes trials

In 2013 a mass trial of 39 FARDC soldiers began. The men were accused of raping 102 women and 33 girls in the township of Minova following their retreat from Goma after an attack by M23 forces. In 2014 the trial concluded with two convictions for rape and the remaining cleared. Maud Jullien, who works for the BBC has said the result is a "great disappointment", and lawyers for the survivors believe the ruling will result in discouraging other survivors from coming forward. [18]

International and domestic reactions

Mary Robinson, the UN Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region visiting a hospital in Goma where she was guided through the Heal Africa section which assists victims of sexual violence. UN Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region visit in Goma (8696588150).jpg
Mary Robinson, the UN Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region visiting a hospital in Goma where she was guided through the Heal Africa section which assists victims of sexual violence.

The United Nations has stated that the DRC is the centre for the use of rape as a weapon of war, with one study finding that 48 women are raped every hour. [19] In 2009 Eve Ensler travelled to the DRC, and having spoken to survivors of their need for a place to heal proposed the, City of Joy. In 2011, V-Day, in association with Fondation Panzi (DRC), opened the City of Joy. The centre is located in Bukavu, and treats 180 survivors of gender related violence per year. [20] [21]

Leah Chishugi, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, traveled to the DRC. Upon discovering the mass rapes which were ongoing she began to document testimony from survivors. In a two-month period she interviewed up to 500 survivors of sexual assaults. The youngest victim was just one year old, and the eldest was 90 and one victim, aged 14, had already given birth twice, having been forcibly impregnated. [22] Chishugi founded the charity Everything is a Benefit which campaigns on behalf of the survivors of the victims of rape and other human rights abuses during civil conflicts. [23]

In 1997, doctor Rachel Kembe, with five other professional women founded the Association nationale des mamans pour l’aide aux déshérités (ANAMAD, National Mothers’ Association to Aid the Dispossessed). By 2007 the centre was treating 2500 survivors of rape, but Kembe has said "the number keeps growing". ANAMAD has constructed housing for up to 30 IDPs and their families, but says they require more funding as their resources are inadequate. [24]

Denis Mukwege and his co-workers have treated an estimated 30,000 survivors of rape since the start of the conflicts. He has reported that women have been shot in the genitals following an assault, and others have had chemicals poured over their genitals following rapes. He believes the use of rape is an "effective strategy" as people are forced to flee their homes and land. [25]

Documentary maker, Fiona Lloyd-Davies, released Seeds of Hope at the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict. [26] [27]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "Human Rights Watch described the extraordinary brutality of the DRC rapes – girls as young as five and women as old as eighty were reportedly shot in the vagina or mutilated with knives and razor blades" [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Kivu</span> Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

South Kivu is one of 26 provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its capital is Bukavu.

Sexual violence is any sexual act or attempt to obtain a sexual act by violence or coercion, act to traffic a person, regardless of the relationship to the victim. It occurs in times of peace and armed conflict situations, is widespread, and is considered to be one of the most traumatic, pervasive, and most common human rights violations.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a US-based not-for-profit human rights NGO that uses medicine and science to document and advocate against mass atrocities and severe human rights violations around the world. PHR headquarters are in New York City, with offices in Boston and Washington, D.C. It was established in 1986 to use the unique skills and credibility of health professionals to advocate for persecuted health workers, prevent torture, document mass atrocities, and hold those who violate human rights accountable.

Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, the capital of the Sud-Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It specializes in treating survivors of violence, the large majority of whom have been sexually abused. After years of military rape in South Kivu, there is increased civilian adoption of sexual violence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rape during the Bosnian War</span> Use of rape as a military strategy during the Bosnian War

Rape during the Bosnian War was a policy of mass systemic violence targeted against women. While men from all ethnic groups committed rape, the vast majority of rapes were perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) and Serb paramilitary units, who used rape as an instrument of terror and key tactics as part of their programme of ethnic cleansing. Estimates of the number of women raped during the war range between 10,000 and 50,000. Accurate numbers are difficult to establish and it is believed that the number of unreported cases is much higher than reported ones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wartime sexual violence</span> Acts of sexual violence committed by combatants during armed conflict, war or military occupation

Wartime sexual violence is rape or other forms of sexual violence committed by combatants during an armed conflict, war, or military occupation often as spoils of war, but sometimes, particularly in ethnic conflict, the phenomenon has broader sociological motives. Wartime sexual violence may also include gang rape and rape with objects. A war crime, it is distinguished from sexual harassment, sexual assaults and rape committed amongst troops in military service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denis Mukwege</span> Congolese gynecologist and Nobel laureate (born 1955)

Denis Mukwege is a Congolese gynecologist and Pentecostal pastor. He founded and works in Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, where he specializes in the treatment of women who have been raped by armed rebels. In 2018, Mukwege and Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo</span>

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the east of the country in particular, has been described as the "Rape Capital of the World," and the prevalence and intensity of all forms of sexual violence has been described as the worst in the world. Human Rights Watch defines sexual violence as "an act of a sexual nature by force, or by threat of force or coercion," and rape as "a form of sexual violence during which the body of a person is invaded, resulting in penetration, however slight, of any part of the body of the victim, with a sexual organ, or of the anal or genital opening of the victim with any object or other part of the body."

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a country located in central Africa.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a source and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and forced prostitution. The majority of this trafficking is internal, and much of it is perpetrated by armed groups and government forces outside government control within the DRC's unstable eastern provinces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genocidal rape</span> Mass sexual assault during wartime as part of a genocidal campaign

Genocidal rape, a form of wartime sexual violence, is the action of a group which has carried out acts of mass rape and gang rapes, against its enemy during wartime as part of a genocidal campaign. During the Armenian Genocide, the second Sino-Japanese war, the Holocaust, the Bangladesh Liberation War, the Bosnian War, the Rwandan genocide, the Congolese conflicts, the Iraqi Civil War, the South Sudanese Civil War, and the Rohingya genocide, the mass rapes that had been an integral part of those conflicts brought the concept of genocidal rape to international prominence. Although war rape has been a recurrent feature in conflicts throughout human history, it has usually been looked upon as a by-product of conflict and not an integral part of military policy.

The term international framework of sexual violence refers to the collection of international legal instruments – such as treaties, conventions, protocols, case law, declarations, resolutions and recommendations – developed in the 20th and 21st century to address the problem of sexual violence. The framework seeks to establish and recognise the right all human beings to not experience sexual violence, to prevent sexual violence from being committed wherever possible, to punish perpetrators of sexual violence, and to provide care for victims of sexual violence. The standards set by this framework are intended to be adopted and implemented by governments around the world in order to protect their citizens against sexual violence.

During the Rwandan genocide of 1994, over the course of 100 days, up to half a million women and children were raped, sexually mutilated, or murdered. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) handed down the first conviction for the use of rape as a weapon of war during the civil conflict, and, because the intent of the mass violence against Rwandan women and children was to destroy, in whole or in part, a particular ethnic group, it was the first time that mass rape during wartime was found to be an act of genocidal rape.

During the Sierra Leone Civil War gender specific violence was widespread. Rape, sexual slavery and forced marriages were commonplace during the conflict. It has been estimated by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) that up to 257,000 women were victims of gender related violence during the war. The majority of assaults were carried out by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). The Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), The Civil Defence Forces (CDF), and the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) have also been implicated in sexual violence.

The Women Under Siege Project is an independent initiative of the Women's Media Center (WMC). The project documents online and through social media how rape and gender-based violence are used as tools in warfare and genocide. The project uses journalism to investigate and bring to light these issues which impact women throughout the world, but especially in areas of conflict. The director of Women Under Siege, Lauren Wolfe, has said that the first step to challenging rape is to stop victim blaming and to focus on the perpetrators and the cultures that produce them.

As of 2018, the African country Rwanda ranks in the top five countries for gender equality according to the Global Gender Gap Report. The idea of fairness that dominates this country arose after the genocide against the Tutsi that occurred in 1994. The government is committed to ensuring equal rights for women and men without prejudice to the principles of gender equality and complementarity in national development. These ideas are exhibited through the roles of Rwanda women in government, the respect for women's education and the role of women in Rwanda healthcare. The country also took an active stance against rape in genocide, created a national action plan after United Nations Resolution 1325, and is pushing towards ending gender-based violence.

Rape during the Syrian Civil War was used as a strategy throughout the Syrian conflict by pro government supporters, members of the Free Syrian Army, and militants fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. According to the International Rescue Committee (IRC) rape has been a "significant and disturbing feature" during the conflict, and the primary reason given for 600,000 women fleeing the war zone is fear of sexual assault. For the background and legal content use the prosecution of Syrian civil war criminals. Human Rights Watch have requested that the United Nations Security Council refer Syria to the International Criminal Court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2018 Nobel Peace Prize</span> Award

The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad "for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict," according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee announcement on 5 October 2018 in Oslo, Norway. "Both laureates have made a crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes," according to the award citation. After reading the citation, Committee Chair Berit Reiss-Andersen told reporters that the impact of this year's award is to highlight sexual abuse with the goal that every level of governance take responsibility to end such crimes and impunities.

International law encompasses the protection of human rights, in both conflict situations and post-conflict reconstruction. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979 and has the goal of promoting women's rights. Women have contributed to work on the ground in post-conflict reconstruction, aid and ceasefire negotiations. They have also contributed to the Geneva II peace talks regarding Syria, and were involved in the Rohingya conflict in Myanmar as 'front-line responders'. ]

Immaculée Birhaheka is a human rights activist from Democratic Republic of Congo. She is co-founder and president of the women's rights organization Promotion et Appui aux Initiatives Feminines (PAIF) which works to combat sexual violence and increase the participation of women in civic life.

References

  1. 1 2 Von Joeden-Forgey 2010, p. 74.
  2. ↑ Akurang-Parry 2004, p. 8.
  3. ↑ Csete & Kippenberg 2002, p. 23.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Leaning, Bartels & Mowafi 2009, p. 188.
  5. ↑ Drumond 2011, p. 98.
  6. ↑ Drumond 2011, pp. 99–100.
  7. ↑ Drumond 2011, p. 96.
  8. ↑ Smith-Spark 2012.
  9. 1 2 Leaning, Bartels & Mowafi 2009, p. 174.
  10. ↑ Corrêa, Petchesky & Parker 2008, p. 196.
  11. ↑ Guéhenno 2006.
  12. ↑ Mukengere Mukwege 2009.
  13. ↑ Poloni-Staudinger & Ortbals 2012, p. 21.
  14. ↑ Bekele 2013.
  15. ↑ Peterman, Palermo & Bredenkamp 2011, pp. 1060–1067.
  16. ↑ Whitman 2012, p. 149.
  17. ↑ Leaning, Bartels & Mowafi 2009, p. 187.
  18. ↑ BBC 2014.
  19. ↑ Adetunji 2011.
  20. ↑ Kreinin et al. 2012, p. 120.
  21. ↑ Viner 2011.
  22. ↑ Taylor 2008.
  23. ↑ Sackur 2008.
  24. ↑ Kimani 2007.
  25. ↑ Mukwege 2013.
  26. ↑ Lloyd-Davies.
  27. ↑ Sauer 2013.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.