In Congo, rape is a weapon of war

The study indicates that the problem is much bigger and more pervasive than previously thought. Women have reported alarming levels of sexual abuse in the capital and in provinces far from Congo’s war-torn east, a sign that the problem extends beyond the nation’s primary conflict zone.

“Not only is sexual violence more generalised,” the study said, “but our findings suggest that future policies and programmes should focus on abuse within families.”

For the past 15 years, Congo has been racked by myriad rebel groups that terrorise civilians, often to exploit the country’s mineral riches or to flaunt their abusive power. UN officials have called Congo the epicentre of rape as a weapon of war. Still, comprehensive statistics have been hard to come by. Many areas of Congo are inaccessible and many victims have been too frightened to speak out. The central government is also weak, which has exacerbated the violence and made it difficult to collect information.

Abuse at home

The conclusions in the study, by three public health researchers are based on extrapolations from a household survey done in 2007 of 3,436 Congolese women nationwide. The researchers found that around 12 per cent were raped at least once in their lifetime and 3 per cent were raped in the one-year period before the survey. Around 22 per cent had been forced by their partners to have sex or perform sexual acts against their will, the study showed, implying that sexual abuse often happens at home. The women, aged 15 to 49, were interviewed in a demographic and health survey.

The study’s authors then used current population estimates, which put Congo’s population at around 70 million, to extrapolate that as many as 1.8 million Congolese women have been raped, with up to 4,33,785 raped in the one-year period, which would mean almost a rape a minute.

Congo has been the subject of sweeping studies before, including some by the International Rescue Committee, a private aid organisation, which has estimated that Congo’s civil war has claimed more lives than any other conflict since World War II. Some scientists have criticised those studies as being too reliant on projections and not grounded enough in hard facts.

Michael VanRooyen, director, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, which sent doctors to Congo to treat rape victims, said there were “some limitations in the methodology, such as the sampling methods and the sample sizes” of the new rape study. But he argued that “the important message remains: that rape and sexual slavery have become amazingly commonplace in this region of the DRC and have defined this conflict as a war against women.”

The study’s authors believe the rape problem may be worse than their study suggests. The findings are based on survey results from females of reproductive age, but many reports and witness accounts have shown that armed men often gang-rape young girls — some even toddlers — and elderly women in their 70s and older, in addition to a growing number of men and boys. Also, many rape victims never report being assaulted because of the shame and stigma. In Congo, countless women have been abandoned by their husbands after being raped.

Scientists and aid workers have struggled to pinpoint exactly why so many women are raped in Congo. It may be related to nearly 40 years of “steady economic and political decline,” which has meant that the government’s presence has essentially disappeared from many areas of Congo.