Damaged Goods: Women of the DR Congo Conflict

by Diamond Sharp

Between the Iraq War, celebrity gossip and the presidential election, the story of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has barely been mentioned on national news sources. It is times like these when I realize how the declaration after the Holocaust of "Never Again" was said in vain. Since then devastating human rights atrocities have been repeated in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. Most recently, the world has been silent, as multitudes of women and young girls have been intimately brutalized in the name of war.

As of yet, there has been no international uproar, no riots, and hardly any recognition that lives are being destroyed daily in the Congo. Within the confines of the DRC these women are often nameless victims who suffer being ostracized from their community, while the perpetrators of their horror are not punished. The women suffer from the stigma of being unclean and of being "damaged goods." It has been said that cultural norms are responsible for the violence and the emotional abuse that these women endure from their communities because they were raped.

Gender based discrimination and misogyny are not exclusive to the Congo; their manifestations exist everywhere, including here. Double standards are alive and well in the United States. It is in this nation where one in six women will be sexually assaulted. Though that number is enormous, only six percent of rapists ever serve jail time. It is clear that inequality knows no national borders. By using the claim that culture is what drives the mass rapes in the Congo, it allows onlookers to reason their decision to do nothing. That reasoning is shattered when the statistics show that violence against women is the favorite pastime of many nations, regardless of ethnicity or economics.

The conflict in the Congo began in 1996 as Hutu militia from neighboring Rwanda crossed the border during the genocide in Rwanda. Rwandan Hutu militia that fled Rwanda following the rise of a Tutsi led government, had been using refugee camps in eastern DRC as their base for infiltration of Rwanda. These Hutu militia forces allied themselves with the then, Zairian (Zaire being the previous name for the DRC) armed forces to launch a campaign against the Congolese Tutsis. The Tutsis formed a militia to defend themselves against the attacks of the Hutus. As the attacks against the Tutsis heightened, the Tutsi militia erupted in a rebellion against the president at the time, Mobutu. Between 1998 and 2003 some four million people perished from hunger and disease and about 650,000 have been displaced. Since 2006, the civil unrest was supposed to be over in the DRC. However the conflict is still brewing as an undercurrent, and women are being especially targeted during village raids.

The extent of sexual violence in the DRC can only be estimated, but officials say that the 27,000 rapes in the South Kivu region reported are only a fraction of what has happened across the country. In the province of South Kivu alone, local health centers report that an average of forty women are raped daily. Hospitals in South Kivu region say that at least ten rape victims come in everyday, the eldest patient being seventy-five, the youngest, three.

Women and young girls are molested in a number ways. Some are raped as their husbands or fathers are forced to look. Militias take others as sex slaves, to be used at the discretion of all the members. Women are gang raped as militias come through villages, and their families are killed. The rebel militias of the DRC have perpetrated gender-based violence through various forms, including sexual slavery, kidnapping, forced recruitment, forced prostitution, and rape. Many women have been forced to carry the child of the enemy in shame because of the stigma of not only rape, but of out of wedlock births. Malteser International, a European aid organization that runs health clinics in eastern Congo, estimated that it treated 8,000 sexual violence cases in 2007, compared with 6,338 in 2006. The organization said that in one town, Shabunda, 70 percent of the women reported being sexually brutalized.

The lack of proper health care facilities has forced many women to live with the constant reminder of their brutalization. Many have severe internal damage done to their reproductive organs. Women who are lucky to be treated by hospitals often have to be put on colostomy bags because of the damage done. Others have STDs and HIV resulting from their attacks.

Congolese men and boys have also been the victims of rape, sexual humiliation and genital mutilation. Statistics regarding the sexual abuse of males in the DRC are hard to estimate because of the taboo surrounding male on male sexual contact , most male victims will never come forward in fear of backlash. Regardless of society’s perceptions, these men exist.

The organization, Never Again International, has recently announced that the Congo is at the brink of another civil war. In spite of a formal peace agreement, there has been little progress in assertion of law. Fighting between militia groups continues, as do human rights violations such as unlawful killings, abductions and sexual violence perpetrated by all armed groups.

The women of the DRC can afford no more violence. There are ways you can help to prevent the continuation of the violence against women in the Congo, and other locations such as Juarez, Mexico, and Darfur, Sudan. There are many organizations that you can contact. Awareness and action are two most powerful tools anyone can have.

Information about the conflict in the DRC:

Never Again International
www.neveragaininternational.org/congo/en/
Amesty International
www.amenstyinternational.org
Human Rights Watch
www.humanrightswatch.org
Women For Women
www.womenforwomen.org/congo.htm
Stop Rape Now
www.StopRapeNow.org
Panzi Hospital of Bukavu
www.panzihospitalbukavu.org/

Films:

Lumo
The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Cogo
Women In War Zones

Information about the femincide in Juarez, Mexico:

Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa
www.mujeresdejuarez.org
Amnesty International
amnestyusa.org/women/juarez/
National Organization for Women (NOW)
www.now.org/issues/global/juarez/

Films:

May our Daughters Return Home
Senorita Extraviada (Missing Young Women)
Preguntas sin Repuestas

Books:

Cosecha de Mujeres by Diana Washington
Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders by Alicia Gaspar

Information about the genocide in Darfur, Sudan

Amnesty International
www.amnesty.org
Human Rights Watch
www.hrw.org
Darfur Peace and Development
www.darfurpeaceanddevelopment.org
Massaleit Community in Exile
www.massaleit.info
Africa Action
www.africaaction.org
Save Darfur Coalition
www.savedarfur.org
Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children
www.womenscommission.org

Information about rape and sexual assault in the United States