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In the Congo women and girls face threats every day from armed militias, the military, and even the police who are supposed to protect them. Militias use rape as a weapon of war, destroying communities by targeting women, the backbone of Congolese society.
Overview
Tens of thousands of women and girls have been the victims of sexual violence in the Congo. Attacks are common, and access to medical and psychological support is very limited. Victims of sexual violence are often to afraid or ashamed to seek treatment and can be shunned by society and their families because of their experiences.
What is Sexual and Gender Based Violence, or SGBV?
Sexual violence is an act of a sexual nature by force, or by threat of force or coercion. (source)
Gender-based violence is violence against women based on women’s subordinate status in society. It includes any act or threat by men or male dominated institutions that inflict physical, sexual, or psychological harm on a woman or girl because of their gender (source).
The Congolese National Army, or FARDC, is the largest group of perpetrators of sexual violence (source). They and other armed groups are guilty of gang rapes, rapes leading to injury and death, and abductions of women and girls.
Ending and preventing sexual violence in eastern Congo will require political and financial commitments to reforming Congo's security, justice, and economic institutions.
Download "Ten Reasons Why Eastern Congo Is the Most Dangerous Place on Earth for Women." (PDF)
According to the United Nations Population Fund, 160 women are raped every week in North and South Kivu, eastern Congo. A report by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative showed that 60% of rape victims in South Kivu were gang raped by armed men, more than half of the assaults took place in the victims' homes, and an increasing number of attacks were being carried out by civilians.
Current Policy
In April 2011, the U.S. State Department released a strategy to work with the Congolese government and the United Nations to address sexual and gender-based violence, or SGBV, in the Congo.
How serious is the crisis?
"It is more dangerous to be a woman than to be a soldier right now." -Major General Patrick Cammaert, former UN Deputy Force Commander, describing the situation in eastern Congo, May 2008
The U.S. government has four key objectives:
- Reduce impunity for perpetrators of SGBV.
- Increase prevention of and protection against SGBV for vulnerable populations.
- Improve the capacity of the security sector to address SGBV.
- Increase access to quality services for survivors of SGBV.
Solutions
What does Hillary Clinton think?
"We want to banish the problem of sexual violence into the dark past, where it belongs." - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, August 2009
Some funding and programmatic expertise has been put into reducing impunity, but very little has been done to increase protection and improve the security sector towards protecting vulnerable communities in eastern Congo.
Moving forward, the U.S. Government should:
- Pressure the government of Congo to prosecute the worst offenders.
- Expand training of combat units to protect the most vulnerable.
- Appoint a Special Envoy that has the commensurate respect in both the region and Washington to be effective in addressing the complexities of the conflict in Congo.
- Work with the UN Security Council to deploy a Group of Experts on Civilian Protection in Congo, which would be composed of international specialists, to propose independent recommendations to the Security Council about how to protect civilian populations.
