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 has had a long history of unrest and instability. Although sexual violence has always occurred in the DRC in some capacity, increased rates of sexual violence coincided with the armed conflicts of the early 1990s and later.
Much of the research conducted about sexual violence in the DRC has focused on violence against and rape of women as related to these armed conflicts, mostly occurring in the eastern region of the country. The eastern region of the DRC has the highest rates of sexual violence, and much of it is perpetrated by armed militia groups. However, other studies have begun to show that sexual violence is pervasive in all parts of the DRC and that it is not always related to the conflict.
While there is extensive evidence of the societal and individual ramifications caused by the sexual violence in the country, the government has been criticized for not doing enough to stop it. Although Congolese law criminalizes many forms of sexual violence, these laws are not always enforced.
Historical background
Rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo has frequently been described as a "weapon of war", and the United Nations officially declared rape a weapon of war in 2008.Kristof, Nicholas D., and Sheryl WuDunn. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. Print. War rape makes a particularly effective weapon because it not only destroys its physical victims, but entire communities as well. War, violence, and instability have ravaged the DRC for decades, and this has led to a culture of violence in war and civilian life that often takes its form in a sexual nature.
Eleven years after the Republic of the Congo gained independence in 1960, president Mobutu renamed the country Zaire in 1971 and ruled the nation under an autocratic and corrupt regime.Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). "Africa: Congo, Democratic Republic of the." The World Factbook. 2013. [accessed 18 February 2013]. Under Mobutu's regime, sexual abuse was used as a method of torture.
Mobutu ruled until 1997, when after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, many génocidaires fled across Rwanda's western border into the DRC in hopes of escaping censure. Hutu extremist militias were reformed across the border, particularly in Kivu, the DRC's easternmost region, bringing crime and violence to the DRC. While the Congolese army and UN peacekeepers attempted to launch large operations, they still ultimately failed to disarm Hutu rebels who often retaliated by performing rapes, kidnappings and murders. This influx of militants and fighting in Burundi catalyzed the First Congo War and the end of Mobutu's regime. Spurred by the violence, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL), led by Laurent Kabila, launched a rebellion against Mobutu regime in 1996 in the eastern part of the country.
Wilhelmine Ntakebuka, who coordinates a sexual violence program in Bukavu, believes that the increase in sexual violence started with the inflow of foreign militants:
The epidemic of rapes seems to have started in the mid-1990s. That coincides with the waves of Hutu militiamen who escaped into Congo's forests after exterminating 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus during Rwanda's genocide 13 years ago. Mr. Holmes said that while government troops might have raped thousands of women, the most vicious attacks had been carried out by Hutu militias.
The violence from the First Congo War led to the Second Congo War, which officially ended in 2006 with the election of the first democratically elected president, Joseph Kabila. However, there has been no end to the violence. A major confrontation in 2007 between government forces and troops of Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda culminated in another major confrontation in the eastern province of Nord-Kivu. Recently, instability and violence have greatly increased since the mutiny of members of the Government of DRC and the creation of the rebel movement, M23, supported by the Government of Rwanda and individuals of the Government of Uganda. Moreover, as recently as December 2012, the UN accused M23 rebels of raping and killing civilians in eastern DRC. There have also recently been allegations of a military attack and 72 counts of rapes against civilians by M23 in the Minova area.
Much of this continuing violence is a result of long-lasting animosity between the Tutsis, the Hutus, and other groups. Other factors of the continued violence are control of land, control of minerals, and economic tensions. The persistence of rape can also be attributed to misconceptions about rape, such as the myth that having sex with prepubescent girls will give people strength in battle or business dealings. The long history of violence has led to a culture of desensitization, lacking respect for international norms of human rights, and inadequate education.
Today, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, particularly the eastern region of the country, is known as the rape capital of the world. While "the law specifically prohibits and provides penalties of 10 to 20 years' imprisonment for child and forced prostitution, pimping, and trafficking for sexual exploitation....There were no reported investigations or prosecutions of traffickers during the year ."United States State Department, Country Report on Human Rights Practices: DR Congo, 2007, 5; as cited in www. womanstats.org There is no law against spousal sexual assault.United States State Department, Country Report on Human Rights Practices: DR Congo, 2005, second paragraph. As cited in www. womanstats.org.
Forms of sexual violence
Violence against women Margot Wallström dubbed eastern Congo the "most dangerous place on earth to be a woman" and it is said that rape is simply a fact of life in the DRC. In October 2004 the human rights group Amnesty International said that 40,000 cases of rape had been reported over the previous six years, the majority occurring in South Kivu. This is an incomplete count, as the humanitarian and international organizations compiling the figures do not have access to much of the conflict area; only women who have reported for treatment are included. It is estimated that there are as many as 200,000 surviving rape victims living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today.
A 2011 report recorded that 1,000 women had been raped daily.
A 2014 report by human rights charity Freedom from Torture outlined the usage of rape as a form of torture by security forces, focusing on case studies and accounts from torture survivors.Freedom from Torture DRC torture report 2014 https://www.freedomfromtorture.org/sites/default/files/2019-04/Final%20web%20-%20a4%20-%20optimised.pdf
In 2023, the UN reported over 113,000 sexual violence cases in DRC and by the following year of 2024, conflicted related cases doubled.
According to research conducted by The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2010, 39.7% of women in the Eastern Region (North Kivu, South Kivu, and Province Orientale) of the DRC reported to have been exposed to sexual violence during their lifetime, most commonly taking its form in rape.
As Noel Rwabirinba, a sixteen-year-old who had been a militiaman for two years said, "If we see girls, it's our right...we can violate them." This statement reflects the normalization of rape in the DRC. Because of conflicts, between 60 and 90 percent of women are single heads of households. This puts many burdens upon them, such as having to travel long distances to find resources, leaving them vulnerable to violence.
Patricia Rozée identifies different categories of rape, all of which occur in the DRC: punitive rape (used to punish to elicit silence and control); status rape (occurring as a result of acknowledged differences in rank); ceremonial rape (undertaken as part of socially sanctioned rituals); exchange rape (when genital contact is used as a bargaining tool); theft rape (involuntary abduction of individuals as slaves, prostitutes, concubines, or spoils of war); and survival rape (when women become involved with older men to secure goods needed to survive).
Rape, as related to the conflicts, is the most prevalent form of sexual violence in the country, particularly in the eastern region. However, civilians are also the perpetrators of rape. Furthermore, although people might assume that men always perpetrate conflict-related sexual violence against women, women are also perpetrators. In the 2010 study conducted by the American Medical Association, women reported to have perpetrated conflict-related sexual violence in 41.1% of female cases and 10.0% of male cases.
Violence against men and boys The rape of men is also common. More studies are coming out to show that both women and men are the victims and perpetrators of sexual violence in the DRC.
Research conducted by the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2010 cites that 23.6% of men in the Eastern Region of the country have been exposed to sexual violence. And, a similar study also conducted in 2010 found that 22% of men (as compared to 30% of women) in eastern Congo reported conflict-related sexual violence. A cross-sectional, population-based study found that one in four men living in the eastern region of the country have been the victims of sexual violence. Moreover, at least 4 to 10 percent of all rape victims are male.
The prevalence of rape of men in the country is likely underreported due to extreme stigma attached to sexual abuse of males. Men who admit to being raped risk ostracism by their community and criminal prosecution, because they may be seen as homosexual, which, though legal in the DRC, is socially unacceptable. Male victims are less likely to appear in court, and those who do are cast away in their villages and called "bush wives". According to Denise Siwatula, a programme officer at the Women's Synergy for the Victims of Sexual Violence based in Kivu, many men are victims of sexual violence and they need different assistance than women who come to their center.
Lynn Lawry, a humanitarian expert at the International Health Division of the US Department of Defense, said, "When we are looking at how we are going to address communities, we need to talk to female perpetrators as well as male perpetrators, and we have to include male survivors in our mental health clinics in order to address their issues, which may be very different from female survivors."
The 2020 report by the United Nations Secretary General on conflict related sexual violence covered that a young man from Tanganyika Province was stripped naked, raped and coerced by Twa militia to rape his own mother that led to severe sense of shame and the fear of stigmatization and reprisals for seeking support. Raping of men and boys have been used for degrading societal identities—by attacking family and community "protective" figures through humiliation and ultimately inflicting identity-based vulnerabilities. The report also covered the continuation of sexual violence against men and boys in detention and in several settings.
Violence against children