When Rape is used as a weapon

A recent report for Oxfam concerning DR Congo has revealed that gang rape of women has risen dramatically not just by the armed militia but by civilians.

 

The BBC reported “The authors of the report, commissioned by Oxfam, say there is also evidence suggesting a dramatic rise in the number of rapes by civilians.

It comes at a time when there is debate over how long the United Nations peacekeeping force should remain in DR Congo.

The extensive research, carried out by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, in the eastern South Kivu province produced shocking findings.

It shows that 60% of the rape victims were gang raped by armed men and more than half of the assaults took place in the victims' homes”.

 

The rebels and government troops punish civilians by raping the women in their community, the problem is in South Kivu which is home to five millions people only has one hospital that can deal with rape victims.

 

Rape is a humiliating act, which is specifically used to break the women, families and men of a village. A community cannot regroup, organise itself or be motivated to voice an opinion or action if the women, girls and families are crushed through the degrading shame of rape, which can paralyse women, the stigma of rape reverberates throughout the family line and is apparently humiliates the men.

 

For some reason, when a woman is raped the husband or men folk of the family often shun her and they themselves carry the shame of ‘their’ women being violated. So women who are already sexual victims are punished twice, once by the rapist and then by the people who are supposed to love them. This continuous attitude is what rebels depend on when they gang rape women, they don’t need to use bullets, and they can crush entire generations of men, by having unlawful sex with ‘their’ women.

 

There is a psychological constant vibe being reinforced here that women are the possessions of men and the defiling of these women shame the men.

That is just abhorrent to me, and maybe if that attitude was broken, rape would be less stigmatised by the men who feel shamed by it, or the men who inflict it as a mass weapon and the women who actually suffer rape would be helped to heal instead of being ostracised.

I don’t know if generations of women would shun their men folk if the men were mass raped every time civil unrest took hold over a country. I believe the women wouldn’t treat men badly or see it as a shame on their honour.

 

Honour seems to be the key word, every time there is a civil war the rape of the women in the population seems to be the punishment that can be delivered with swiftest and the one that emotionally cripples the honour of the men in the community.

 

Patricia Weitsman wrote "Women, War, and Identity: Policies of Mass Rape in Bosnia and Rwanda"

“In contemporary conflicts, such as the ones in Rwanda, and the Former Yugoslavia, policies of sexual violence during war were aimed at impregnating women in order to ensure they would not bear children of their own ethnic identity. This represents a view of identity that hinges on paternity. How do these understandings of identity evolve? The destruction of a genus - the real meaning of genocide - would entail sterilization of enemy women, not forcing them to produce offspring. The way in which identity is constructed has dramatic implications for the human rights of these babies as well”

 

The use of women’s sexual privacy, security and safety will always be an issue during conflict and these recent issues in DR Congo need to be addressed as mass rape is alive and well; so much so even civilian gangs are raping the women.

 

Oxfam wants the world's richer countries to help increase the medical services available for survivors of sexual violence in Congo.

Last year alone the UN says more than 5,000 people were raped in South Kivu.

 

It’s time for people to take notice of the situation in DR Congo, please go to link below and give what you can to help.