Congo's rape epidemic worsens

August 16 2009 at 10:32AM
By Stephanie McCrummen

Lugungu, Congo: For the women of eastern Congo, a US-backed Congolese military operation meant to save them from abusive rebels has turned into a nightmare of its own.

A staggering epidemic of rape has become worse since the deployment in January of tens of thousands of poorly trained, poorly paid Congolese soldiers, with people in front-line villages such as this one saying the soldiers are not so much hunting rebels as hunting women.

And so as the sun dropped behind the soaring jungle here recently, girls, mothers and grandmothers began heading home, some closing curtains and padlocking wooden doors. It was time, they said, to lock themselves indoors.
"To avoid getting raped, women are not allowed to go out of the house after 6pm," said Maria Bitondo, who said she was among three women attacked last month. "With the soldiers here, no woman is safe to go out and walk. We do not even go to the bathroom at night."

On Monday a coalition of 88 aid groups called the operation, which is supported by the UN, "a human tragedy" and urged US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was visiting Congo, to push for better civilian protection. Clinton has vowed to make the prevention of sexual violence a priority in Congo, where the US pays about a quarter of the cost of UN peacekeeping efforts.

"We have to speak out against the impunity of those in positions of authority who either commit these crimes or condone them," Clinton said at a town hall meeting in Kinshasa. She added, "There are even cases of these terrible crimes committed by members of the Congolese military."

But US officials have also applauded the operation, calling it an important diplomatic step in mending a destructive relationship between Congo and Rwanda. The operation is targeting Rwandan rebels, including some who fled here after participating in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Although all sides in Congo's 15-year conflict have used rape as a weapon of war - particularly the Rwandan rebels - the spike since January is being widely blamed mostly on the army. The number of soldiers roaming these eastern hills has almost tripled to 60 000 and rapes have doubled or tripled in these areas. Aid groups say the number of rapes so far in 2009 is probably in the thousands.

Though Congolese President Joseph Kabila recently declared a policy of "zero tolerance" for sexual violence, fewer than a dozen soldiers have been convicted of rape this year. In May the UN Security Council handed Kabila a list of five senior army officials, including a general, accused of rape, but so far none have been prosecuted.

"After reaching an area the soldiers are taking everything there as the spoils of war, including the women," said Honore Bisimwa, who works with a non-profit group, Olame Centre, trying to educate soldiers about rape laws.

In this jungle-matted territory about 5 000 soldiers are on the move, including a portion of 12 000 ex-rebels and militiamen folded into the army after a recent peace deal.

In February they set up a base in the territorial capital of Shabunda, where UN peacekeepers also have a base, then marched by foot into smaller front-line villages along narrow dirt roads traversed daily by women heading to farms. Soon after, villagers began complaining of looting and women began visiting health clinics.

In less than three months more than 100 rapes were reported in the area, said Adele Sikanabo, a local activist, adding that "there are so many we don't know about".

"I'd say 99 percent are by soldiers," she said.

The attacks in Lugungu began in July. As women here do most mornings, Madelena Ngalya left the village at about 9am one recent day and walked alone along a path through the jungle to her farm. The 56-year-old widow had been planting there for about an hour when she saw a soldier walk toward her.

"I started trembling when I saw him," she said. "I felt unable to cry, even to scream. I said, 'My son, how are you?' "

The soldier asked whether she was by herself.

"I said, 'I'm alone here.' He said, 'If you cry, we have many soldiers in the jungle and when others hear you cry, they will come to you, too.' Then he did what he wanted to do."

In the same area, at about the same time, soldiers raped four more women - the youngest 18 and pregnant and one older than 70. Three other women, including Bitondo, narrowly escaped the assault of another soldier.

"He started saying, 'We are suffering. We left our wives very far, we are going to die, and you are here like this,' " Bitondo said. "We started running."

Not one soldier from the 52nd brigade, which is in charge of the area, has been arrested, military officials said. After the spate of attacks, women imposed the curfew, and they now go to their farms only in groups of five or six and accompanied by men.

"If soldiers meet you, they will rape you," Ngalya said. "They don't fear anything."

She and other women wonder whether their patriarchal society is encouraging soldiers to rape. Girls are often forced to marry as young as 13. In some traditions, a kind of ritualised rape is part of a boy's coming of age. Prostitution is common. And in general, women are expected to service their husbands.

"Even though he's your husband, when he needs sex, he doesn't have to ask your permission. In this territory, men take women like an instrument that doesn't have value."

Deputy commander of the 52nd brigade Lieutenant Colonel Padiri Dieu Donne denied that any of his soldiers had raped women in Lugungu. "We can't say all of us are saints," Donne said. "But the problem of rape doesn't exist where we are." - The Washington Post

• This article was originally published on page 8 of Sunday Independent on August 16, 2009