Full report - International Alert

28 • Women’s Bodies as a Battleground: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls During the War in the Democratic Republic of Congo3.3 In Burundi and Rwanda, acts of sexual violence are everyday eventsWhy do members of militia groups from neighbouring countries who are involved in the armed conflictin South Kivu systematically commit rape? Given that Rwandans and Burundians are among the armedforces involved in this war, it might be worth tracing the recent history of these two countries where thepicture is also one of sexual violence and unequal gender relations.In Rwanda, during the genocide of 1994 women were subjected to widespread sexual violence committedby Hutu militias, soldiers of the Rwandan army (Forces Armées Rwandaises – FAR) and by civilians.Members of militia groups and soldiers raped Tutsi women but also Hutu women, particularly educatedwomen belonging to the intellectual elite. 46 Administrative, military and political officials and militialeaders encouraged and sometimes even directed, at local and national level, the murders and the sexualcrimes. After the victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the Tutsi soldiers of the RwandanPatriotic Army (RPA) raped Hutu women with the aim of avenging the Tutsi women who had been rapedby members of the Hutu militia. 47Testimonies concur on the brutality with which these acts of violence were committed. Thousands ofwomen were raped by one or several individuals, with objects such as sharpened sticks or rifle barrels,and subjected to sexual slavery. They were raped after being forced to watch the torture and murder oftheir families, as well as the ransacking of their houses. Many women were killed after being raped.Similarly in Burundi, all the fighting forces, including the Burundian army, committed acts of sexualviolence against women and girls from the most vulnerable and fragile social groups: the disaster-stricken,living either within communities or in displaced persons’ camps, and widows. The newsletterLa Veilleuse, 48 published in Bujumbura by the local women’s association Dushirehamwe has highlightedthe extent of rape in the country. According to this newsletter, not only has there been an extremely largenumber of rape cases, but the consequences of these acts still constitute one of the main problems facingrural women in Burundi. For fear of reprisals women dare not denounce the men who raped them.Although sexual violence has worsened due to the war, all evidence suggests that it already existed, albeiton a smaller scale, in peacetime. In fact, in both countries, domestic violence has always been widespread.In the private sphere, many women are subjected to sexual, physical and psychological violence. InBurundi, it is often members of armed groups who are blamed for sexual violence, but according to LaVeilleuse, they are not the only ones to commit these crimes. Incest is being committed within families,with fathers sexually abusing their daughters. There have also been reports of children, and even babiesbeing raped by people employed in the home to look after them. The situation in Rwanda is the same: therural areas have experienced a resurgence of domestic violence and of cases of rape committed againstwomen and young girls following the war and the genocide. All these facts strongly attest to thecorrelation between the domestic violence that takes place within the privacy of the home, and theviolence perpetrated against women in the public sphere by soldiers and members of militia groups duringtimes of armed conflict.46.Turschen, M., Twagiramariya, C., op. cit.47.Ibid.48.Association Dushirehamwe, La Veilleuse, Bujumbura, 3 August 2003.