Full report - International Alert

52 • Women’s Bodies as a Battleground: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls During the War in the Democratic Republic of Congo8Institutional Responses to Sexual Violence Against Women8.1 The powerlessness of local customary and administrativeauthoritiesIn this climate of general insecurity, the local customary and administrative authoritiesare as powerless in the face of combatants’ acts of violence as the people they aresupposed to protect, according to a number of victims who had reported the violencethat had been perpetrated against them. This was certainly the case in Fizi, where 25%of the women who had been raped contacted the head of the neighbourhood, road,district or village where they lived. In the villages, victims went to the important elders.Generally speaking, the victims were disappointed with the apathy shown by thecommunal authorities, who themselves were powerless and terrorised by the presence ofthe soldiers. It is true that standing up to soldiers in this context requires considerablestrength and the few who are courageous enough to do it expose themselves toconsiderable risk, even of death. For example, when, in May 2003, one ofneighbourhood heads in the Mlenga district of Fizi dared to forbid soldiers from rapingwomen, he had to flee the town, pursued by the soldiers.Most of the authorities contacted during the survey said that the only thing they could dowas to commiserate with the victims and recommend that they avoid isolated and dangerousspots. The more daring among them said they had taken due note of the complaints andpromised to inform their superiors about them. But very often the customary chiefs simplytried to smooth things over, even going as far as to minimise the seriousness of the acts thathad been perpetrated, as in the case of one chief who told a mother who had been raped:“It was your children who did it, try to understand them”Some head men have actively supported the women. They have acted as mediators to helpdivided families, advising the husbands to give moral support to their wives and not abandonthem, and have also tried to provide moral and material support themselves, visiting thefamilies concerned to express sympathy on behalf of the community, supplying traditionalmedicines to the victims and paying transport costs for those women who wanted to go todistant health centres for treatment or to leave their community where they felt disgracedand vilified. However, will the Congolese national institutions provide any legislation to dealwith these sorts of attacks?8.2 Congolese law and rape: the lack of a gender perspectiveGender-based violence, in particular rape and other types of sexual violence is dealt with inCongolese legislation, yet there have virtually never been any convictions for rape, while thefighting forces have been raping and pillaging for years without any concrete steps beingtaken to put an end to these attacks on the most basic of human rights. In South Kivu, theRCD authorities, backed by Rwanda, were in charge during the war years and they continueto exert considerable influence in the province. However, they have done almost nothing toprotect women and girls from being raped by their own soldiers and by soldiers of enemyarmies and militias.