Full report - International Alert

60 • Women’s Bodies as a Battleground: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls During the War in the Democratic Republic of CongoCONCLUSIONWhat have we learned at the end of this survey carried out among 492 women victims ofrape who were interviewed in the South Kivu districts of Fizi, Uvira, Walungu, Kabare,Kalehe and Shabunda?Women from the most disadvantaged and vulnerable social groups have been the mainvictims of sexual violence and abuse committed by armed groups in South Kivu. The womenworst affected are the main producers - particularly women farmers, who are responsible forpractically all (76%) of the subsistence economy of the region - and of childbearing age,which means that the region’s socio-economic and demographic future is jeopardised. Theinterviewees belong to 19 different ethnic groups. The Bembe share a frontier with Burundi,and so Bembe women made up the majority of rape victims because they are easy targets forarmed groups from that country, such as the Forces pour la Défense de la Démocratie (FDD).Next came Bashi women (26.6%), Balega (12.4%), Bahavu (9.1%) and Bafulero (8.1%).These are the largest ethnic groups in South Kivu province.Rape and sexual abuse, committed with unprecedented violence, include acts aimed athumiliating and degrading the victims. Most of the rapes were committed in public placesand in the presence of witnesses. Four types of rape have been identified: individual rape,committed by one attacker on one victim – 21.3% of the interviewees had been subjected tothis type of rape; gang rape, committed by at least two attackers on one victim, either oneafter the other, or simultaneously – this was experienced by 79% of the informants; gangrape where the attackers force members of the same family to have sexual relations with eachother or to witness the gang rape of a member of the family, usually the mother or the sister,and rape with the insertion of objects such as sticks, bottles, green bananas, pestles smearedwith chilli pepper and rifle barrels into the genitals of the victim. A number of these rapeswere accompanied by torture, especially beatings, wounding with a machete, mutilation orburning of genitals, especially if the victim resisted. The majority (70%) of the attackersappeared to be in a lucid and normal state of mind at the time of the rape, while the other30% displayed nervous and irrational behaviour.Interahamwe (Hutu militias from Rwanda) make up the largest group of attackers. Most victimswere able to identify the origin of their attackers on the basis of the grievances that the latterexpressed while raping the victim, the language they spoke, particular words used, their accent,and their physical features and build. Thus 27% of victims said they had been raped byInterahamwe, 26.6% by FDD troops, 20% by RCD fighters and Banyamulenge militias, 16% byMaï Maï , 3% by unidentified men in uniform and 1.8% by RPA soldiers.Most rapes are acts of social and economic violence and are often planned and organised inadvance. In fact, rape and pillaging almost always go together, as illustrated by those perpetratedby the Interahamwe, especially around the National Park of Kahuzi-Biega, in Kalehe and Izege,from 2000 onwards. When the attackers leave they take with them goods stolen from thecommunity (livestock, farm produce, kitchen utensils, farm implements etc.), sometimes pickingout a number of villagers and forcing them to carry the stolen goods. The attackers also abductyoung women, well aware of their productive and reproductive capacities and of the benefits theycan get from them, taking them to serve as sex slaves in their camps: 10% of the interviewees hadsuffered this fate.