Rape, sexual violence of women, girls common in Congo

LONDON - The rape and sexual violence against women and girls in the war-scarred east of the Democratic Republic of Congo is becoming “normal” according to a new report published yesterday.

According to The Times, rape has been a weapon of war in the overlapping conflicts that have rumbled on in Congo since 1996 causing millions to die of illness and disease.

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of women have been raped in attacks aimed at terrorising civilians, humiliating the enemy and ethnically cleansing regions.

But the new survey of rape cases at one of only two specialist clinics in the Kivu provinces of eastern Congo shows that although the majority of attacks are perpetrated by armed men there has been a disturbing 17-fold increase in rapes by civilians.

Susan Bartels, a researcher at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, analyzed 4,311 rapes committed between 2004 and 2008. (ANI)