The World

Rape destroying Congolese society

The high incidence of rape in Congo is not just destroying women but society, said the general secretary of the Church’s national justice and peace commission, Sister Marie-Barnard Alima.

In Africa, the woman is “the central and most important guardian of values in society”, she said.

Rape is “not just rape,” she said. “It is rape to destroy a person’s dignity” and to “degrade women and to degrade society.”

“The trauma they are subjected to cripples them in all their activities,” she said. Sr Marie-Bernard and others admit the situation is complex.

The UN has called Congo the centre of rape as a weapon of war.

Sr Marie-Bernard said the rapes started when the war began in 1998, but continue today, although the war has ended, because smaller, local militias saw that tactics by soldiers worked. The approach to stopping the rapes “has to be comprehensive”, she said, because the rapes are tied to a web of issues involving power and control.

Studies by the justice and peace commission indicate that, to stop rapes, society must stop the illegal extraction of minerals, especially in the eastern part of the country; resolve the issues of illegal arms; and reintegrate young men into society.

The UN has an arms embargo on eastern Congo but Sr Marie-Bernard said males 16-20 or younger are able to pretty much do what they want as they have weapons.
Edward Kiely, regional representative for CRS, said “those who exploit the mines are strong because they are armed.” Those who have arms can also kidnap and rape women.

“Youth who are not involved in any activities are easily mobilised for other things,” Kiely said. Sometimes that includes working in illegal mines, he said.

Sr Marie-Bernard said when a woman is raped, she is “rejected by her husband and community”.

“A woman’s intimacy is so central to her identity” that, when she is raped, “she loses confidence in herself because she feels she no longer exists as a woman.”

The justice and peace commission is working on “psycho-social accompaniment - accompanying them to help re-establish their self-dignity,” she said. Women are treated as individuals and receive trauma counselling, but also are helped to reintegrate into their communities.

“In these interactions, men begin to relearn the true place of women in society,” she said. Women who have been raped actually lead men through the process, she added. The goal is to “re-establish this sense of respect for women.” – CNS

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