The war within the war: Sexual violence against women and girls in Eastern Congo

Abstract

Human Rights Watch conducts regular systematic investigations of human rights abuses in some 70 countries around the world. This report for the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo) is based on research carried out in North and South Kivu provinces an area controlled since 1998 by rebel forces fighting the government of President Kabila. It is noted that sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war by most of the forces involved in this conflict. In some cases soldiers and combatants raped women and girls as part of a more general attack in which they killed and injured civilians and pillaged and destroyed their property. This report focuses on crimes of sexual violence committed by soldiers and other combatants. While crimes committed by common criminals are not examined in detail it does document cases of attacks by armed men when there are indications that the perpetrators might have been combatants. Such indications can be the language of the attackers their weapons their degree of organization or the pattern of abuse against civilians. Few women brought charges against rapists despite the direct profound and life-changing consequences for the women and girls attacked and for their wider communities.

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