A woman who was pregnant by a rape stands at the doorstep in a transit center, where other victims who survived from sexual violence, at Keshero Hospital in Goma, North Kivu.
“It has probably become more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in an armed conflict,” said Patrick Cammaert, a former UN force commander. Due to a decade-long armed conflict in the Eastern Congo, it has been the Congolese women who have been suffering from the worst kind of the sexual violence in the world: using rape as a weapon of war. In the peak year of 2007, the sexual violence recorded 13,247 cases a year; approximately 36 rape cases a day. Although the number of the “cases” has been dwindled to 4,689 cases a year in 2011, the number has again increased since 2012 when the new rebellion called M23 mutinied against the Congolese Army (FARDC) and the government until the end of 2013. However, the sufferings of women did not end with the peace accords. The victims, who barely survived from the rapes – often by deadly gang rapes with additional assaults – continue to be afflicted by the physical, psychological, and socio-economic trauma long after the end of the conflict.
