Show Navigation

Jean Chung

  • Portfolio
  • About
  • Contact
  • Video
  • Archive
    • All Galleries
    • Search
    • Cart
    • Lightbox
    • Client Area

Jean Chung

All Galleries

30 images Created 20 Aug 2018

Tears in the Congo: Survivors of Sexual Violence 2008~2014

After a decade-long armed conflict, more than 5,4 million people are displaced in IDP camps and villages in Democratic Republic of the Congo. By 2008, there were 800,000 IDPs in North Kivu province alone. Congolese people - especially women- suffer from the worst sexual violence in the world, whereas average 14,245 rape cases a year are reported in the country. Women get raped in farms, jungles, homes, schools, and even inside IDP camps. Many of them suffer from physical condition called "traumatic fistula" which are often caused by brutal gang rapes that leave victims with no control over urination or defecation and, therefore, spurned by all.
View: 100 | All

Loading ()...

  • After a decade-long armed conflict, more than 5,4 million people are displaced in IDP camps and villages in Democratic Republic of the Congo. By 2008, there were 800,000 IDPs in North Kivu province alone. Congolese people - especially women- suffer from the worst sexual violence in the world, whereas average 14,245  rape cases a year are reported in the country. Women get raped in farms, jungles, homes, schools, and even inside IDP camps. Many of them suffer from physical condition called "traumatic fistula" which are often caused by brutal gang rapes that leave victims with no control over urination or defecation and, therefore, spurned by all.
    01.JPG
  • Congolese men carry a coffin of a 15-year-old boy who died in an IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp in North Kivu. After a decade-long armed conflict, more than 5,4 million people are displaced in IDP camps and villages in Democratic Republic of the Congo.
    02.JPG
  • A Young Tutsi rebel from CDNP (Congré National pour la Defense du Peuple) stands guard with a Kalashnikov in Bunagana, in March 17, 2008, where the commander of Laurent Nkunda, was reportedly arrested by the Congolese-Rwandan joint forces in January, 2009. After Nkunda's arrest, a peace treaty was signed, and there is an integration process with former CNDP militiamen and the government soldiers. In 2008 when the rebel fightings were intensified, average 14,245  rape cases a year were reported in the country. Women were raped in farms, jungles, homes, schools, and even inside IDP camps. Many of them suffered from physical condition called "traumatic fistula" which were often caused by brutal gang rapes that left victims with no control over urination or defecation.
    03.JPG
  • Young Tutsi rebels from CDNP (Congré National pour la Defense du Peuple) holding Kalashnikovs in Bunagana, in March 17, 2008, where the commander of Laurent Nkunda, was reportedly arrested by the Congolese-Rwandan joint forces in January, 2009. The armed conflict between different rebels and government forces had resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and more than 1.4 million internally displaced persons in the Eastern Congo from 2004 until now. The sexual violence was rampant towards women and children, which left them dead or mentally and physically traumatized.
    04.JPG
  • Newly-arrived victims of sexual violence share the beds inside Kichanga Transit Center, supervised by Mama Jeanne, the responsible counselor for Hope in Action/CRN. The age of rape victims range from two years old to over sixty years old. These women here will wait until the beds in Goma's hospital will be available and get treated. The transit center receives between 10-15 victims of sexual violence in various villages in and around Kichanga, and only has 15 beds. They usually share a bed like these women here, or sleep on the floor in the saloon.
    05.JPG
  • Dr. Philip Dirksen, far right, an American doctor from Sacramento, Calif., along with Congolese doctors and nurses, performs the operation of a victim of sexual violence at Gesom Hospital, in Goma, North Kivu province, Monday, March 10, 2008. The doctor said the patient's urethra had been severely damaged by the rape, and despite her first operation, she was unable to control her urine. He performed the surgery that day to open her abdomen, and connect the tubes from the kidney to the colon, which at least would make her continent.
    06.JPG
  • Victims of sexual violence rest in a recovery room after the operations at Gesom Hospital, in Goma, North Kivu province, Monday, March 10, 2008. These women have “traumatic fistula” problem, which was caused by being punctured or cut by sharp objects by the offenders. The injury causes the urine leaking. Doctors operate fistula repair surgeries, then connect the plastic hoses to their urethras.
    07.JPG
  • A solitary tear trickles down on Immaculée's cheek as she receives a pain-killer injection at Keshero Hospital, which specializes in victims of sexual violence in Goma, North Kivu province. Eighteen-year-old  Immaculée was raped by three militia men from FDLR (Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo) in the Masisi area, and was pregnant from the rape. Her fistula problem was so complex, and she was transfered to Panzi Hospital in South Kivu in mid 2008. She is still staying at Panzi as of April, 2009.
    08.JPG
  • Tuombe, 18, stands by a plastic sheeting at Keshero Hospital in Goma, North Kivu province, Thursday, March 6, 2008. Tuombe said she and her eight-year-old sister, Odetta, were raped by three gunmen from FDLR (Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo) in September 2007 as the two sisters were farming potatoes. Tuombe was discharged from the hospital in mid 2008, and now went back to her village in Numbi, South Kivu.
    09.JPG
  • Victims of sexual violence, some of them also gave a birth to babies from the rapes, sit inside the jeep provided by an NGO to the Kichanga transit center in Kichanga, Masisi Territory, before heading back to their homes. Most of their homes were far away from the point where a jeep can access, then they would have to walk back to their villages which take as long as three to five hours. The route that they took was notorious for the armed bandits and FDLR  (Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda) militias.
    10.JPG
  • Victims of sexual violence at right, some of them also gave a birth to babies from the rapes, stand alongside the road to Kichanga, as a pick-up truck of government soldiers drives by.
    11.JPG
  • (from center to left) Bonane, Maombi, and Mbarabukeye, all victims of sexual violence, drink warm milk inside Kichanga transit center before heading to their villages in Kichanga and Nyanzale villages. Bonane lives in Kichanga center, however, Maombi and Mbarabukeye lived in a faraway village which could take up to five hours on foot. The region was so volatile and rough, the jeep could not access.
    12.JPG
  • Ayingeneye, far left, Maombi (with a baby), and Mbarabukeye, far right, walk back to their village in Nyanzale, after they were dropped off from a jeep in Mweso, March 14, 2009. These women lived in a faraway village which could take up to five hours on foot. The region was so volatile and rough, the jeep could not access.
    13.JPG
  • The day after Bonane's return, three of her four children and the husband returned home as well without knowing she would be home. The family was out of touch for three years since her hospitalization, and owned no mobile phones. The 52-year-old husband, far right, who was still wearing a wedding band, did not remarry, and sent his three daughters to the relatives houses and lived with their only son in the mud hut during Bonane's absence. The husband said, "When I saw her bleeding after the rape, I was worried. I informed the village chief so that she could be treated. I said to my wife that I would take her back if her sickness is cured."
    14.JPG
  • Mapendo Sakina, 20, is a teacher's assistant who is also a high school student in Kichanga, breast-feeds her one-year-old son, Fiston, who was born out of rape. According to her, she was raped by two Rwandan rebels in 2007. She also gave a birth to a boy, and once disowned by her father. Now back home, her parents finally accepted her and her child as members of family. She wants to be a math teacher.
    15.JPG
  • Mapendo Sakina, 20, far left, stands in her family's courtyard with her mother, other siblings, and her father, far right, who is a pastor in Kichanga. The father once disowned her after learning she was pregnant from the rapes, but accepted her after she gave a birth. He had her younger sister quit the school to pay for Mapendo's education and to help her become a math teacher.
    16.JPG
  • Esther, 23, at right, heads to the transit center as she carries her suitcase on her head in Buhimba, North Kivu. She walked like this for about half hour to the transit center. Ester said she was raped by two Rwandan rebels when she was farming in the field in June 2004. She was married and pregnant at that time, and lost her baby. Her husband left her after he visited Heal Africa three times. She return to her village in a volatile Rutshuru Territory 10 days later.
    17.JPG
  • Niyonzima Joyeuse, 48, second from left, prays along with other victims of sexual violence during the church service on Easter Day in Goma, April 12, 2009. Originally from Rubaya in Masisi Territory and a wife of a pastor, Joyeuse was violated by a gunman in Nov. 2008. She was treated in a hospital in Coma and returned home two days after this photo was taken with a help of an NGO.
    18.JPG
  • Masika Katsuva stands with the orphans she was taking care of inside her compound of transit centers and the orphanage in Minova, South Kivu. A victim of sexual violence herself, she was violated by at least 12 armed rebels after witnessing the killing of her husband in Vitchumbi in 1998. Two of her daughters and her mother were also violated. However, she defied the odds and became the community leader of 770 women and run the shelter for 19 victims of sexual violence and 49 war orphans and children who were born out of rape in Buganga.
    19.JPG
  • This victim of sexual violence said she was raped by Intrahamwe, a Hutu militia, about one year and half ago in her home in Masisi. She said she was beat up so much and her ear bled. She still had some hearing problems up to now.
    20.JPG
  • A 10-year-old girl, at right, was sexually violated so that her legs were paralyzed and she became mentally ill. She was staying at Heal Africa's Transit House along with other victims of sexual violence and children who were born out of rape.
    21.JPG
  • Three-year-old Orthance, at right, was raped by three armed FDLR rebels in May, 2014, in Nyavbibwe village, Minova, South Kivu. She was raped just one month before this picture was taken. Her aunt was raped by five gunmen. Orthance was staying at Mama Jeannette's transit center in Himbi along with other survivors of sexual violence.
    22.JPG
  • 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. <br />
“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.
    23.JPG
  • Masika, at right, holds a baby who was born out of rape along with other victims of sexual violence and the babies from the rapes at the transit center she runs in Buganga, Minova in South Kivu. As of June, 2014, there were 19 women and 49 children in the shelter, 30 of them who were born from the sexual violence and abandoned by the fathers.
    24.JPG
  • Maj. Honorine Munyole Sikujua, left, looks at a 13-year-old victim of sexual violence who came to the Police for Women and Children (PELVS: Police pour la Protection de l'Enfance, de la femme et de lutte contre les Violences Sexuelle) in April 7, 2009, Bukavu, South Kivu. <br />
The victim came with her uncle to report another uncle who raped and impregnated her. The baby died, and she had a fistula problem. Maj. Honorine called the ambulence from Panzi Hospital to hospitalize her.
    25.JPG
  • A prison clerk calls for each accused civilian perpetrator including the accused with rape charges to go outside the Central Prison gate to the makeshift civil court in Goma. The prison building was burnt by a riot in Oct. 2008, and the civil tribunals were being held just outside the prison. Sexual violence cases in Eastern Congo now not only limits to military cases, but there is a significant increase of civil cases as civilians also commit rapes at all times.
    26.JPG
  • In the city of Bukavu, South Kivu, the crime of sexual violence among civilians was also rising high during the conflict. The man in the center was accused of violating a 13-year-old girl and he was taken to the booking center after the mother reported him to the police, April 8, 2009. Here, he will stay for 48 hours, then to the prosecutor's jail. If he cannot prove him guilty or bribe to the judges, he will be sent to prison.
    27.JPG
  • After a calm but rather emotional testimony by a seven-year-old Elizabeth Nabuloho, center, her defense lawyer at left lays his hand on her. With a trembling voice, she said she was raped by Jackson, the man standing second from right, who was a tenant of her mother's house. "He said he would hit me if I told anyone about this," she said to the judges. Her mother kept her underwear with blood stains, but there was no way to prove it in a scientific way in the Congo. Jackson, along with his lawyer, denied the charges.
    28.JPG
  • Ndayisenga Faustin, 20, far right, is a former militiaman from FDLR  (Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda), who is inside prison with a rape charge. He was charged with raping and sexually molesting his 12-year-old half sister.
    29.JPG
  • As the majority of sex offenders are armed men - both rebels and soldiers - out of more than 14,000 rape cases a year, only a very handful of suspects are put in prison in Goma, which holds 700 prisoners with various criminal charges. Omari Konglo, 27, right, and other accused rapists from the Congolese Army (FARDC) stand by the charred wall inside Goma's Central Prison in March 2009 where it was burnt from the riot the year before. The prison did not have the exact number of those who were charged with sexual violence. Some men were imprisoned simply because they were arrested by the Police of Women and Children, others were attending their court appearance for audiences, and others were sentenced for several years.
    30.JPG