Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (original) (raw)

2008, Jama-journal of The American Medical Association

The scope of this paper is far narrower than the scope of the conflict itself. What will be treated in these pages cannot even be said to constitute the tip of the iceberg of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is only a part of a far greater conflict. In light of the recent release of the United Nations' (UN) "Mapping Report," this paper deals mainly with sexual violence perpetrated in the eastern DRC from 1993-2003. The instances that are addressed here have been chosen as representative of the nature of the conflict because they illustrate the specific challenges faced in bringing perpetrators to justice. Many of the proposed legal approaches to postconflict rebuilding in the DRC take transitional justice mechanisms into account. Due to the severity and magnitude of social and psychological trauma suffered, transitional justice has an important role to play beyond the legal context in the DRC. "In modern wars, the greatest casualties of the conflict are civilians. 1 During these attacks, female civilians are subjected to the same violence to which male civilians are subjected. Both are murdered, tortured, displaced, imprisoned, starved and subjected to slave labour. Yet in addition to these crimes, women and girls are also singled out for additional violence-gendered violence-that is commonly manifested in the form of sexual violence." 2