Sexual Violence in the DRC: Part 2

As my colleague Rissi said to me ‘We can be blogging about our mission to DRC for years’. We really could do that but rather than blog for years we shall blog for the rest of the month on the DRC and our experiences from undertaking a Mission to the DRC with colleagues from other donors including OSISA and Global Fund for Women as well as women’s rights activists from Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Guinea.

Personally one of the visits that will forever stick in my mind will be the one to ‘Hopital de la Muya’ where we met a doctor and nurse working with sexual violence survivors who gave us very detailed information on the challenges with sexual violence in the Mbuji Mayi province.

Hopital de la Muya has been supported by donor agencies particularly the UNFPA to provide free services and medication to survivors of sexual violence. Nurses and doctors have been trained to provide basic treatment to survivors of sexual violence. Survivors come from a variety of backgrounds. Child victims are brought in by the police or their parents and street children come in by themselves or with a delegation. 95% of the victims are female with victims sometimes being as young as 3 years old. A 2007 report by the hospital cited the following statistics for sexual violence.

Ages 1 – 9: 105 cases
Ages 10 – 17: 515 cases
Ages 18 – 24: 127 cases
50+: 6 cases

On the day we visited the hospital, there had been 7 survivors of sexual violence who had attended the hospital the previous day. Being fully aware that our delegation was visiting the hospital the doctor had asked the 7 patients and their parents whether they will be willing to meet with the delegation. The youngest survivors we met were 3 and 5 years old. There are no words to describe how one feels when you come across a 3 year old rape survivor. Just think about any 3 year old you know…As the doctor explained, many of these young girls end up with collapsed vaginas as a result of the assault they have endured. For some women their uterus becomes damaged after rape. We were told about one such case of a woman who had been so severely raped that her uterus was damaged but only came to the hospital 2 months after the incident. She refused to admit that she had been raped by several men as traditionally raped women are divorced by their husbands.

The Doctor cited attitudes towards women in the Kasai region as the cause of the high levels of rapes and sexual violence. In his words:

‘Violence happens because men in the Kasai regard women as objects. I can say this because I am Kasai…families want dowries replaced when girls have been raped’.

The hospital has been doing some sterling work on sexual violence apart from providing free services and medication to sexual violence survivors. A commission has been set up and part of what they have been doing includes trying to explain that a raped woman has not committed adultery (which is the traditional view). Traditionally if a man decides to ‘take back’ his raped wife, the dowry will have to be repaid to the man. The belief is that the man will die if he doesn’t take back the dowry.

The room in which we met with the Doctor and Nurse working on sexual violence, was the same room where survivors of sexual violence are seen and on the wall is a poster which shows the various punishments for committing sexual assaults. As was pointed out to us, the laws are not upheld and several aggressors are released after being held in jail for a day or two. We were all emotional after we left the hospital and one of the (two) a male member of our delegation was so angry that he was advocating for the penises of all rapists to be chopped off! That reminded me of a previous post by Bisi on the Ugandan woman who had cut off the penis of a man whom she had caught red-handed in the process of violating her daughter. What are your thoughts?

Nana Sekyiamah
Programme Officer
Fundraising & Communications