Introduction and statement of research question
Sexual violence in the Republic of the Congo has been one of the most catastrophic feature of the armed conflict that began in 1996. Sexual violence is carried out by the militia groups to intimidate and punish communities and to control territory. Rape has been labelled as a ‘weapon of war’ in the Congo whereby the women’s bodies represent the battlefield. Rape and sexual torture have destroyed communities and have affected its survivors both physically and emotionally. According to Nolen, the Congo 's rape survivors face pain, shame and AIDS. According to the Human Security Report Project, the term sexual violence includes “forced prostitution; sexual slavery; forced impregnation; forced maternity;
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In 2011, Margot Wallstrom, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence described the Congo as “the rape capital of the world” and one of the most dangerous places to be a woman. About 200,000 rapes were reported from 1998 to 2009 (United Nations, 2010). According to UN, armed groups in the country including its workers sexually abused women and girls as young as six months old being committed by all armed groups in the country, including United Nations peacekeepers (Lynch, 2004). In 2007, a report submitted to the General Assembly found that serious abuses were occurring daily and being committed by armed forces, the police, and militarized non-government forces alike (Pacéré, 2007). After gang rapes, soldiers penetrate, inject hot plastics, close the labia entirely, or may even pull a trigger inside the genitalia (Falconberg, 2009). Between 2005 and October 2007, more than 32,000 cases of rape and sexual violence were registered in South Kivu alone, a number suspected to be less than half of all incidents (Holmes, 2007). In June 2008 alone, over 2,200 rapes were reported in the province of Nord Kivu (Lewis, 2008). Wartime rape may be devastating both to victims and perpetrators, causing psychological and physical harm(Cohen & Dara,2013). Documented consequences, includes trauma, shame, stigma, unwanted children, disease, and displacement, and has effects on the durability of postconflict (Cohen & Dara,
There was a war in Sierra Leone, Africa, from 1991 to 2002 where a rebel army stormed through African villages amputating and raping citizens left and right (“Sierra Leone Profile”). Adebunmi Savage, a former citizen of Sierra Leone, describes the reality of this civil war: In 1996 the war in Sierra Leone was becoming a horrific catastrophe. Children were recruited to be soldiers, families were murdered, death came easily, and staying alive was a privilege. Torture became the favorite pastime of the Revolutionary United Front rebel movement, which was against the citizens who supported Sierra Leone’s president, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.
“Before the rape I felt good. My life was in order. I was getting ready to get married. Afterward everything changed. I kind of lost who I was as a person…
The beginning of this brutality started in 1897 when King Leopold of Belgium strived for more land and prosperity. He considered Congo to be “The magnificent African Cake.” He referencing Congo like this is understandable because Congo was three times bigger than the state of Texas, had a beautiful river that would assist in trade and had an abundance of
workers and the position of supervisor is instantly given an incredible amount more power taking
Congo was an astounding bestseller novel. It was a great fictional novel that took place in the depths of the Congo rainforest. The novel was later made into a movie. Both the novel and the movie were good, however, I prefer the novel. It just seemed like a more entertaining piece than the movie. This movie was based much upon the novel, but had many alternatives and a completely different ending than the novel.
The acts of violence that were performed by rebels in Africa were horrific. Adults and children were murdered, mutilated, tortured, and raped. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone performed despicable acts of cutting off a people's body parts with machetes to instill fear in the community. If you were working in the diamond mines and not performing up to the standards of the rebels you would lose a body part as punishment. Rebels would continue to do this from one village to another in order “to take control of the mines in the area” (Hoyt). It is estimated that in Sierra Leone that over 20,000 people suffered mutilation. The acts that the rebels performed to these innocent victims was clearly a violation to their human rights. The RUF collected 125 million a year to fund their war on the government and the people of Sierra Leone.
In chapter 8 of Global Issues, Local Arguments, June Johnson exposes the concept that women are being used as a tactic and war as well as being sexually abused. In “Defending Human Rights: Human Trafficking, Forced Child Labor, and Rape as a Weapon of War, (384-439)”developing countries women are being treated unfairly as well having little say in the government leading to a delay in fixing the issue. Johnson also includes “Ten Radical Acts for Congo the New Year (434-41).” These issues were caused by the end of slavery and thus leading to people needing a new source of workers. The effects of the Ill treatment consist of children and women dying. Many stake holders to fixing the problem is to involve the women in the government. Unless stakeholders
In Canadian society, the numbers of sexually violent incidents in universities continue to grow. Every year, approximately 58.7% of first-year female students experience forms of sexual violence, a growing concern for universities (Senn et. al. Results). Women constantly say they will never be victims of sexual violence, yet studies show that one in four women have been sexually assaulted (Senn et. al. 2). Although sexual violence will never completely be resolved, the policies created by universities across Canada have proven to be ineffective when compared to student efforts. Also, Canadian universities lack a sufficient number of policies that address sexual violence and have a high number of sexual assaults, which demonstrate the ineffectiveness
These are the words of a 15-year-old girl in Uganda. Like her, there are an estimated 300,000 children under the age of eighteen who are serving as child soldiers in about thirty-six conflict zones (Shaikh). Life on the front lines often brings children face to face with the horrors of war. Too many children have personally experienced or witnessed physical violence, including executions, death squad killings, disappearances, torture, arrest, sexual abuse, bombings, forced displacement, destruction of home, and massacres. Over the past ten years, more than two million children have been killed, five million disabled, twelve million left homeless, one million orphaned or separated from their parents, and ten million psychologically traumatized (Unicef, “Children in War”). They have been robbed of their childhood and forced to become part of unwanted conflicts. In African countries, such as Chad, this problem is increasingly becoming a global issue that needs to be solved immediately. However, there are other countries, such as Sierra Leone, where the problem has been effectively resolved. Although the use of child soldiers will never completely diminish, it has been proven in Sierra Leone that Unicef's disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration program will lessen the amount of child soldiers in Chad and prevent their use in the future.
Jewkes, R. (2012) Rape Perpetration: A review. Pretoria, Sexual Violence Research Initiative. Retrieved April 21, 2014 , from http://www.svri.org/RapePerpetration.pdf
“The sweetly sickening odor of decomposing bodies hung over many parts of Rwanda in July 1994: . . . at Nyarubuye in eastern Rwanda, where the cadaver of a little girl, otherwise intact, had been flattened by passing vehicles to the thinness of cardboard in front of the church steps,” (Deforges 6). The normalcy of horrible images like this one had cast a depressing gloom over Rwanda during the genocide, a time when an extreme divide caused mass killings of Tutsi by the Hutu. Many tactics such as physical assault or hate propaganda are well known and often used during times of war. Sexual assault and rape, however, during times of war is an unspoken secret – it is well known that rape occurs within combat zones and occupied territories, but people tend to ignore, or even worse, not speak of the act. There have been recorded cases of rape and sexual assault in almost every war in human history. Genocidal rape was used as a gendered war tactic in the Rwandan genocide in order to accomplish the Hutu goal of elimination of the Tutsi people in whole, or part.
Rape and sexual violence is a very serious problem that affects millions of people each year. Rape is someone taking advantage of another person sexually. Sexual assault can be verbal, physical, visual, or anything that forces a person to join in unwanted sexual contact or attention. ("Sexual Assault.") Rape is one of the most underreported crimes. In 2002, only thirty-nine percent of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to law officials. ("Sexual Violence: Fact Sheet.") Victims sometimes do not report that they have raped because of shame or feeling that it was their fault. It is never the victim's fault. "Victim blaming" is holding the victim of a crime to be in a whole or in partly responsible for what had happened to them. Most victims believe this. ("Myths and Facts about Sexual Violence.")
The war was worsened by the wealthy minerals in the ground and the influence of the mineral was strengthened by the fear and displacement the war caused. The intertwining of these two destructive forces is seen in the story Salima is told by a man who bought her. In this he tells of a man who stuffed”...the coltan into his mouth to keep the soldiers from stealing his hard work, and they split his belly open with a machete”(31). Not only does this story show the harsh conditions the men are exposed to in war, but also it further demonstrates the hold coltan has on the minds of those who live in the Congo. The want for coltan leads to the destruction of the community and individual identities of those involved as it perpetuates a cycle of war that damages men, induces violence against women, and ultimately creates a cycle of lost identity.
Is anyone truly a stranger to nightmares? Has anyone not woken up in a feverish sweat with a racing pulse or pounding heart? Whose eyes have never wildly searched their room for the phantoms of a dream? Now, what if the familiar consolation of learning it was all in your head never came? How do you wake up from a nightmare that is, in fact, a reality? I think I’m getting ahead of myself. What I mean to say is, I was raped, and rape is a nightmare.
Sexual violence, also known as molestation, is the undesired enforcement of sexual behavior on one person by another person. Women are most known for being associated with sexual violence for a long time (Beneke, 2005). A very fast growing form of sexual violence is rape (Beneke, 2005). Rape is the act of intercourse that is forced upon a woman by means of violence. Rape is such a rapid growing form. It is said that if the current act of rape continues, around one in four women will be sexually molested in her lifetime (Beneke, 2005).