In the Democratic Republic of Congo, women are the first victims of the armed conflicts that have ravaged the country for more than 20 years.
26,908 Congolese women were raped between January and June 2020, according to the UN Women representative in the DRC. This violence is the result of the instability that reigns in the country. Since 1996, numerous armed conflicts have been raging in sub-Saharan Africa. Notably in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where since the end of the 1990s, a dozen armed groups often manipulated by neighboring states – Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi – have been waging constant wars. Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi has not succeeded in restoring authority in the east of the country, in Kivu, which has been hardest hit by the attacks.
Already in 2018, there were more than 500,000 women victims of sexual violence in the country in 20 years. During armed conflicts, women “are in the majority of cases, the first victims”, explains Pulchérie Nomo Zibi, director of “Women, Security and Development”. And they are especially victims of extreme sexual violence. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, rape has become a real strategy of terror and a weapon of war.
Culture of violence and rape
This climate of violence has led to the installation of a culture of rape in the country and in the region, explained by the almost total impunity of the perpetrators of these crimes, according to the UN. Beyond the strategic significance of rape, men increasingly believe that they are allowed to rape women. Women, terrorized, are then forced into silence. For the DRC specialist, Thomas Turner, there is a more general “culture of violence” that has emerged during the decades of violence linked to the armed conflict. There is also a “culture of rape,” which is prevalent in all patriarchal societies.
The culture of rape in the DRC is also rooted in its colonial history. The country is a former Belgian colony. “Vivid memories and testimonies of the grotesque and spectacular violence inflicted on the Congolese describe sexual atrocities similar to those that took place in the current conflict in eastern DRC “*. These colonial forms of sexual violence are thus the cradle of the horrors that continue to plague the country.
To break the silence on these rapes, the voices of women survivors in eastern DRC have been raised in the film Sema, directed by Macherie Ekwa Bahango. The film, written and acted by the survivors, revisits their stories, the stigmatization and the many aftermath they have experienced. These women belong to the Survivors of Sexual Violence movement in the DRC, which brings together victims and survivors of sexual violence in war. The movement is supported by the Mukwege Foundation. Sema is also a means of raising public awareness about rape as a weapon of war in armed conflict. A forum for these victims who rarely have access to a voice.
Mélanie Costa
The film is available for free on Youtube :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=uAZDJHXiGcU
Credit: Poster from the film Sema
*Sexual Violence in the Congo Free State: Archival Traces and Present Reconfigurations by Charlotte Mertens
