Africa: New Reports Indicate Rising Cases of Torture and Gender-Based Violence
By Staff Writer
New report on rape as a form of torture published and launched on Monday June 2 in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC) by a UK-based charity, Freedom from Torture, shows that rape as a form of torture has been routinely used since 2006 by Congolese security forces.
The findings also including army and intelligence officers in the capital Kinshasa and elsewhere to punish politically active women, come in the wake of organized protests condemning President Joseph Kabila's government. The protestation are for its failure to prevent sexual violence in Democratic Republic of Congo, by women's rights activists.
The charity, which documents evidence of torture and offers treatment and counseling to survivors, based its findings on forensic reports of scars and injuries relating to 34 women aged between 18 and 62.
More than half of these women had been gang-raped, by up to 10 men in some instances, the charity said. In one case alone, 68 scars were recorded on a woman; 56 of them attributable to an incident of gang rape in which she was also tied up, stamped on, burned, bitten, beaten, and kicked with heavy boots.
Sexual violence in Congo is often regarded as a byproduct of fighting in the east with atrocities blamed on soldiers and rebels - but rape is also rife beyond the country's conflict zones, said the charity during the launch of the report.
“Rape and other forms of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are not limited to the war zones in the eastern parts of the country - women detained miles away from conflict are suffering in similar ways to those in the east,” it says.
DRC has been bedeviled with more than two decades of armed conflict, sexual violence against women and widespread impunity for their abusers.
“These report is based on evidence from doctors' examinations of women raped and violated in the DRC who subsequently sought help from the charity, and asylum in the United Kingdom, can be adopted by African countries to help curb this inhuman acts on the continent,” said the activists.
Majority of the women involved in the survey report were based in Kinshasa, far away from the conflict zones, and the evidence shows that sexual violence is largely being used as a form of torture not in the battlefield but by the authorities in detention camps.
Faith 24, a woman rights activist was not attacked and assaulted, but it was not in Congo's lawless wild east, widely labeled "the rape capital of the world" for its endemic sexual violence, but in Bas Congo, in the southwest, by Congolese police at five in the morning who came to arrest her, hitting her small children with their gun butts, leading her husband outside, never to be seen again.
"You are talking about rape, now we'll show you what rape means," the police officers told Faith, before raping her 15-year-old niece in front of her. They then took Faith to prison where she was raped so many times she lost count.
"I was protesting against rape - I didn't expect to become a victim of it," she said while talking to the charity.
Much of the abuse is taking place in prison or en route to detention, it said, adding that many victims had little hope of obtaining justice due to widespread impunity and fear of retaliation by the perpetrators.
"The soldiers and the prison guards, they don't see women as human beings, they don't see any value in women," she said. "I can't even remember how many times I was raped."
Wherever it is committed, the effects of sexual violence are the same.
Women across Africa and especially DRC are suffering in silence. They don't know where to turn for advice, counseling or any kind of support. The infrastructure system in place is not enough to help them.
The adoption of a law against sexual violence in 2006 and the promulgation of the law criminalizing torture in 2011 are simply not enough. Lack of implementation and insufficient resources mean that well-meaning initiatives are not bringing changes in practice.
And for offenders to be prosecuted and victims to get justice, the judiciary must be and act independently in carrying out its mandate, survivors must be compensated and rehabilitated, and the population must be educated about sexual violence and ways of supporting survivors.
Torture is intended to silence its victims and it is therefore all the more important that the survivors of this abhorrent practice are empowered to speak out. Doing so will ensure that they are no longer stigmatized, instead recognized as having a vital voice in finding durable solutions.
But again, there is no point raising awareness of survivors' rights if there is no enforcement of the law to which every citizen is entitled to.
Survivors Speak OUT! Network, formed by a group of torture survivors and former clients of the British-based charity, Freedom from Torture, who draw on their personal experience to influence decision-makers and raise public awareness of the challenges facing survivors trying undergoing rehabilitation, hope that the government of the DRC will improve the conditions of detention camps and allow regular visits by international monitoring bodies.
“We hope the United Nations will help end the conflict in the east of the country which gives the DRC government an excuse to hide behind, while committing these atrocities,” network says.
Freedom from Torture also hopes that the UN will ensure the DRC government respects the human rights conventions it has signed up to, including the UN Convention Against Torture.
“We applaud the UK's leadership of the initiative to stop sexual violence in conflict and hope this report proves how vital it is that in the DRC this effort is expanded beyond the conflict zone and throughout the entire African continent.” Said Kolbassia Houssaou, Coordinator of Survivors Speak OUT! Network.
This is a long list of hopes and that many of them will not be easy or quick to achieve. But this report shows the alternative in a country and continent where women continue to suffer sexual torture in silence, without access to support or justice, and where perpetrators continue to act with impunity.
As torture survivors, our personal experiences have shown us that somehow hope does remain, even in the very darkest hours. So we SPEAK OUT! with the hope that the DRC can again become a place where women and men live in freedom, safety and with their human rights and dignity restored and intact.
Meanwhile in Nairobi-Kenya another new report was released on June 3 by Nairobi women’s Hospital Gender Violence Recovery Centre Kenya, raising concerns over the rising cases of gender-based violence in the country and the isolation of men in efforts to address it.
The report was unveiled during a press briefing on '1 million Fathers Movement' campaign, by FEMNET Regional Programme Associate, Alberta Wambua, indicated there were 1,864 cases reported with sexual violence cases taking the lead at 84% and physical violence accounting for 16% of the cases.
"3% of the cases were sodomy; sexual violence associated with robberies and abductions was 14 percent. Sexual violence perpetrated by fathers - 17%, sexual violence associated with drugging – 10%," she explained in the presentation of the 2013-2014 Gender Based Violence (GBV) report.
Out of the 10% of the victims drugged; more men and boys than women and girls were being sexual abused after being drugged as compared to previous surveys.
The report however, indicated more women (56%) and girls (36%) bear the wrath of violence compared to men (3%) and boys (5%).
It also showed that whereas most Kenyan men are opposed to raping women, 40% of the 3,000 sample of men interviewed said it is not rape if sex is forced on a drunken woman.
"The boys said yes, when a woman is drunk she is calling on rape herself," Wambua says.
The research study further indicated that 33% of respondents at the Coast and 30% from Rift Valley believe that; "some women get raped because they behave or dress in a way that that is ‘skimpy’ making men to want to have sex."
As per Gender Violence Recovery Centre Group Chief Executive Officer, Ken Otina, gender-based violence in the African continent, especially Kenya, continues to rise due to ignorance and stereotyping of men as violent.
“Men have been isolated from efforts that address gender based violence making it difficult to uncover underlying issues that lead to violence,” says Otina.
Nairobi Women's Hospital Chief Executive Officer, Sam Nthenya brains behind 'The 1 Million Fathers Campaign' urges Kenyans to support the effort intended to create awareness and stop gender-based violence in the East African country.
‘The 1 Million Fathers Campaign’ was launched in July 2012 intending to ask men to join the fight against all forms of gender-based violence, in view that 8 cases are being reported daily and 30 cases during the weekend and public holidays at the recovery centre.
”We want the campaign to be a phenomenal call during Fathers' Day which will be marked on June 15,” said Nthenya.
We challenge all African men, especially in East Africa region to become active crusaders of defending rights of both women and men, boys and girls, who have lately joined the statistics of sexual abuse.
We also intend to ensure that the campaign reaches out to perpetrators and vulnerable perpetrators so as they desist from gender based abuse which is a serious criminal offense in Kenya under the Sexual Offences Act.
Members of the public who suffer or witness gender based crimes were should report using the hotline number, 116 and any other emergency numbers available.