In the village of Walungu, 24-year-old Lucienne M’Maroyhi was home with her two children and younger brother when six rebel soldiers broke in, bound her wrists and ankles and raped her. One after the other.
“When the first one finished, they washed me out with water so the next man could rape me,” she said.
Then they turned to her brother.
“They wanted him to rape me, but he refused.”
So the soldiers stabbed him to death in front of her and her children.
Ms M’Maroyhi was then dragged to a forest camp, where was held captive as the rebel groups’ sex slave. She was raped repeatedly, every day, for eight months.
Make no mistake. This was not an isolated attack committed at the hands of a few rogue soldiers. It was just one part of a systematic campaign of sexual terrorism being waged in a country widely regarded as the worst place in the world to be a woman.
There is a hidden war being fought, and the most frequent targets of this war are women. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, rape is used as a weapon of war.
Yet no humanitarian crisis generates so little attention per million bloody and battered victims, or such a pathetic international response.
Since the Hutu-Tutsi genocide that claimed nearly a million lives in neighbouring Rwanda spilled over into the Congo more than a decade ago, the Congolese army and local militia groups have been fighting over the land – home to some of the world’s richest mineral deposits.
And while the western world may not be directly financing this war, thanks to our obsession with sparkly jewels and technological gadgets we are inadvertently creating an environment where it pays to have it continue. Senior Congo researcher for Human Rights Watch Annneka Van Woudenberg explains.
“The armed groups here fight over the natural resources,” Ms Woudenberg said.
“This is how you buy your guns; this is how you get power. A lot of what goes on in Congo is about the fact it has just about every natural resource under the sun, and people want it.”
The Congo is situated in the west-central portion of sub-Saharan Africa, bounded by Angola, the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, the Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia and the South Atlantic Ocean – a bigger area than Spain, France, Germany, Sweden and Norway combined.
The enormous amount of mineral wealth throughout the Congo makes it desirable land for mining. Cobalt, copper, cadmium, diamonds, gold, silver, zinc, manganese, tin, germanium, uranium, bauxite, iron ore, coal and coltan are found there in abundance. However, despite having some of the richest mineral deposits in the world, people in the Congo are among the poorest, second only to the people of Zimbabwe.
“Whether you have a gold ring on your finger, or you’ve bought a diamond or you have a mobile phone that has coltan in it, or you have copper wiring in your house, chances are that somewhere in your life, you’ve got something that comes from Congo,” Ms Woudenberg said.
Congo is home to 80 per cent of the world’s coltan reserves, a mineral that has become a crucial part of this hidden war in recent years. Used to manufacture pinpoint capacitors used in consumer electronics like mobile phones and computers, coltan is being exported from the Congo at an ever-increasing rate to satisfy the western world’s insatiable lust for the latest in technological gadgetry.
Helen Veperini of BBC News reported coltan exports from the Congo to western markets are directly fuelling the Congolese civil war which broke out in 1998, and continues to wage in the east, despite the signing of peace accords in 2003, and a UN led peace keeping operation that began in 2005.
An estimated 6.9 million people have died since 1998 in the Congo, making it the deadliest conflict since World War II. In eastern Congo, the prevalence of rape and other sexual violence is described as the worst in the world. The United Nations estimates that more than 200,000 women and girls have been raped during the war, some as young as three years.
In brazen contravention of International Humanitarian Law, and in addition to the widespread sexual violence, there have been frequent reports of weapons bearers murdering civilians and destroying property. It is estimated millions are now dead as a direct or indirect result of the fighting, and many hundreds of thousands more have been displaced.
The United Nations estimates Congolese civilians are now dying at a rate of about 45,000 per month due to widespread disease and famine. The same reports indicate that almost half of those who have died are children under the age of 5. This death rate has prevailed despite UN efforts to rebuild the nation.
Philip Alston, a senior United Nations investigator concluded that “from a human rights perspective, the operation has been catastrophic,” as reported by Nicholas Kristof for the New York Times.
According to Kristof, who spent time interviewing rape victims in the African nation earlier this year, the Congolese war is a conflict driven by warlords, greed, ethnic tensions and impunity and has spun out of control.
“While there is plenty of fault to go around, Rwanda has long played a particularly troubling role in many ways, including support for one of the militias,” he wrote in his January 30 column.
Human Rights Watch reports that for every Hutu rebel sent back to Rwanda in 2009, at least seven women were raped and 900 people forced to flee for their lives.
Last year, the United Nations Security Council took a huge step by voting unanimously for a resolution denouncing rape as a tactic of war and a threat to international security.
In the resolution, the Security Council noted that “women and girls are particularly targeted by the use of sexual violence, including as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instil fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group.” The resolution demanded the “immediate and complete cessation by all parties to armed conflict of all acts of sexual violence against civilians.”
However the response of the international community has been described by Human Rights Watch as “incommensurate with the scale of the disaster”.
“Its support for political and diplomatic efforts to end the war has been relatively consistent, but it has taken no effective steps to abide by repeated pledges to demand accountability for the war crimes and crimes against humanity that were routinely committed in Congo,” the organisation claimed in a August 20 report.
According to Ms Woudenberg, the systematic nature in which these attacks on women are carried out makes the conflict situation in the Congo unique from other war zones.
“This is not rape because soldiers have got bored and have nothing to do. It is a way to ensure that communities accept the power and authority of that particular armed group,” she said.
“This is about using it as a weapon of war.”
These rapes are often so brutal that women have died of internal injuries sustained during their attacks. Those who survive are shunned out of fear they’ve contracted HIV or because their attacks were so violent they can no longer control their bodily functions. Almost all are abandoned by their husbands and families who believe their attacks will bring shame to the community.
When asked in January whether he would still marry his girlfriend if she were raped, young Congolese man Saleh Bulondo replied “Never,” reported Nicholas Kristof for the New York Times. “I will abandon her.”
Judith Registre from Women for Women International explains.
“When they take a woman to rape her, they’ll line up the family and other members of the community to witness it,” she said.
“They make them watch. What that means for that woman when it’s all over is total shame, to have been witnessed by so many people as she’s being violated.”
Owing to the difficulty of distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate mining operations, several electronics manufacturers have begun to take responsibility for the role they have played in this ongoing and brutal conflict by forgoing central African sourced coltan entirely. These small steps will begin to draw public attention to the war, but experts stress the onus is still largely on consumers to ask the right questions.
“How many people go into a shop when they’re buying a gold ring and ask, “Where does this come from? How do I know a woman hasn’t been raped in order to get this small grain of gold to a shop?,” said Ms Woudenberg.
“We don’t ask the questions, but we are a part of it. We’re all a part of it.”
Right now, there’s no way of truly knowing whether your new mobile phone or diamond engagement ring is dripping in the blood of a Congolese woman or child, but experts agree consumer demand for legitimate gems and minerals will force industries to act, and then we can begin to work towards peace in the Congo – a task that has proven too difficult for the country to undertake alone.
As for Lucienne M’Mayorhi, she escaped her jungle captors and has taken on the brave task of spreading her story. Let’s hope the fortitude of survivors like Lucienne can inspire world leaders to step up and intervene in this desperate and despicable tragedy against human kind.
- Lara Lavers for WFWI.
“When the first one finished, they washed me out with water so the next man could rape me,” she said.
Then they turned to her brother.
“They wanted him to rape me, but he refused.”
So the soldiers stabbed him to death in front of her and her children.
Ms M’Maroyhi was then dragged to a forest camp, where was held captive as the rebel groups’ sex slave. She was raped repeatedly, every day, for eight months.
Make no mistake. This was not an isolated attack committed at the hands of a few rogue soldiers. It was just one part of a systematic campaign of sexual terrorism being waged in a country widely regarded as the worst place in the world to be a woman.
There is a hidden war being fought, and the most frequent targets of this war are women. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, rape is used as a weapon of war.
Yet no humanitarian crisis generates so little attention per million bloody and battered victims, or such a pathetic international response.
Since the Hutu-Tutsi genocide that claimed nearly a million lives in neighbouring Rwanda spilled over into the Congo more than a decade ago, the Congolese army and local militia groups have been fighting over the land – home to some of the world’s richest mineral deposits.
And while the western world may not be directly financing this war, thanks to our obsession with sparkly jewels and technological gadgets we are inadvertently creating an environment where it pays to have it continue. Senior Congo researcher for Human Rights Watch Annneka Van Woudenberg explains.
“The armed groups here fight over the natural resources,” Ms Woudenberg said.
“This is how you buy your guns; this is how you get power. A lot of what goes on in Congo is about the fact it has just about every natural resource under the sun, and people want it.”
The Congo is situated in the west-central portion of sub-Saharan Africa, bounded by Angola, the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, the Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia and the South Atlantic Ocean – a bigger area than Spain, France, Germany, Sweden and Norway combined.
The enormous amount of mineral wealth throughout the Congo makes it desirable land for mining. Cobalt, copper, cadmium, diamonds, gold, silver, zinc, manganese, tin, germanium, uranium, bauxite, iron ore, coal and coltan are found there in abundance. However, despite having some of the richest mineral deposits in the world, people in the Congo are among the poorest, second only to the people of Zimbabwe.
“Whether you have a gold ring on your finger, or you’ve bought a diamond or you have a mobile phone that has coltan in it, or you have copper wiring in your house, chances are that somewhere in your life, you’ve got something that comes from Congo,” Ms Woudenberg said.
Congo is home to 80 per cent of the world’s coltan reserves, a mineral that has become a crucial part of this hidden war in recent years. Used to manufacture pinpoint capacitors used in consumer electronics like mobile phones and computers, coltan is being exported from the Congo at an ever-increasing rate to satisfy the western world’s insatiable lust for the latest in technological gadgetry.
Helen Veperini of BBC News reported coltan exports from the Congo to western markets are directly fuelling the Congolese civil war which broke out in 1998, and continues to wage in the east, despite the signing of peace accords in 2003, and a UN led peace keeping operation that began in 2005.
An estimated 6.9 million people have died since 1998 in the Congo, making it the deadliest conflict since World War II. In eastern Congo, the prevalence of rape and other sexual violence is described as the worst in the world. The United Nations estimates that more than 200,000 women and girls have been raped during the war, some as young as three years.
In brazen contravention of International Humanitarian Law, and in addition to the widespread sexual violence, there have been frequent reports of weapons bearers murdering civilians and destroying property. It is estimated millions are now dead as a direct or indirect result of the fighting, and many hundreds of thousands more have been displaced.
The United Nations estimates Congolese civilians are now dying at a rate of about 45,000 per month due to widespread disease and famine. The same reports indicate that almost half of those who have died are children under the age of 5. This death rate has prevailed despite UN efforts to rebuild the nation.
Philip Alston, a senior United Nations investigator concluded that “from a human rights perspective, the operation has been catastrophic,” as reported by Nicholas Kristof for the New York Times.
According to Kristof, who spent time interviewing rape victims in the African nation earlier this year, the Congolese war is a conflict driven by warlords, greed, ethnic tensions and impunity and has spun out of control.
“While there is plenty of fault to go around, Rwanda has long played a particularly troubling role in many ways, including support for one of the militias,” he wrote in his January 30 column.
Human Rights Watch reports that for every Hutu rebel sent back to Rwanda in 2009, at least seven women were raped and 900 people forced to flee for their lives.
Last year, the United Nations Security Council took a huge step by voting unanimously for a resolution denouncing rape as a tactic of war and a threat to international security.
In the resolution, the Security Council noted that “women and girls are particularly targeted by the use of sexual violence, including as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instil fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group.” The resolution demanded the “immediate and complete cessation by all parties to armed conflict of all acts of sexual violence against civilians.”
However the response of the international community has been described by Human Rights Watch as “incommensurate with the scale of the disaster”.
“Its support for political and diplomatic efforts to end the war has been relatively consistent, but it has taken no effective steps to abide by repeated pledges to demand accountability for the war crimes and crimes against humanity that were routinely committed in Congo,” the organisation claimed in a August 20 report.
According to Ms Woudenberg, the systematic nature in which these attacks on women are carried out makes the conflict situation in the Congo unique from other war zones.
“This is not rape because soldiers have got bored and have nothing to do. It is a way to ensure that communities accept the power and authority of that particular armed group,” she said.
“This is about using it as a weapon of war.”
These rapes are often so brutal that women have died of internal injuries sustained during their attacks. Those who survive are shunned out of fear they’ve contracted HIV or because their attacks were so violent they can no longer control their bodily functions. Almost all are abandoned by their husbands and families who believe their attacks will bring shame to the community.
When asked in January whether he would still marry his girlfriend if she were raped, young Congolese man Saleh Bulondo replied “Never,” reported Nicholas Kristof for the New York Times. “I will abandon her.”
Judith Registre from Women for Women International explains.
“When they take a woman to rape her, they’ll line up the family and other members of the community to witness it,” she said.
“They make them watch. What that means for that woman when it’s all over is total shame, to have been witnessed by so many people as she’s being violated.”
Owing to the difficulty of distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate mining operations, several electronics manufacturers have begun to take responsibility for the role they have played in this ongoing and brutal conflict by forgoing central African sourced coltan entirely. These small steps will begin to draw public attention to the war, but experts stress the onus is still largely on consumers to ask the right questions.
“How many people go into a shop when they’re buying a gold ring and ask, “Where does this come from? How do I know a woman hasn’t been raped in order to get this small grain of gold to a shop?,” said Ms Woudenberg.
“We don’t ask the questions, but we are a part of it. We’re all a part of it.”
Right now, there’s no way of truly knowing whether your new mobile phone or diamond engagement ring is dripping in the blood of a Congolese woman or child, but experts agree consumer demand for legitimate gems and minerals will force industries to act, and then we can begin to work towards peace in the Congo – a task that has proven too difficult for the country to undertake alone.
As for Lucienne M’Mayorhi, she escaped her jungle captors and has taken on the brave task of spreading her story. Let’s hope the fortitude of survivors like Lucienne can inspire world leaders to step up and intervene in this desperate and despicable tragedy against human kind.
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