Rape of women in DR Congo 'tops 1000 a day' - Africa. More than 1,100 women are raped every day in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), making sexual violence against women 26 times more common than previously thought, a study has concluded. More than 400,000 women and girls between the ages of 15 to 49 were raped in the war-ravaged country in central Africa during a 12-month period in 2006 and 2007, according to the study published in the American Journal of Public Health on Wednesday. That is 26 times more than the 15,000 women that the United Nations has reported were raped there during the same 12 months.
"Our results confirm that previous estimates of rape and sexual violence are severe underestimates of the true prevalence of sexual violence occurring in the DRC," Amber Peterman, lead author of the study, said. 'Chronic underreporting' The study, which gathered data from 2007, did not capture sexual violence among girls younger than 15 years or women older than 49 years and did not include sexual violence among boys and men. Teenage lesbian is latest victim of 'corrective rape' in South Africa | World news. Ndumie Funda, the director and founder of Luleki Sizwe Project, a charity that assists lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women in the townships of Cape Town. Photograph: Robin Hammond A 13-year-old lesbian has become the latest victim of "corrective rape" in South Africa, prompting activists to call for direct retaliatory action.
The girl, who is said to be open about her sexuality, was raped in Pretoria last Thursday, a government spokesman said. Campaigners say so-called corrective rape, in which men rape lesbians to "cure" them of their sexual orientation, is on the increase in South Africa. Thirty-one lesbians have been killed because of their sexuality in the past decade, campaigners say, and more than 10 lesbians a week are raped or gang raped in Cape Town alone. Last month, a 24-year-old woman who belonged to a gay and lesbian rights group was stoned to death after an apparent gang rape. Possible action includes disrupting imminent local elections. South Africa activists speak out against rape of lesbians | News Story on 365gay.com.
Weapon of War. [Trigger warning for sexual violence on a mass scale.] One of the most heinous expressions of a rape culture is the use of rape as a weapon of war—and, as has been previously discussed here, the prevalence and intensity of ongoing, endemic sexual violence against women in Congo has been described as the worst in the world. Hundreds of thousands of women have reportedly been raped in Congo, with sexual violence so widespread that Doctors Without Borders has said "that 75% of all the rape cases it deals with worldwide are in eastern Congo. " In August, a mass rape was reported in the town of Luvungi, during which hundreds of women were raped by rebels over the course of four days. And now it has happened again: "Dozens of women were raped in a coordinated attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo on New Year's Day, Doctors Without Borders said Thursday. " The humanitarian agency said 33 women were raped in Fizi, South Kivu, in the eastern part of the war-torn country.
" 5,600 survivors of rape. Javier Bardem: Peace for Congo's Mothers. Shocking Congo rape statistics show husbands - not just soldiers, rebels - perpetuate the problem. Shocking statistics are coming from a new report on rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Skip to next paragraph Recent posts Subscribe Today to the Monitor Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS ofThe Christian Science MonitorWeekly Digital Edition More than 400,000 women were raped in a 12-month period in 2006-07, according to a new study by three public health researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute, Stony Brook University in New York, and the World Bank.
The study, due to be published in the American Journal of Public Health in June, found that 1,152 women were raped every day during that time frame – a rate equal to 48 per hour. Think you know Africa? The number of women raped at least once in the conflict-torn eastern province of North Kivu – 67 per 1,000, according to the study – means a woman there is more than 100 times more likely to be raped than a woman in the United States. That's the real story, according to Monitor correspondent Jina Moore. Congo soldiers explain why they rape.