Research in Focus with Ndeye Sow (November - December 2007)

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In November 2007, we examined the paper 'Women’s Bodies as a Battleground: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls During the War in the Democratic Republic of Congo' with Ndeye Sow, Gender Policy Adviser with International Alert. The paper tells a shocking story of violence perpetrated against women during the Democratic Republic of the Congo war by combatants on all sides.  It documents the extent and degree of violence inflicted, the long-term consequences that are now becoming apparent, and the responses from official authorities and civil society, including the kinds of support available to victims.  It also examines the motives of the perpetrators – why do fighters on all sides carry out such violence against civilian women and girls? .

Ndeye Sow

GSDRC:

What lead you to conduct this research and to what extent were you already aware of these acts prior to carrying out the research?

Ndeye:

The first war started in 1996, the second war broke out in 1998, and obviously, when we started working in the DRC in 2002 we were already aware of the very large number of violent sexual acts being committed. The women’s organisations we had been supporting and who had been working very closely with Kivuian women on the ground knew what was going on and told us, “Listen, there’s a real problem of violence towards women, something has to be done about it”.  But the problem was not very well known outside of the DRC.

In 2002, the issue of sexual violence against women in the DRC started getting a little bit of publicity especially after a report by Human Rights Watch.  I think that this was the first time that a report was produced aimed at the international community. Of course local organisations had been producing reports since 1997/1998, but these were only really accessed at the local level. The Human Rights Watch report gave the issues visibility on an international stage. We subsequently produced a report in 2003/2004 and after that the World Health Organisation (WHO) and also other international organisations working in the eastern DRC started looking into this in more detail.
 

GSDRC:

One of the key points which struck me when reading your paper was that the repercussions of the violence were felt long after the attacks. As well as severely impacting on women’s physical and mental well being, the violence further exacerbated what you refer to in your paper as the ‘feminisation of poverty’. Perhaps you could talk us through the consequences in a bit more detail?

Ndeye:

Obviously the consequences were tremendous because of the scale of the sexual violence against women but also because so many were affected. The issue of pinpointing a number is difficult; nobody can provide an accurate and precise figure for how many women have been raped and sexually abused. Our report focused on the East and even then it was only in South Kivu.  The violence has been committed in the entire conflict zone of the country.

The physical and mental health consequences have been well documented, but the poverty issue is less well explored. I think it is important to understand that the women who have been raped are amongst the most vulnerable social groups group in the country.  The women worst affected are the main productive force in the rural subsistence economy, as well as the backbone of small-scale local trading in products for everyday consumption an in essential goods. This means that communities in Eastern DRC, depend for their survival on the productive and reproductive work of women. The war and the sexual violence perpetrated against women, has had a devastating effect on women’s economic and social activities, thus contributing in large measure to the erosion of the economic and social fabrics of communities in South Kivu. Sexual violence has led to the lowering of women’s productivity and therefore their impoverishment. Physically and morally weakened, many victims were unable to cultivate the land any longer, or carry on their trading activities. They were also scared to go to the field, because most of the women were raped while they were working on the land.

Part of the reason that the armed groups target women in the fields is not exclusively associated with the intention to commit sexual assault; they also loot food for survival. This is why we’re talking about the feminisation of poverty. These women are the main providers, so being raped not only affects them but it affects the entire community. This is a very deep problem with far reaching consequences and that’s why in the report we discuss the erosion of the economy and of the foundation of rural communities.

GSDRC:

Whilst reading the paper, one of the key questions that I asked myself was why and how could this level of violence be perpetrated.  The paper describes the motives behind the acts as a ‘tangled web of political, ideological, psychological and socio-cultural factors’. One motive mentioned was that sexual violence was seen as a means of survival for the armed troops and you touched on this in your previous answer. Could you maybe elaborate on this idea and on other motivations associated with the violence?

Ndeye: 

I just want to start by saying that why and how this level of violence could be perpetrated was really the starting point of this research.

I have touched on violence being a means of survival for the armed groups and I think that this is fundamental. These armed groups are not structured like a regular army.  An army has a supportive infrastructure for food provision and supplies, which these armed groups do not have. This results in them having to look for food or grow food, they need people to prepare meals, wash their clothes; they need people to take care of them. They often abduct women to fulfil this role; the women are obviously abducted for sex as well but it is also to play a supportive function. The combatants utilise women’s productive and reproductive work as a means of ensuring their own day-to-day survival.

An area we were not familiar with when we started the research, was that of magical power and the ritualisation involved in the sexual violence. It is important to understand that rape and sexual violence play an important part in the construction of masculinity in the region. Women were also raped as part of the process of construction of a model of powerful male combatant, who is invincible on the battlefield. The belief held by many combatants is that raping a specific type of women such as young virgins, pregnant or breastfeeding women, pygmy women, confers magical power and invincibility. This was really something that we did not take into account when we started the research and was a bit of an eye opener.

GSDRC:

The state has largely been unable to provide support for victims, and Congolese civil society organisations have tried to fill in this gap. To what extent do you think civil society has been successful in providing support to women who have suffered this violence?

Ndeye:

Civil society has performed extremely well under very trying circumstances.  Without civil society we don’t know what would have happened to the women affected.  But, obviously, civil society cannot replace state intervention. The organisations themselves are weak; they lack funding, and are short of staff.  But despite this they have helped by providing shelter, health assistance, trauma counselling, and legal assistance; they help these women to rebuild their lives through micro finance or livelihood projects.

The infrastructure in the country also makes support difficult. Civil society has achieved a lot and if it were not for them, the situation would have been worse, but there are limitations to their work.

GSDRC:

The research details incidences of extreme violence and trauma while providing a strong methodological approach and solid dataset analysis. What impact has the paper had on the international community and to what extent have your recommendations been put into practice?

Ndeye:

The impact of this paper at the international community level is probably difficult to assess.  What we can say it has probably played a role alongside other reports that have been produced which I mentioned at the beginning of the interview.

We have, however, tried to publicise the report and the findings as much as possible. For example in March 2004 we took a delegation of three Congolese women to present the findings at the Commission of the Status of Women (CSW) at the United Nations in New York. We organised a panel during the CSW, which was attended by seventy people coming from the UN system, diplomatic missions to the UN and the international community.  After New York we took the representatives to Washington where we organised another panel with the Woodrow Wilson Centre which is a research institute which does advocacy work, has a programme on Africa and also works on the Great Lakes. This panel was attended by the major American NGOs working on the DRC. At both panels, we believe we were able to convey the extent of the sexual violence in DRC. Even more important though was that it was the Congolese women who worked at ground level who presented the findings of this research. 

The report’s recommendations were mainly addressed to the UN Security Council, the international community, and the DRC government. One of the main recommendations was around the issue of compensation. This is difficult because how do you quantify compensation to women who have been so affected by violence and who have lost their livelihood and their economic means because of this violence?  Obviously the international community perceive this as a very sensitive issue and it is going to be extremely difficult to compensate these women.

A similar kind of recommendation was made through the DRC government in that money was being allocated from the international community for the reconstruction of the country. One of our recommendations was to make sure that part of this money is allocated to women’s groups and women who have been affected. There is a Ministry for Gender but which is not very strong and effective.  This is problematic and we are not very optimistic that the aid that is supposed to be going to women, will reach its target audience. 
However one of our recommendations, to tighten the legislation on sexual violence against women, has been achieved.  There is now a law which has been passed by parliament a few months ago, which defines rape and sexual violence as a crime against humanity.  There are issues around how this law is going to be implemented but at least it has been voted by parliament – this is a first.  The constitution, which was adopted by a referendum last December, also contains references against sexual violence which also displays some very significant gains made at that level.