We represent women’s human rights organisations and their NGO partners in Africa. Our work on a daily basis confronts gender inequality and seeks to ensure the protection of women’s rights and bodily integrity. Nowhere are these rights more violated today than in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). From 21 September to 1 October 2008, our organisations were in fact in the DRC as part of a delegation of women from the African continent, and witnessed first- hand some of these challenges, and received testimonies from women survivors of these violations.
We condemn the renewed outbreak of violence in the East of the country, and we are particularly concerned with the human rights and situation of women and girls who have been the targets of a concerted campaign to use rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war over the past decade.
We issue this letter to the SADC, the African Union secretariats and the United Nations, demanding that they take urgent action to broker a political solution to the long-standing crisis in the DRC, in order to protect the lives of all Congolese.
To this end, we call upon:
• The African Union to condemn the use of rape and sexual violence as weapons of war, and immediately call for a cease-fire. Articles 14 of the AU Peace and Security Protocol (PSC) recognises the need to assist vulnerable persons including children and women in states that have been adversely affected by conflict;
• The African Union to actively monitor the immediate implementation of the Great Lakes Pact, beginning with condemning military support to the CNDP;
• The DRC government and Parliament to fully comply with their constitutional duty to protect their people, especially women and girls, without any discrimination;
• The CNDP to cease using civilians as pawns in their military objectives;
• Countries surrounding the DRC to refrain from fuelling conflict by providing weapons, and not to target women and girls’ bodies as sites of war;
• Women’s organisations across the continent and in the SADC region to amplify the voices of women and girls in the Congo, and support their struggles, especially in this fresh and renewed crisis;
• The UN to move quickly to protect women from rape sexual violence in line with its own Guidelines on Gender-Based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Settings (2005) that calls upon communities, governments and humanitarian organizations, including UN agencies, NGOs, and CBOs, to establish and coordinate a set of minimum multi-sectoral interventions to prevent and respond to sexual violence during the early phase of an emergency. We specifically call upon the UNHCR to ensure that the UNHCR Sexual and Gender-Based Violence against Refugees, Returnees and Displaced Persons: Guidelines for Prevention and Response (2003), which details the various responses that, in the event of abuse or violence against women, are required to help victims, including the need for legal redress and access to medical and psycho-social support are fully implemented in DRC.
• The UN to push for the implementation of resolution 1325 (Articles 9 & 10) that calls on all parties of armed conflict to apply international law, recognize the conventions and protect the rights of women and girls in armed conflict.
• All actors; national and international, to take into account and document cases of sexual violence to enable implementation of Resolution 1820 that recognises rape and sexual violence can constitute war crimes and should be dealt with as such. This will facilitate access to justice and ending impunity on SGBV in situations of armed conflicts.
• Humanitarian agencies to provide immediate relief, including medical aid, to survivors of violence to address women’s immediate needs.
The Situation of Women and Girls in the Country
Women in the DRC currently face a myriad of challenges, ranging from sexual and other forms of violence, poor social service, a lack of social security, poor health and high levels of poverty. Human rights advocacy has always been a risky domain in Congo for most of its modern history. Women live under the dual cloak of politically-imposed silence, as well as silence due to their gender. Eastern Congo, a region twice the size of Uganda, has borne the brunt of brutal military campaigns since 1998. Tens of thousands of women have been raped by multiple armies from Congo and neighboring countries, often as part of a strategy to humiliate communities and destroy social structures and norms. Many of these women are still in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, still recovering from this trauma and particularly struggling with their sexual and reproductive health. In IDP camps their protection is still not fully guaranteed and some continue to suffer further violence by those who are supposed to protect them. The region has seen massive population displacement, disruption of agricultural activities, and acute poverty. As a result, the standard of living has drastically lowered, with food security becoming a daily struggle, primarily for women and girls whose rights to land and livelihoods have always been tenuous. Overall, across the country, women face social marginalisation and reap very few benefits from their labor. The summary below is indicative:
• International Alert, Human Rights Watch, UNICEF and the United Nations have documented the systematic use of rape as a strategy of war in Eastern DRC since 1996. A 2004 WHO report gave a modest estimate that over 40,000 women were raped: NGOs in the DRC estimate more.
• 61 percent of HIV positive persons are women; and 30 percent of rape survivors in Eastern DRC are HIV+;
• DRC ranks among the top 6 countries worldwide with the highest maternal mortality rates;
• DRC has 85 percent unemployment, the majority being women;
• 45 percent of women in the DRC are illiterate;
• In Dec. 2005, 60 percent of voters in a national referendum on a new Constitution were women; an indicator of their hopes for democracy;
• In July 2006, 13.5 percent of candidates for legislative seats were women.
Since the violence flared up again two months ago, an estimated 200 000 people have been on the move – many of them women and girls. There are now over 1 million IDPs in the Eastern DRC, as estimated by the UN;
Despite the signing of numerous peace accords, including the Great Lakes Pact, the Nairobi communiqué and the Amani process, the tensions in the East have continued to simmer since 1994, with outbreaks of war in 1996, 1998, 2003, 2006 and again in 2008, this time led by General Laurent Nkunda’s CNDP;
At risk are human rights defenders – especially women’s rights defenders who speak against the massive rape and sexual violence in the region – members of civil society organisations who provide humanitarian and legal assistance to the local population, and tens of thousands of ordinary civilians, including women and children, many of whom are victims of sexual violence which continues to be used as a weapon of war.
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SIGNED:
Action AID International
Contact person: Mary Wandia
Tel: 254 733860036
African Women’s Development Fund
Contact person: Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi
Tel: +23321 521257
Global Fund for Women
Contact person: Muadi Mukenge
Tel: Tel: +1 415 248-4817
Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa
Contact person: Sisonke Msimang
Tel: +27 11 403 3414
