Weapon of Choice

The world of weaponry is constantly expanding with the innovation of nuclear weapons and such. However, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo murderers are finding a way to end more lives than Suddam Hussein and Hitler combined. Ironically, it has been a human bodily function since our creation: sex. Rape is today’s most effective weapon of war and it is constantly destroying the lives of women but by destroying the women of a community the entire structure crumbles. This is the logic behind systematic gang rapes and mutilations performed by the teams fighting this war, including the Congolese army. The extreme violence against specifically women has grave implications for the whole society, making it swifter than an AK-47.

"Today in the Congo it is much more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier." Rape is more effective than a bomb because of the implications it leaves for the entire community. It is not just about soldiers who want to be with a woman, sensual arousal is the last thing on their minds.

“Often male relatives are often forced at gunpoint to rape their own daughters, mothers, or sisters; and that frequently, women are shot or stabbed in their genital organs after they are raped. Sometimes broken bottles or corn cobs are shoved into the women's genitalia after the rape.”

The estimate number of women raped is 400,000 a year, a rate equal to 48 women an hour.

These women are considered lucky if they are only gang raped and mutilated. Other than the physical and psychological damage (and the fact that the majority of these women will not receive basic medical attention) these women are left with shame and it is not uncommon for their spouses or parents to reject them after they are attacked. Villages are losing entire female populations along with their sense of worth as a whole.

“Rape tends to undermine the victim group’s tribal structures, because leaders lose authority when they can’t protect the women.” When word of the shaming spreads villages are vulnerable to more attacks.

Congolese are growing up in a world where rape is common. The acceptance of such brutal crimes is becoming a social phenomenon.

“‘It’s gone beyond the conflict,’ said Alexandra Bilak, who has studied various armed groups around Bukavu, on the shores of Lake Kivu. She said that the number of women abused and even killed by their husbands seemed to be going up and that brutality toward women had become ‘almost normal.’” The increase in violence against women as a normal part of society is proving these rapists right.

All video credits go to CBS news. The following content may be disturbing.

Photo Credits go to Getty Images / Uriel Sinai. The image is of women at a hospital in the Kivu region all of which had been gang raped.