Rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: A Gendered Approach to the Proliferation of Sexualized Violence Against Children

Abstract

Gendered and sexualized violence are serious issues plaguing the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Sexualized violence promotes patriarchal control over populations and leads to the debasing of women and girls in afflicted regions. Sexualized violence and rape are committed to ethnically cleanse regions, assert patriarchal dominance, and incite fear in affected areas. The utilization of rape serves as an effective tool to force girls into a submissive victimized role and taint the ethnic composition of future populations through forced pregnancies. The proliferation of rape has serious connotations for victims and for communities. Rape damages the social cohesion of regions and forces victims to become social pariahs. Sexualized violence creates long-term psychosocial impairments which limit the victim‘s ability to reintegrate into society successfully, and further damages the sense of self that girls, under the age of eighteen, are beginning to develop at the time of their attack.