“We cry for help”: Caring for victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – Democratic Republic of the Congo

DRC: Doctors Without Borders publishes alarming figures on confessions of sexual violence

Amsterdam/Barcelona/Brussels/Geneva/Paris, September 30, 2024 – In a retrospective report published on Monday, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced that it had – together with the Ministry of Health – treated an unprecedented number of victims and survivors of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2023, and that this the upward trend continued in the first months of 2024. The medical-humanitarian organization calls on all national and international stakeholders to take urgent action to better prevent this phenomenon and improve care for survivors.

In 2023, MSF teams in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) helped treat 25,166 victims and survivors of sexual violence across the country. That’s more than 2 per hour.

This figure is by far the highest number ever recorded by MSF in the DRC, based on data from 17 projects set up by MSF in support of the Ministry of Health in five Congolese provinces – North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri, Maniema and Central Kasai. In previous years (2020, 2021, 2022), MSF teams in the country treated an average of 10,000 victims per year. The year 2023 therefore marks a huge increase in the number of admissions. ​

This trend accelerated in the first months of 2024: in North Kivu province alone, 17,363 victims and survivors were treated with help from Doctors Without Borders between January and May. Not even halfway through the year, this already represented 69% of the total number of victims treated in 2023 in the five provinces mentioned above. ​ ​

Displaced women are the first victims

The 2023 healthcare data presented in the report has been analyzed and verified over several months”We call for helpshows that 91% of victims treated in the DRC with the help of Doctors Without Borders were admitted to North Kivu province, where clashes between the M23 group, the Congolese army and their respective allies have been taking place since the end of 2021, causing hundreds of thousands of civilians were forced to flee.

The vast majority of victims (17,829) were treated in IDP locations around Goma, which continued to grow in 2023. ​

“According to the testimonies of our patients, two-thirds of them were attacked at gunpoint,” said Christopher Mambula, head of MSF programs in the DRC. “These attacks took place at the sites themselves, but also in the surrounding areas when women and girls – who made up 98% of the victims treated by Doctors Without Borders in DRC in 2023 – went out to get wood or water, or to working in the fields.”

While the massive presence of armed men in and around IDP locations explains this explosion of sexual violence, the inadequacy of the humanitarian response and inhumane living conditions in these locations fuel the phenomenon. The lack of food, water and income-generating activities increases the vulnerability of women and girls (1 in 10 victims treated by Doctors Without Borders in 2023 were minors), who are forced to move to neighboring hills and fields where there are many armed men. The lack of sanitation and safe shelter for women and girls makes them vulnerable to attacks. Others are victims of sexual exploitation to support their families.

“On paper, there appear to be many programs to prevent and respond to victims of sexual violence. But in practice at IDP locations, our teams struggle every day to refer victims who need help,” said Christopher Mambula. ‘The few programs that exist are always short-lived and severely under-resourced. Much more is needed to protect women and meet the urgent needs of victims.

Urgent calls to action

Based on the needs of the victims, and building on previous work to solve this long-standing problem in the country, the MSF report lists around twenty urgent actions to be taken by the parties to the conflict, the Congolese authorities – national, provincial and local – but also international donors and the humanitarian sector. For MSF, there are three key areas where urgent action is needed.

First and foremost, MSF calls on all parties to the conflict to ensure respect for international humanitarian law. In particular, it calls for an absolute ban on sexual violence, but also for respect for the civilian character of IDP locations. The protection of civilians involved in the fighting must be a priority. The call to protect civilians from abuse is also addressed to those involved in humanitarian programs.

Secondly, Doctors Without Borders calls for improvements in living conditions in the locations for internally displaced people. Indeed, access needs to be improved to basic needs – food, water, income-generating activities – and to safe and well-lit sanitation and shelter. These investments must also be accompanied by greater efforts to raise awareness about sexual violence. While humanitarian financing must be flexible enough to respond to emerging and urgent needs, implementing partners must also demonstrate responsibility in delivering interventions.

Finally, MSF calls for specific investments in better medical, social, legal and psychological care for victims of sexual violence. This requires long-term funding to improve medical training, the delivery of post-rape kits to healthcare facilities, legal support and the provision of shelters for survivors. Funding is also needed for awareness-raising activities to prevent stigmatization or marginalization of victims, which sometimes prevents them from seeking help. Given the high number of abortion requests from victims, MSF also calls for amendments to the national legal framework to ensure access to comprehensive medical abortion care.

Sexual violence is a major medical and humanitarian emergency in the DRC. According to the latest information on the Gender-Based Violence Area of ​​Responsibility (GBV AoR) DRC1, which collects data from several humanitarian organizations providing gender-based violence care services in 12 provinces of the DRC, 55,500 survivors of sexual violence in medical care in the second half of the DRC. quarter of 2024.

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1 République Démocratique du Congo: Bulletin d’information du GBV AoR Avril – June (T2) 2024 (Août 2024) – Democratic Republic of the Congo | HelpWeb