The report is part of, and emerges from, a research project financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) on gender and sexuality within the Congolese armed forces (Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo, FARDC). Hence, the report focuses particularly on the sexual violence committed by the (newly) integrated state security forces, which are responsible for much of the sexual violence committed since their initial creation in 2003.
The report reflects upon various factors that seem to feature especially prominently in various reports (such as rape as a weapon of war, impunity, lack of timely and adequate salaries, and lack of training.) It will also address other factors that have largely been missing in most reporting on the DRC, but which emerged as important in the research (such as hostile civil-military relations, traumas and learned behaviour of the many former ex-child soldiers in the army and norms of militarised masculinity). The report discusses these factors in the following separate chapters:
- Historical and institutional context of the National Armed Forces, providing a historical overview and addressing the challenges posed by the military integration process and hostile civil-military relations;
- Judicial and social factors, focusing on the issue of impunity and the role of poverty and social conditions;
- Sex/Gender: silences and failures, including a discussion of the consequences of the invisibility of men and boys as victims/perpetrators, as well as ideals related to militarised masculinity and sexuality;
- The commercialisation of rape, which highlights some of the drawbacks of a single focus on sexual violence as separate and outside other forms of violence, and the way in which allegations of rape become increasingly entangled in survival strategies;
- and Conclusions and recommendations.
In sum, this report aims at contributing to a better understanding of the circumstances in which sexual violence is committed. In doing so, the report underscores the complexity of GBV and the problems inherent in one-sided explanations and a singular focus on SGBV as separate from other forms of violence.
