Rape in Congo: Now It’s Everybody’s Problem

by Jocelyn Kelly

category: Humanitarian Relief

Published August 14, 2009 @ 07:16AM PT

This guest post was written by Jocelyn Kelly of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.

Rape in Congo: Now It's Everybody's Problem (actually, it was before too)

Jeffrey Gettleman’s piece in the New York Times about male rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo highlights a number of extremely difficult questions in a country that specializes in these. In a society where rape against women is still a taboo issue, how do you address rape against men, which is considered even more unthinkable? How do you bring attention to rape against men without diminishing awareness for women (who still represent the vast majority of cases)? How do you get men to access services when they are too ashamed to admit the attack in the first place?

In a strange case of déjà-vu, rape against men highlights many of the difficulties women face. The stigma of being a victim, the shame associated with seeking medical treatment afterwards, the community taunting which makes the aftermath of the attack even more unbearable. Female victims of rape are called the “wife of the Interahamwe.” So are the male victims.

There is widespread recognition in communities that rape against men has been occurring for years in the DRC. Both women and men have story after story of men who have been raped and sometimes mutilated afterward, though it seems that the recent upsurge in violence has brought an even more pronounced uptick in cases of male rape. Like women, men of all ages seem to be targeted.

One extremely sad feature of male rape is that men seem relatively more likely to commit suicide afterwards. One doctor who saw a male victim who had been castrated made one of the saddest diagnoses I have ever heard. Based on similar cases, the doctor predicted his patient would commit suicide by the end of the month.

It is clear specialized services are needed to help male victims of rape. It is also a good opportunity to remember that rape against women was already traumatizing for men, who felt that they should be able to prevent these attacks as part of their traditional roles of protectors and heads of household. Never mind that men were weaponless facing groups of men with machetes and guns. Counseling for couples and relatives when a member of the family (male or female) is raped is desperately needed. Like many interventions in the DRC, however, this may remain a far off dream.

When thinking about rape against men and women, it doesn’t seem worthwhile to try and compare degrees of pain or attempt to quantify who suffers most. If anything, this is further testament to what happens when brutality is allowed to thrive in a theater of total impunity. If we did not realize before that civilians were the battleground in this conflict, this is yet another reminder.

[Photo of men in the Congo from FredR's photostream on Flickr]