Evil has a face: gang-rape in Congo

From the NYTimes: "A mob of Rwandan rebels gang-raped at least 179 women last month during a weekend raid on a community of villages in eastern Congo, the United Nations said Monday." The news has been confirmed here and here.*

Evil has a face: man-against-woman brutality, a new weapon of fear. Gang rape is meant to inflict physical and emotional pain and trauma. After a woman is raped numerous times she is tortured. Many are shot in the vagina or penetrated with a machete, sticks, bees, etc (listen to the testimonies in the video).

Women who are raped suffer physical ailments such as bleeding, infection, nausea, sleep and eating disorders, and sexual dysfunction; posttraumatic stress disorder, including nightmares, depression, and paranoia; feelings of fear, anger, helplessness, vulnerability, guilt, self-blame, anxiety, low self esteem, and a deep suspicion of men and sex, which only feeds the sexual myths about women cited above.

In Congo's 10 year civil war, raping has become a prize because it delivers a strategic victory: Safe and soft. Safe, because the raping of women can hardly be compared with face-to-face combat. "Soft" in that there is a perverse pleasure involved; the body of a woman reduced to loot.

Is this appalling violence just about war? How can the identity of a woman become so objectified?

Because rape is considered to bring dishonor to a woman's family and community, there is a culture of silence which aggravates the problem. Humiliation and intimidation of victims by the police, as well as the "embarrassment" of public acknowledgment is common. The culture of silence reinforces the stigma already attached to the victim rather than to the perpetrator, as the dominant perception is that women have generally provoked the abuser to attack. Consequently, many victims are often unwilling to testify about their experiences.** So we get a bizarre combination of a society that stigmatizes rape while harboring rapists.

Can we talk about man's "violence" as a form of cultural perversion? 

We know that the enforcement of violent masculinities come in many forms, their lowest common denominator equates "manliness" with the sanctioned use of aggression, force and violence. This  "manliness" often needs to be renegotiated through the violent subjugation of others, particularly women. So, the question is whether this stereotype of "manliness" actually serves an exploitative

Now, what are your thoughts?

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*Congo is not alone. Gang-rape has spread to other war-conflict zones in Africa. In Nigeria, rape has become alarming. Rape is used by the police as intimidation. Yet, the authorities pay no attention to these crimes, even when photos of the assaults are shown in a national newspaper, and victims' interviews are broadcast on national television (Akande et al 2005; Amnesty International 2006). In Darfur, Sudan the United Nations has since accused the Janjaweed-Arab militiamen -of abducting and gang-raping thousands of women and girls (Mariner 2004). It is estimated that a third of all women and girls in Sierra Leone were subjected to sexual violence in the Sierra Leone conflict of 1991 and 2002. **The raped woman ends up paying the violence inflicted on her by the abuser, who walks away unharmed. In the end, we get this perverse unending cycle: It's precisely because of rape is such a cultural stigma for a woman that it's used so effectively. Peace woman promotes