48 Women an Hour Raped in Congo

It is now two years since I first began studying rape, and over those years I have inevitably come across some awful stories and statistics. Some of them I've published on the blog - from the fact that a South African woman is more likely to be raped than learn to read, to the Pakistani statistic of a woman raped every hour, every second attack is on a minor and every fourth a gang rape. I've raged about defence lawyers' tactics - women wearing skinny jeans couldn't possibly be raped (an Italian example only recently rejected by the courts), women pinned down by the weight of a man is engaged in the missionary position (Assange's lawyers) and the opening gambit of one trial in America a few decades ago where a lawyer span a Cola bottle around and attempted to insert a pencil into the neck. Obviously a woman who doesn't want to be raped can fight back(!) Academic studies which ask women how violent their attack was, delusional muppets claiming to be academics and a textbook which finished a section on sadistic rape with a paragraph on victim impact which began "if the victim survives...".

All terrible things that have led me to rant and rave, and in many cases cry.

But as I stumbled across a Guardian article this afternoon, I had to take a deep breath before reading the article:

Forty-eight women raped every hour in Congo

The systematic use of rape as a weapon of war is not a new discovery, particularly in Congo, but the assertions that rape is beginning to creep outwith the areas of the fiercest conflict and especially into the home are disturbing.

12% of the female population of Congo have been raped, whilst 3% of the female population were raped in a single year between 2006 and 2007, rising to 7% in one province. More than a fifth have been forced to perform sex acts on their partners.

These statistics are even thought by some researchers to even underestimate the problem.

:(