20100415
press tv

An alarming new report by a renowned aid and development charity says sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is becoming rampant and "normal."

The Oxfam International study, published on Thursday, underscores a 17-fold rise in civilian-committed rapes between 2004 and 2008, roughly 38 percent of the total assaults in the four-year period.

"These findings imply a normalization of rape among the civilian population," reads the report, based on a survey of 4,311 female rape victims in South Kivu province.

This is while much of the sexual assaults in the country are still perpetrated by armed groups. The army and militia are said to have raped tens of thousands of women, with 60 percent of the victims subjected to the horrors of gang-rape.

While filed and forests are also considered dangerous, 56 percent of the affected women were raped in the privacy of their own homes by "armed combatants." The brutal crimes were usually committed in front of their spouse and children.

Some 12 percent of the women involved in the study said they had been sex slaves with some being held hostage for years.

According to the same study, the number of rapes — 150,000 in the past 12 years —saw a dramatic rise during military activities, with more than 9,000 people, including men and boys, raped in 2009.

Eastern Congo, torn by conflict since the mid-1990s, has been a hotspot of Congolese and Rwandan militancy formed in the wake of the genocide in Rwanda.

As rape is highly stigmatized in the culture of eastern Congo, the victim's ordeal is often multiplied by physical, psychological and social consequence including spousal abandonment, the report concludes.

The shocking revelation comes months before the UN is considering leaving the country.