Bac 2011 Oral Test
In regions struck by conflicts and strife, women often become victims of brutal assaults. Rape is systematically used as a weapon, thus effectively debilitating or even destroying entire communities and leaving behind, victims who suffer deep emotional wounds and often also serious physical damage. These women need comprehensive and long-term medical-psychological, legal and social support. Yet they should not be branded as victims, but supported in their role as active individuals.
"In Congo, being a woman -is more dangerous than being a soldier" says charlotte Isaksson, the former Gender Adviser to EVFOR forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The figures speak for themselves: according to United Nations estimations, about 100,000 women were raped in 2008 alone. Often the attacks even took place in public, and according to Venantie Bissima Nabintu of the Women's Network for Justice and Peace (RFDP), frequently the assaulted girls or women were violated by several men at a time. In some cases, the assailants even used bottles or wooden logs.
Some rapists are so brutal that the victim's wounds actually have to be stitched up. Some women even become incontinent. Almost always the victims are emotionally traumatized, and frequently they are infected with HIV or become pregnant. Moreover, they are often socially ostracized and expelled by their husbands, families and communities. A rap d girl automatically becomes an outcast» says Somali peace activist Asha Haji Elmi.
Apparently, Isaksson's statement also applies to other African regions of conflict: during the Rwanda genocide of 1994, approximately half a million women were raped; in Liberia, two out of three. In Sierra Leone, up to 94% of refugee women were violated.
And victims tend to be younger and younger. Seventeen percent of those who received hospital treatment from Doctors without Borders in conflict regions were children younger than 12.
Eleonore von Bothmer, D+C (Development and Cooperation) Vol. 36.2009:4 .168
Vocabulary
To debilitate: to make something become weak.
To stritch up: suture, faire des points de suture.
Incontinent: unable to retain urine.