CIAO DATE: 02/2010
January 2010
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
International responses to the conflicts in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) bordering Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda have been widely criticized as inadequate. The region is poorly understood by the international community. The general international preference for working with states and institutions – in a region where none of these exists in the form familiar to the West – complicates responses significantly. Of major concern is the parallel development of a UN-supported security sector of Congolese personnel who commit violations of human rights violations, making the Congolese army (FARDC) and police (PNC) the major perpetrator group of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). This report argues that, in order to deal with this problem, we must stop seeing sexual violence as solely a ‘gender issue’ that is usually met with scepticism or at best dealt with on an ad hoc basis. Instead, it should be included as a key issue of Protection of Civilians (PoC) and a major operational component in future work on Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) and Security Sector Reform (SSR). PoC is high on the MONUC mandate – but the correlation between intensified military operations supported by MONUC and the Congolese government and the increase in civilian sufferings such as displacement, rape and plunder is a matter of serious concern for any future protection initiatives.
Resource link: Gendering the Security Sector: Protecting Civilians Against Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo [PDF] - 1003K