Multiple armed groups are active in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, fueling a longstanding crisis of sexual violence.
A large crowd gathered around the open sides of the makeshift courtroom in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) town of Kamanyola in early March to watch the culmination of a trial of 15 military officers for the child rape.
They watched in silence, some craning their necks to get a better view, as a soldier removed the epaulettes of a colonel who had just been ordered by a judge to be dishonorably discharged from the army and sentenced to seven years in prison for raping a girl. 14 year old local last time. September.
“The fact that a very high-ranking officer has been sentenced is a very powerful message that no one is above the law,” said Judge Innocent Mayembe, who found 12 of the soldiers guilty.
The trial, from February 27 to March 9, by a mobile military court offered a rare opportunity for justice for rape in conflict-hit eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where about half the women have suffered violence. sexual in some way.
During the trial, which was held in an outdoor wooden structure, several victims and the father of one victim gave testimony wearing specially designed hoods that obscured their faces, an indicator of the fear of stigma that prevents many from coming forward. .
“I don’t have friends anymore,” said one victim.
Holding the hearings in the local community helps “show people the need to report cases of sexual violence,” said lawyer Armand Muhima, whose organization funded the trial. “The goal … is to educate people so that they know that the law is there for everyone.”
Muhima works for the Panzi Foundation, an organization created by Nobel Prize-winning gynecologist Denis Mukwege, which campaigns to help the hundreds of thousands of women raped in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo since the region fell into conflict in The 1990s.
The Second Congo War, which killed millions of people, formally ended in 2002, but Congolese forces continue to fight multiple armed groups in the eastern regions, fueling the longstanding crisis of sexual violence.
In a 2014 report on fighting impunity for such crimes, the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office in the Congo (UNJHRO) said some progress had been made.
But “the majority of cases of sexual violence are never investigated or prosecuted, and very few are reported,” he said.
The same year, the government launched an action plan to combat sexual violence by members of the military, under which hundreds of commanders pledged to denounce the cases.
In 2022, 314 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including 71 soldiers and 143 members of armed groups, were convicted of crimes related to human rights violations and abuses, including sexual violence, according to UNJHRO, which supported 12 investigations by military courts and seven mobile courts. hearings
Mobile courts, funded mostly by foreign donors, have been operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for more than a decade, bringing judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys to remote villages in an effort to show local communities that crimes committed far from urban centers are not beyond the reach of justice. scope of the law.
Even when cases open, the court process can be slow.
On Monday, the NGO Congolese Society for the Rule of Law asked authorities in a statement why it had taken more than a year to schedule a trial for the defendants in connection with the rape of more than 100 women and girls in a high-profile case from 2016. .
The father of a victim in the Kamanyola trial said he only wanted justice for his daughter.
“I need to see this case come to an end according to the law. I don’t ask for anything (more),” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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