Congo Justice Report Launch

Women in the Democratic Republic of Congo who have been raped during war are being imprisoned for aborting their resulting pregnancies, and then being left to starve in overcrowded cells. This is just one of the findings of a recent report, ‘Justice, Impunity, and Sexual Violence in Eastern DRC’, which was put together by a group from the UK parliament called the APPG Great Lakes of Africa. At the launch of the report, Jonathan Mance, the British Law Lord who headed the team, said that the time he had spent in the Congo was a “quite shocking experience”. Having recently returned from the DRC myself, I can safely say that Mance’s assertion that “government is little more than a phantom” in the east of the country is mirrored in the west.

By taking a close look at the DRC’s budget, however, Mance has put into concrete terms exactly how neglected the justice system is. The country budgets just $6 per prisoner per year, so starving behind bars is common, unless the prisoners can find a way to either bribe a guard, or break out. A lack of funds for new prisons means that overcrowding is endemic, and Mance highlighted one prison in Goma where 600 people were crammed into a facility built for 220. Many of those locked up are imprisoned without trial, due to the lack of effective legal proceedings, and while damage awards for military crimes totaling $1.5 million have been awarded, not a single penny has ever been paid. The entire budget for damage awards is just $5,000. Mance urged that the most important step was to “support, or rather, introduce the rule of law” as “justice is one of the pillars of a democratic state” and essential to “rid the DRC of the threat of random or targeted sexual violence.”

Also at the launch, Marie-Claire Faray, from Common Cause UK, a group which gives a platform to Congolese women, spoke passionately about the way that “war has shattered the lives of women”. She said that women in the Congo who have been the victims of sexual violence “live a non-existence, they are wreckages. Like vegetables, in so much sadness.” She highlighted the link between poor governance and the continuing violent attacks on women when she described them as “a consequence of a state which is not working” and asked “how can we implement protection for women when we are living in a state of anarchy?” “We have a human catastrophe happening before our eyes”, she said, and the only solution is that “power needs to go back to the people”.

Later, at an event to mark ten years of the APPG, former MP Oona King, who established the group, added her voice to those expressing their concern for the region, remarking wryly that while people in the UK might complain about public services, in the Congo there are “18 million people with no access to any services”. Both events demonstrated that while intervening in the internal politics of foreign countries is a difficult and controversial area, sometimes a different perspective can be essential in identifying problems and suggesting solutions.

This article was originally published by Ctrl.Alt.Shift