It is with considerable reluctance that I recommend reading this NYT article on the newest atrocity that has sprung up in the Congo – male rape. While the United Nations already considered the eastern Congo the rape capital of the world, this certainly underscores the ratcheting up of the violence against civilians in the area. Apparently joint Congo-Rwanda military operations against rebels along the border have triggered horrific retaliatory attacks on civilians, resulting in half-a-million civilians being driven from their homes, dozens of villages burned, rape, massacres, and a host of other atrocities. Congolese soldiers have been getting into the act too, according to human rights groups.
And on top of the actual act itself, male rape victims also face considerable stigmatization as they recover. From the article:
The male rape cases are still just a fraction of those against women. But for the men involved, aid workers say, it is even harder to bounce back.
“Men’s identity is so connected to power and control,” Ms. Walker said.
And in a place where homosexuality is so taboo, the rapes carry an extra dose of shame.
“I’m laughed at,” Mr. Mukuli said. “The people in my village say: ‘You’re no longer a man. Those men in the bush made you their wife.’ ”
Aid workers here say the humiliation is often so severe that male rape victims come forward only if they have urgent health problems, like stomach swelling or continuous bleeding. Sometimes even that is not enough. Ms. Van Woudenberg said that two men whose penises were cinched with rope died a few days later because they were too embarrassed to seek help. Castrations also seem to be increasing, with more butchered men showing up at major hospitals.
I think the ‘bush wife’ thing is particularly telling, here (though completely unsurprising). But, as Lynn Harris points out over at Salon, the bush wife insult isn’t ‘just’ a gendered insult – it goes deeper:
The Times doesn’t go into this, but as a gendered insult, “bush wives” is even worse than it sounds. It’s not just “little wifey,” or some such. As described in the Christian Science Monitor, it refers to the widespread, entrenched practice of forcing women to become wives of African soldiers. (Given that the women are expected to stay with — and serve — the men for life, an international criminal tribunal now recognizes this as its own crime, separate from rape and sexual violence.)
So these men in Congo are seen as not just “women” or “wives”; they are “wives” who themselves are “weak” and victimized. Double-whammy, lowest-rung.
I don’t know much about the history of rape and war (I know it’s been used as a weapon in war for time immemorial, but I don’t know if that includes male rape – anybody else know?), but this definitely denotes a new, gruesome low in this seemingly endless conflict.
*Image taken from the NYT article.
