Tantini Kahindu, 16, sits on September 4, 2010 in her house in the village of Luvungi that was attacked on July 30 by Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and local militias, who raped more than 280 women and minors as punishment for the villagers' alleged support for the Congolese Defense Forces (FARDC).MARC HOFFER/AFP / Getty Images
The ongoing epidemic of rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and new evidence that UN peacekeepers are blind to new rapes being committed , shows the need for accountability and justice to deal with this heinous war crime.
Most recently, Atul Khare, the UN's assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, visited the North and South Kivu regions of eastern Congo to find out why the UN was late in learning about 242 rapes that occurred in six days - only to report that the area's women, children and men suffered at least another 267 previously unreported rapes.
Since the region's war began in 1998, "hundreds of thousands of rapes" have been committed, according to UNICEF, and campaigns of rape continue to flare up, as they did this summer. Behind the statistics is a numbing, tragic legacy for each victim: Physical wounds that maim and can kill; a lifetime of shame, fear and torment.
The rapists have come from the ranks of almost every side in eastern Congo's brutal civil war: Congolese soldiers and policemen; the rebels who are fighting them; both Rwandan Hutus and Tutsis; even, in a few cases, UN peacekeepers.
Peacekeepers have shown themselves to be largely ineffective at stopping rape. But even without them, even during armed conflict, Congo still has a government, laws, courts and judges. They can come to the aid of victims and shake up the culture of complacency and impunity among the war's protagonists .
A greater focus on access to the judicial system is needed. Canada has made a $15.5-million contribution to assist victims in Congo, but an internal government report in 2008 said the project's justice component was "essentially non-functional." While tens of thousands of people received medical and psychological support, by December, 2009, only 1,537 received legal assistance to bring their cases to the courts.
While victims get individual assistance, the ringleaders can be made into examples. The international community was slow to recognize the horror of systematic sexual violence, only recognizing it as a crime against humanity in 2002, and only two men are currently on trial before the International Criminal Court for rape and sexual slavery in the Congo; more arrest warrants could be issued.
An end to sexual violence in eastern Congo will not come through the barrel of a gun. It will come through the determined work of a criminal justice system, even in a country as unstable as Congo, one case at a time.