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The global, the ethnic and thegendered war: women and rape ineastern Democratic Republic of CongoJill Trenholma, Pia Olssona, Martha Blomqvistb & Beth MainaAhlbergac

a International Maternal and Child Health, Dept. of Women's andChildren's Health/Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala University,Akademiska sjukhuset, SE-75185 Uppsala, Swedenb Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala University, Box 256,SE-75105 Uppsala, Swedenc The Skaraborg Institute for Research and Development,Stationsgatan 12, SE-54130 Skovde, SwedenPublished online: 05 Mar 2015.

To cite this article: Jill Trenholm, Pia Olsson, Martha Blomqvist & Beth Maina Ahlberg(2015): The global, the ethnic and the gendered war: women and rape in eastern DemocraticRepublic of Congo, Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, DOI:10.1080/0966369X.2015.1013440

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2015.1013440

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The global, the ethnic and the gendered war: women and rape ineastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Jill Trenholma*, Pia Olssona, Martha Blomqvistb and Beth Maina Ahlberga,c

aInternational Maternal and Child Health, Dept. of Women’s and Children’s Health/Centre forGender Research, Uppsala University, Akademiska sjukhuset, SE-75185 Uppsala, Sweden; bCentrefor Gender Research, Uppsala University, Box 256, SE-75105 Uppsala, Sweden; cThe SkaraborgInstitute for Research and Development, Stationsgatan 12, SE-54130 Skovde, Sweden

(Received 26 March 2013; accepted 22 October 2014)

The purpose of this study was to illuminate the perspectives of women whoexperienced sexual violence perpetrated in the warscapes of eastern DemocraticRepublic of Congo. Civilians are targeted for rape, loot and pillage yielding deleteriouseffects on the social fabric and the sustenance the community provides. The article isbased on 11 qualitative semistructured interviews and 4 written narratives from womenof reproductive age, recruited from organizations providing support post-sexualviolation. The study departs from a larger ethnographic project investigating thephenomenon of war-rape. Thematic analysis guided the analysis through the theoreticallenses of structural violence and intersectionality. The women expressed totalinsecurity and a multitude of losses from bodily integrity, health, loss of family, lifecourse possibilities, livelihoods and a sense of place; a profound dispossession ofidentity and marginalization. Pregnancies resulting from rape reinforced stigma andburdened the survivor with raising a stigmatized child on the margins of society.Perpetrators of rape were mostly identified as Interhamwe (Rwandan Hutus rebels) whoentered Congo after the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Their goal, according to thewomen, was to spread HIV and impregnate Congolese women, thereby destroyingfamilies, communities and society. The women survivors of war-rape describedexperiences of profound loss in this conflict which has global, ethnic and gendereddimensions. Congo’s conflict thus requires critical reflection on how local wars andsubsequent human suffering are situated in a matrix of globalization processes, enabledby transnational actors and embedded in structural violence.

Keywords: sexual violence; gender; war; Democratic Republic of Congo; structuralviolence; globalization processes

Introduction and background

This article is about war rape in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), focusing

on the dispossession and suffering expressed by women who have been raped in this

ongoing conflict of global complexity. Issues surrounding survivors’ strengths and

resiliencies are addressed in a separate article.

Rape is a nonconsensual sexualized attack on bodily boundaries and integrity. Not

only is it the most intimate of physical assaults, it also entails culturally constructed norms

surrounding the sacredness of sexuality. The potential for infection and impregnation only

compounds the psychological and long-term impact.

Sexual violence in war is nothing new but has become more visible with the rise of

‘new wars’, defined as inter- or intrastate low-intensity conflicts involving transnational

q 2015 Taylor & Francis

*Corresponding author. Email: jill.trenholm@kbh.uu.se

Gender, Place and Culture, 2015

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2015.1013440

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actors and characterized by rape, plunder and massacre targeting civilians (Kaldor 2006,

2013). Though these wars are fought locally in the Great Lakes Region of Africa,

including the resource-rich DRC, both overt and clandestine transnational actors are

embroiled. These local battles then appear as contestations for nation state and/or ethnic

identities, rather than claiming territories, though territory and resources can be

contentious (Kaldor 2006). Considering how people in this study have been affected, low

intensity is relative to where one stands. Mass terror targeting civilians is an explicit goal

to annihilate the ‘enemy’ society, destroying individual integrity as well as the greater

infrastructure. Warring factions and associated ideologies are difficult to identify in these

wars, most frequently situated in (post)colonial countries. Sites of war are described as

warscapes (Nordstrom 1997) or ‘struggles over geography’ (Korf, Engeller, and Hagmann

2010, 396), landscapes of assured uncertainty, violence and volatility where inhabitants

eke out not only an existence but also a life trajectory over time, transforming their social

and cultural relations (Lubkeman 2008). New wars, with implicit global participation,

create negotiated warscapes described as social spaces under construction (Massey 2005).

Sexual violence practiced in war, either systematically or randomly, with or without other

standard weaponry, avows the penis as a potent weapon in which to bring the humiliated

enemy ‘other’ to their knees (Bourke 2007). Rape taps into a cultural complexity,

particularly gendered constructions surrounding the vulnerability of women, who often are

seen as property of their social group (Seifert 2002). Men are constructed as strong,

aggressive and entitled, simultaneously deemed the protector of ‘their’ family (Snyder

et al. 2006). One can incur more damage to the male enemy ‘other’ by sexually violating

‘his’ associated females, a territorial battle played out upon women’s bodies, marked not

only by gender but also by ethnicity. A pregnancy from rape accentuates this territorial

claim, leading to long-term destruction of society through stigmatization of the mother and

her children. Rape serves as an intimidation tactic where banditry thrives with impunity,

rebels and soldiers alike, loot and pillage to meet their basic needs (Kaldor 2006).

There are a number of theories concerning war rape that highlight a common salient

feature: how gender constructions and associated power relations underpin rape’s

existence (Trenholm 2008). This was evident in the experiences of women in this study.

Rape in war has historically been seen as an expression of power over the ‘other’,

relegating subordination through the sexual act (Brownmiller, 1975). The fact that men are

more often killed and women raped further substantiates this gendered practice.

The conflict in DRC, ongoing for over a decade reflects the targeting of civilians with

the dubious distinction of extremely high levels of rape. Precise statistics are difficult to

obtain due to the sensitivity of rape and its stigmatizing consequences. Based on

demographic survey, Peterman, Palermo, and Bredenkamp (2011) reported that 48 women

were estimated to be raped every hour within a 12-month period. Another study showed that

approximately 40% ofwomen in eastern Congo reported sexual violence, with 74% of them

identifying their experience as war-related rather than domestic (Johnson et al. 2010).

Themost common formof sexual violation encountered in this settingwaswomen raped

bymen, althoughmen and children have also been affected (Trenholm2010;Wikstol 2012).

Testimonies of rape survivors abound in DRC, but a deeper analysis into the intricacies of

the aftermath of war rape from the perspectives of the affected women is lacking. This

article thus focuses on suffering and loss as described by women affected by rape in this

warscape, embedded in global geopolitical and economic processes (Meger 2011).

The DRC was originally a creation of the ‘west’ when arbitrary boundaries were drawn

during the Berlin conference in 1884, which laid claim to parts of the African continent with

little regard for land rights and existing ethnic and linguistic boundaries (Pakenham 1991).

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Prunier (2009) has described Congo as cursed by its wealth of natural resources and plagued

by a history of opportunistic rulers and invasive neighbours. DRC is the source of 80% of the

world’s coltan, an essential component for electronic devices (Prendergast 2013), among

other valuable metals and minerals. The country has become the focal point for what some

describe as ‘the widest interstate war in modern African history’ (Pike 2006). The brutal

Belgian colonial exploitation of rubber continued under the western supported cold war

puppetdictator,Mobutu,who further embezzledDRCresources, implying that themajority of

the people have not benefited from the wealth of their country. The grabbing of resources

continues unabated as ethnic-based rebels, fueled and supported by a broad array of foreign

interests who, in turn, reap their rewards. Autesserre (2012), however, warns that a

reductionist analysis of viewingCongo’s resources as the sole cause ofwar prevents one from

addressing other multiple factors implicated such as poor governance, gender power

differences, class and ethnicity. Gender-based sexual violence has been instrumentalized in

this warscape as a tactic to terrorize the local people, enabling all manner of illicit income-

generating activities despite the presence of the largest UN peacekeeping deployment in

history (MONUSCO 2012). The women in this study named the Interhamwe rebels as the

major perpetrators of rape. The Interhamwe are Hutu rebels and are part of the former

‘genocidaires’ who fled fromRwanda after that genocide and were subsequently barred from

returning but were also pursued within the DRC (Prunier 2009). Rwanda has been heavily

implicated in the Congo conflict (Hege 2012).

An in-depth history of the Congo is not within the scope of this article, suffice to say that

Congo has been shaped by these events which serve as important ethnographic background.

Theoretical lenses

This article highlights human suffering as described by women who have been sexually

violated in eastern DRC warscape. In our view, this suffering and loss needs to be

understood in part as the micro-level manifestation of enormous inequalities resulting

from global, political and economic structures (Galbraith 2002). Although the rural

women may not express their suffering in global terms, the suffering they describe reflects

on how globalization, resource use, etc. manifests at the micro-level. The suffering, they

describe thus need to be viewed with critical lenses. Critical theory is therefore employed

in order to promote a deeper reflection on the nature of global/local social organization and

change (Tyson 2006) and its impact at the micro-level. ‘New wars’ therefore do not occur

in a vacuum. Unrest and suffering described by participants of this study, in such a

resource-rich postcolonial setting can be said to be a result of transnational influences over

time and perpetuated by institutionalized or structural violence as described by Farmer

(2004) and Galtung (1971). However, it is not just global institutions and structures that

should be addressed. Rather, it is how they intersect with other markers of power,

including those at the micro-level. Intersectionality (Crenshaw 1991) is therefore

employed to situate the unique intersections of gender construction, ethnicity, culture and

history present in this warscape. Situating the suffering expressed by people in their daily

lives in a broader context of globalization processes specifically the neoliberal system with

its ever expanding markets for cheap raw materials to satisfy hyperconsumption regardless

of human cost illuminates the inherent complexity (Harmon-Snow and Barouski 2006).

This gives a more nuanced view of the local womens’ suffering and subjugation, but this

also suggests that programs instituted by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) may

give some relief, recovery calls for more fundamental changes in socioeconomic and

political systems.

Gender, Place and Culture 3

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Institutionalized structures come under scrutiny through the critical theorizing of

Galtung (1971) who coined the concept of structural violence, further categorized into visible

and invisible. The visible is what he calls direct violence that in this context is the sexual

violation perpetrated against women by multiple militia groups fighting for over a decade in

DRC. The invisible includes both cultural and structural forms of violence (Galtung 1971).

Theway thewomendescribe their low status in the family and communities informs a cultural

construction of gender or the restrictions of women’s sexuality, comportment and

motherhood. Perhaps the most invisible structural violence is the normalization of social

and institutional structures that have evolved over time to favor certain groups/regions and in

the process harm others by preventing them frommeeting their basic needs, creating disparate

global realities (Galtung 1971). Farmer (2004) elaborates, using the example from rural Haiti,

that the inhabitants in low-income countries do not have equal opportunity to take advantage

of advances in health care, as a consequence ofglobal structural processes that not only impede

access to advanced knowledge but also have obliterated existing indigenous knowledge.

Farmer (2004) lifts the contradiction of the empty hospitals in Haiti, not because the people

have no pathologies, but rather because patients have nomoney to pay for care or the care they

need is absent. The ‘historical understanding of the large-scale social and economic structures

in which affliction is embedded’ is thereby highlighted (Farmer 2004, 305).

While structural violence, its operative systems and organizations draws attention to

the macro- and meso-levels, intersectionality deepens the inquiry by highlighting identity

politics at the site of intersecting socially constructed identities (Crenshaw 1991), i.e.

worker, mother, wife, postcolonial subject, woman, ethnicity, etc. Intersectionality posits

that one’s multiple identities, accompanied by certain markers of power (or lack thereof)

become cumulatively constitutive of the individual/subgroups unique oppressions.

Intersectionality refutes universal categorizations such as ‘women’ as a homogenous

group, arguing for a view which encompasses multiple identities, personal characteristics,

life conditions, history and geographical spaces, influenced by temporal and other spatial

dimensions (Crenshaw 1991). Gender, class and ethnicity are among those features that

communicate at the intersections where contextual ‘norms’ are continuously re-created

and purveyed through written, discursive and performative practices resulting in multiple

realities (Potter and Wetherell 1987). These features intersect and interact in ways that

render them more than the sum of their parts.

Intersections of gender, ethnicity, rurality and warscapes as geographic spaces, poverty,

etc. are evident in both the perpetration and victimization of war rape in DRC. In ethnic

clashes, the ‘enemy’ group targets the ‘other’ warring groups’ women, central to survival of

progeny and the purveyors of cultural norms, all under the macro-gaze of the global

community. The rape of the enemy’s women reminds the enemy men operating within

nonhegemonic masculine constructs, they have failed to protect ‘their’ women (Snyder et al.

2006) and the bearing of children after rape disturbs questions of ethnicity/‘ownership’.

Through these theoretical lenses, this article aims to illuminate women’s perspectives

on sexual violence in the warscape of eastern DRC and situates their experiences within a

global matrix with its attendant structural implications.

Methodological issues

Design

Ethnography enables participant observation through immersion into the context, while

engaging in continuous reflexivity, thus providing an insider/outsider perspective (Agar

2008). The primary investigator/first author spent seven months in eastern DRC over a six-

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year period with continuous regular contact with local informants throughout those years.

Women’s experiences of rape were further investigated using written narratives and

formal in-depth interviews. The findings are therefore understood through and ballasted by

participatory observation, informal conversations and attendant reflexivity.

Setting

This study took place in Bukavu, 1 km from the Rwandan border. It is a well-known hub

for humanitarian operations and UN peacekeeping headquarters.

Over a decade of war has destroyed much of the infrastructure, health facilities, social

networks, roads and transport of all kinds. The limited available health care is delivered

predominantly by NGOs. Maternal mortality is estimated at 670 of 100,000 live births

(WHO 2010). Displacement, estimated to affect over 2 million people, largely women and

children, severely affects access to health facilities which lack basic supplies (UNHCR

2013). The national HIV rate is 1.2% (WHO 2010) but in eastern DRC, HIV prevalence

was estimated at 40% among rebel soldiers (Yeager 2003).

Participants

Participants were recruited from three local institutions including a referral hospital (H)

with a program for sexual gender-based violence and specializing in obstetrical fistula

repair; a reintegration residential centre (RR) for ex-child soldier girls and unaccompanied

minors, and an occupational training day centre (OT) for young people reintegrating after

soldiering. Hospital recruits were more recently affected whereas those attending job

training had more temporal distance from their assaults.

Institutions offering therapeutic care after sexual violation were identified with the aid

of a key informant living and working in the community. His involvement provided not

only an insider’s perspective but also a cultural competence essential to the research.

These caring institutions were located in Bukavu, but their beneficiaries were from

locations throughout eastern DRC.

Of the 15 women participants recruited, 11 were interviewed and 4 others provided

written narratives. Inclusion criteria were that participants were willing and able to

participate and had contact with a support facility.

Participants were women of reproductive age (14–33), predominantly rural

inhabitants from a variety of ethnicities. Most had minimal education and all lived in

materially impoverished conditions, originally supporting themselves and families

through small businesses and farming. Three had been married. Younger participants had

been attending school.

Data collection methods

Interviews and narratives were collected in 2010 and 2011. Interviews were scheduled at

mutually predetermined times and conducted in privacy at the various institutions. The

first author conducted the interviews, assisted by interpreters, as the participants preferred

to speak Swahili. Interpreters were embedded caretakers: a social assistant and two

psychologists working at the respective institutions and well known to the participants.

This choice engendered a certain level of trust in this context of suspicion and insecurity.

An interview guide was utilized, comprising broad questions such as how the war had

impacted on their lives to more specific questions concerning their thoughts about why

men rape, what they considered sources of support after being violated and what they

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suggested could be done. The interviews lasted 34 minutes to over an hour. Interviewing

occurred over a period of several weeks allowing the researcher time to reflect upon daily

personal observations and issues emerging from the interviews.

Although women had volunteered for interviewing, some were reticent or shrinking in

their comportment compared to the male ex-child soldiers participating in a previous

similar study (Trenholm et al. 2013). This could have been due to many reasons, among

them cultural norms (un)acceptable for women in this context, sensitivity of the topics,

traumatic experiences of sexual violation and resultant pregnancy.

A narrative exercise had been piloted with male ex-child soldiers; most boys preferred

to draw rather than write (Trenholm et al. 2013). It was reasoned that writing narratives may

be a more comfortable experience for the women at the reintegration unit and thus yield

different information. Participants agreed to both draw and write about their experiences.

Materials were provided and caretakers were present for support. The narrative idea was

explained, guided by an abbreviated version of the interview questions: Describe a typical

daywith the army.What impact has thewar had on your life?What gives you hope?Howdo

you see your future? Participants had two days to complete the exercise as suggested by the

staff. Four narratives are included in this analysis, indicated by N for narrative and the

participant’s number 1 through 4.

Analysis

The audio-recorded interviews and the written narratives were transcribed and translated

into English. All data were analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006).

Through a process of reading and rereading the transcripts and discussing the findings

among members of the research group, recurrent patterns or themes were identified.

A theme constitutes a catchment phrase under which related patterns expressing similar

meanings (Braun and Clarke 2006) are intuited through a process of induction, deduction

and abduction (Dahlgren, Emmelin, and Winkvist 2004). The themed groups represent

ideas of key importance to the overall research question. Constant comparison of the

themes derived from the data, back to the transcripts ensures adherence to the original text.

Anonymity was ensured by using the institution’s abbreviation and a participant number.

Ethical considerations

The overall research project was reviewed by the Regional Ethical Review Board at

Uppsala University and in DRC at the institutions concerned. Due to the sensitive nature of

the topics and the state of insecurity, care and consideration has been taken throughout the

project to protect the participants and the research team from any untoward effects.

Participation was voluntary. Written and/or oral informed consent was obtained. Care and

support were made available, as required. ‘Ethical treatment of human subjects’ guided the

research (NIH 2004).

Reflexivity

Power dynamics in research are undeniable. When a white, western, middle-aged, female

nurse-researcher interviews black, African, younger females with varying levels of

literacy, the cross-cultural interaction is exposed to a myriad of influences, the effects of

which one cannot know with absolute certainty. The first author’s ethnographic immersion

into the context over a six-year period provides important ballast in substantiating the

interview and narrative findings. The observations of people subsisting in remote and

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vulnerable warscapes enriched the findings’ context. The observed struggles to survive

also underscored women’s overburdened and low status as indicated in local leaders’

interviews. Narratives were used to provide an option of speaking in an interview, which

may have been perceived as more difficult due to women’s expected submissive

comportment. Insider–outsider tensions notwithstanding, the researcher as outsider is

privy to alternate global-historical perspectives in which to situate the findings.

Collaborating with interpreters as coresearchers, who were embedded caretakers was a

speculative decision made to ensure a trusting relationship between the interpreter,

participants and the researcher in this insecure context. That said, when the participant

from the hospital setting fell silent, her social assistant responsible for her care

corroborated her story, adding other dimensions to the data.

Addressing sensitive issues with previously traumatized persons requires tact. One

interview was curtailed, as it was deemed not in the best interest of the very fatigued

participant who, unknown to the researcher, had already been interviewed that day.

Follow-up with participants revealed no untoward effects and many requested the first

author to share their stories with people in power.

Findings

The overarching theme from the analysis was ‘insecurity’ encompassing uncertainty,

instability and complete lack of safety.Women experienced not only insecurity in a broader

sense but also a more intimate insecurity of their bodies, close relationships, living spaces

and curtailed daily activities such as farming. They existed within a volatile precariousness

of personal, material, geographic and temporal states. The themes developed through

thematic analysis include (1) profound dispossession: multiple losses, multiple burdens; (2)

impregnated by rape: stigma magnified; (3) making sense of perpetrators.

Profound dispossession: multiple burdens, multiple losses

The women, for the most part, wanted to tell ‘their story’, to recall the events surrounding

their experiences of sexual violation that have defined their state of marginalization. They

describe a series of losses beginningwith the loss of bodily integrity, health, feelings such as

pride and joy, social status, family, possibilities of marriage and child bearing, economic

sustenance and a loss of geographic space. These losses lend themselves to a portrayal of a

profound dispossession of identity related to body, place (literally and figuratively) and an

absence of security essential to peace of mind and mental health. Participants expressed

grief at the utter loss of place and belonging as echoed in these words:

I wonder where I shall go once this hospital lets me leave. I have no one place where I can go,because all my family has been exterminated, all their houses and their land, gone. (H1)

Retraumatization and a long-term loss of ability to function ‘normally’ was the

consequence for this woman who had never returned to her village since her attack four

years ago. Her social assistant elaborated upon her loss:

. . . she has had a relapse . . . she is still here . . . when she relives the traumatic event, shefalls into a psychic shock . . . (Social assistant/interpreter for H1)

The flashbacks after brutal violation and subsequent physical and psychological outbursts

were described by yet another woman in the following way:

. . . I have been crazy for so . . . long . . . living in my nightmares . . . soldiers coming to takeme again . . . seeing how they killed my family . . . I could not get out of these horrible images

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. . . even last Saturday I was running around here . . . tearing off my clothes, screaming andbeating the others. I didn’t really know what I was doing. (N3)

A prevailing uneasiness to an absence of feeling was expressed as one participant

expressed ‘I feel nothing’.

Women, whose mainstay is marketing and trading involving traveling and spending

the night away from their villages, described their vulnerability to the marauding

Interhamwe:

Suddenly Interhamwe got into the guesthouse and took the 15 women . . . inside there . . . wewere all tied . . . and taken to the forest, all of us including 20 men . . . the Interhamwe saidthey were going to slaughter us . . . we were raped and beaten, I couldn’t eat due to thewounds . . . there were seventeen soldiers . . . five raped me. (H2)

Along with the state of insecurity, anxiety and fear expressed, the women mentioned that

internal displacement and disruption of livelihood has brought poverty and hunger:

. . . it brought hunger . . . we used to cultivate in remote areas but we do not go there anymore

. . . the fields where we grow rice are occupied by the Interhamwe. (H2)

The livelihood disruption was elaborated in another case of two sisters abducted on the

way to their farm. They were forced to spend a month as ‘wives’ (sex slaves) to the rebels

before escaping. By then the older sister was pregnant and the other, infected with a

sexually transmitted disease. The younger sister describes the fear:

Everyone is afraid of going to field because . . . they will . . . be raped . . . People are evenafraid of going to the river . . . going to collect fire wood . . . Interahamwe can meet them atan unexpected place. This caused poverty and hunger . . . people are stuck at one placeworrying that the Interahamwe will come. (H4)

Other times the women described how they were forced to give up whatever valuables

they had, on the threat of death by gun-wielding rebels, weapons of unknown origin since

DRC does not manufacture weapons. A woman describes the torture she and the other

women were exposed to, when men captured together with them had escaped:

. . . anyone who had a phone or money had to give it to them. I had a phone and I gave it . . .they said it was not enough. They asked each one of us to give 100 dollars or they would kill us. . . I sat down and started weeping, they beat me with the backside of the gun . . . I fell to theground . . . the other women were told . . . they would be beaten as well [ . . . ] Interhamwewere seriously angry . . . they started beating and torturing the women because the men hadescaped without having given anything . . . the women were beaten to the point of death . . .(H2)

Women then elaborated on the extortion of their husbands by the rebels who demanded

ransom in exchange for their wives. One husband was said to have refused to comply

leaving his wife in gendered limbo between her emasculated husband and the militarized

rebels as explained:

I spoke to my husband, he said he did not want me to look for food in that area, so that was myown business, but other husbands . . . brought some money, six hundred dollars and three pigsfor the release of some women . . . we were all raped and only 3 women remained becausethey did not receive any money. We suffered . . .

I arrived home, my husband told me that I am now the wife of Hutus. He asked me to pack . . .and go away. (H2)

There were intense fears expressed about contracting HIV/AIDS because despite existence

of technology, women in this area had no access. Infection with HIV led to exclusion or

‘social death’, the most feared consequence mentioned. For this reason, women voiced

their desire to be tested to avoid the consequences of stigma as elaborated below:

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I think a lot . . . whether I got infected. I would like to be tested to ascertain whether I am sick. . . and then I would like them to take me back to my village. (RR1)

The knowledge that one was raped could be stigmatizing but to be infected with HIV by a

perpetrator regarded as a foreigner, brought additional stigma:

If one disputes . . . with another person, she starts mocking . . . saying . . . ‘you must haveHIV/ AIDS . . . you have had sex with Interahamwe’ . . . many women suffer this problem.(H2)

By referring to rape as ‘sex’, women’s ill-perceived compliance is underscored and

reproduces her voicelessness.

Even when infection with HIV was ruled out, women were watched suspiciously for

signs such as weight loss:

. . . it is really shameful. People criticize me . . . as I am getting skinnier, they criticize mesaying . . . I must have AIDS . . . I had a medical checkup and the result was that I do not haveAIDS, but . . . when they see a man speaking to me . . . they tell him that I am skinny becauseof AIDS. I am . . . joyless . . . (H2)

This ‘soiled’ reputation moreover, affected the life course for women in a context where

marriage, child-bearing and motherhood determine a woman’s value:

. . . once they know what happened, they laugh at you, especially if one has been raped by asoldier . . . no one wants to marry you. Everybody is afraid of you, one gets a bad reputation.(RR3)

Stigmatization has been embodied to the extent that some said they did not identify as

‘human beings’.

The lack of any safe haven was a profound undercurrent in the data as the case of a

young woman abducted from someone who had rescued her, after fleeing from her own

home with her three-year-old brother indicates. Her parents had been killed and their

house burnt down. She and her brother hid out in the woods for days, eating soil to

survive. A benevolent state soldier discovered them and brought them to his home

from where she was abducted once again. The violence she endured is captured in this

quote:

They hit me with a Panga (machete) in my stomach. I was bleeding a lot. When we got to theforest we were 12 women. There were other soldiers there and they (gang) raped me, mygenitals were completely destroyed. (N1)

People expressed the need to remain hypervigilant and were often forced to hide in the

forests as indicated here:

Sometimes they overhear that Interhamwes are coming back . . . on such days, no one cansleep in the house . . . everyone worries that he or she will be caught in the house . . . there isno peace . . . (H2)

Throughout the interview process, many women complained of headaches, stomach aches,

pain, fatigue, overall signs of feeling unwell.

Impregnated by rape: stigma magnified

This section describes the reproductive, marriage and childcare experiences after rape

underscoring the entrenched cultural meanings surrounding rape and the child born of

rape. Becoming pregnant after rape was said to further complicate an already arduous

survival in the aftermath. The possibility of concealing a rape to avoid stigma, was then

described as impossible:

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Those who fell pregnant did not return to their homes . . . one spends one . . . or two weekswith perpetrators, sometimes she does not know whether she is pregnant, she returns home . . .a good hearted husband . . . welcomes his wife warmly . . . but other people . . . startcomplaining that the pregnancy . . . does not belong to her husband; she must have beenimpregnated by Interahamwes. (H2)

Marital status, age and resultant pregnancy were described as influential on the degree of

suffering. For married women, rejection by husbands and the loss of their mutual children

was expressed as major cause of suffering.

The majority of girls are accepted, but married women are rejected with their pregnancies andchildren. (H4)

Becoming pregnant after rape was said to amplify the difficulty for remarriage because

men commonly reject children born of rape or conceived of other men:

. . . being raped and getting a child is not . . . easy . . . it is very difficult to be alone with achild. There are people who decide to get remarried but . . . there are many men opposed totaking care of a child that is not theirs, to live . . . with somebody who does not want yourchild, is very difficult. (RR3)

This feeling of being excluded for marriage, stigmatized by rape, equally affected the

young unmarried women:

. . . it is dangerous especially if you are still a girl, you can no longer find a man . . . everyoneknows you have been raped. (OT1)

The child born of rape not only was said to be stigmatized but also served as a constant

reminder of the trauma the women endured. A mother of a school-age boy conceived of

rape conveyed this:

. . . when my child came from school he said . . . the kids had bullied him for having a fatherwho is the enemy and a mother who had been raped. I went out of my mind and threw a bigstone at his head. I couldn’t stand hearing him say that. I was full of hate towards him, myselfand the whole world. I thought it was the fault of the child that I felt the way I felt. This child isof the family who killed my parents and sisters. I don’t want . . . him! Almost every day, hereminded me of those things. (N3)

The idea that children born of rape may turn out like their fathers was another fear

expressed:

You think that this child may behave like his father . . . (the mother) can wish to make anabortion in fear that she may deliver a child who will have the same heart as his father. (OT3)

Making sense of perpetrators

In this section, the women’s expressions invoke ‘the global’ as the Hutu rebels from

Rwanda are clearly implicated. Perpetrators were cited as belonging to the Interhamwe

and were considered to have introduced the sexual violence epidemic into Congo after

fleeing from Rwanda where rape had also been used systematically to infect Tutsi women

with HIV (Mullins 2009). When asked why men perpetrated rape, the most prominent

response was that perpetrators wanted to spread disease, destroy women and the Congolese

people:

It is . . . to destroy women . . . those rapists who came to my village . . . they brought manydiseases here in Congo. They raped our mothers, sisters and children. They wanted just todestroy people. (OT1)

Direct links to the Rwandan genocide and the extermination motivations based on

ethnicity and nationality are expressed here:

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Interahamwes left their home country; they did many bad things in their country, so they wantto do the same . . . here . . . They are merciless . . . because we do not belong to their tribe . . .they have no mercy on anybody. They want to destroy everything because they are . . . not athome. They destroyed their country, now they want to destroy ours . . . (H2)

The objective of systematically exterminating the Congolese people through destroying

women’s reproductive capacities was clearly spelt out:

. . . their objective to rape women is that . . . women are the foundations of families . . . theywant Congolese to be suffering, when they contaminate women with their diseases, when theydestroy women, the women will not be able to reproduce any longer . . . they are happy todestroy women so that they may not reproduce families any more . . . (H2)

For the women, security could return only when the Interhamwe rebels were disarmed,

integrated into society, followed thereafter with repatriation. Only then could social norms

against sexual violence be promoted:

I think the state should . . . sensitize the Interahamwe to leave the forest and settle in thecommunity . . . when they start living in the community they can feel ashamed to rape . . .after, the state can see how they can be repatriated to their own country. Even if they areRwandese, they could live in the community. They should first leave the forest so that theymay be identified . . . They should also be disarmed so that they may cultivate fields as we doand later . . . go back to their home country. They perpetrate crimes because they possessguns. (H2)

Apart from being identified as Interhamwe or a ‘soldier’, the perpetrators as individuals

were unknown and women indicated they could not ‘even identify those who perpetrated’

sexual violence.

Discussion

Insecurity and loss permeated the responses of the women in this study who had been

deeply traumatized by war, sexual violence and its consequences. The women described

utter dispossession of personal property, land and geographic space in this vast warscape

of verdant land endowed with precious minerals. They also felt an abysmal loss of life

course possibilities such as marriage and mothering within a family unit, community and

means of survival by farming or marketing. Bodily integrity, a full range of feelings and a

sense of belonging was also lost. The women participants essentially stressed the

destruction of their identities, representative of their societal value; destruction incurred by

sexual violation and its consequences.

The male perpetrator was identified as a foreigner who used rape as a weapon to

destroy women, thereby exterminating families and communities, but also as a means to

spread HIV, more feared for its stigmatizing impact or what Goffman (1963) called ‘social

death’ than the actual terminal prognosis. The foreigner position is a fluid one as imposed

borders create inclusion/exclusion criteria supported by the ideology of national identities

and mother tongue. Children born of rape were said to be categorized according to the

constructed identity of the perpetrator. This compounds their acceptance in the

communities of their already ostracized birth mothers. Intersections of the postcolonial

legacy, gender, ethnicity and poor access to health services inform the survivor’s

oppressions.

Being a raped woman and barred from community underscores an already

subservient gendered position. In previous research, local leaders talked about ‘the

unfortunate life of a woman’ in Congo. They recounted how she is born into a

subservient role and taught to serve men, starting with her brothers (Trenholm, Olsson,

and Ahlberg 2009). The focus on women’s value solely as mothers/caretakers ignores her

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fundamental individual humanity, and these ideas permeate the landscape (Trenholm,

Olsson, and Ahlberg 2009). This cultural violence is the invisible violence described by

Galtung (1990) as a manifestation of structural violence. Despite atrocities these women

have suffered, their will to survive to provide for their children was compelling,

furthermore underscoring the potency of the appropriated mother identity. Any approach

dealing with sexual violence must make visible these tacit cultural views that intersect

and condone violence against women.

Moreover, Congo’s collapsed infrastructure lacking transport, health care and food

security as consequential to ongoing conflict renders life precarious. Being a survivor in

this context speaks to an extreme resourcefulness, a potential starting point for

humanitarian assistance and public health promotion of resilience (Rutter 1987).

However, chaotic warscapes lack the essential prerequisite of security. Successful

interventions must be rooted in stabilized community contexts where empowerment,

participation and poverty reduction are realistically addressed, not diluted into

bureaucratized ‘aid buzzwords’ (Cornwall and Brock 2005).

Donor aid and its delivery has come under scrutiny (Abbas and Niyiragira 2009), not

only for creating dependency but also for its role in maintaining structural inequalities that

contribute to the violence, suffering and loss described by the study participants. This issue

was addressed in the late 1990’s in the classic work titled Do No Harm (Anderson 1999)

for use in developing more equitable humanitarian principles. Considering the enormous

wealth of natural resources, DRC actually does not need aid but rather stability in order to

develop. Paradoxically, DRC was the seventh largest recipient of official humanitarian aid

in 2010 (GHATEAM 2010), yet has steadily fallen to be the last of 187 countries in the

Human Development Index, a composite measure of income, education and life

expectancy (UNDP 1980–2013).

Basic health care including sexual and reproductive health care is severely lacking and

skilled midwives are scarce (Velez, Ramsey, and Tell 2007). Obstetrical fistula, a frequent

complication in prolonged labor and rape with extreme violence (Mukwege and Nangini

2009) requires specialized hospitals with skilled staff which are few in the context described

by the women. For example, a woman with a complex fistula rendering incontinence, sold

peanuts for awhole year, to raise 150US dollars required to travel to a specialized hospital for

surgery (Trenholm 2010). Pregnancies in this setting are life threatening, not to mention

complications of unsafe abortions. The inequality implied here is what Farmer (2004) and

Galtung (1971, 1990) refer to as manifestations of structural violence.

The women described living in constant fear and the threat of extreme sexual violence.

Many have suffered multiple incidents of rape during the 16 years of navigating these

warscapes. The lack of feelings women expressed is consistent with literature on persons

exposed to unrelenting and repetitive traumatizing events (Trappler 2007). This results in

what is referred to as ‘survivor’s syndrome’ where overwhelming despair usurps the joy of

life (Trappler 2007).

Trauma arising from repetitive violations and insecurity described by the women is a

complex experience that can lose its meaning in resorting to words, logic and linear

thinking (Ogden, Minton, and Pain 2006). It can be difficult to express, to understand and

thus a challenge when contemplating interventions to support healing and recovery. There

is a certain inexpressibility of pain; how can we even know another’s suffering (Scarry

1985)? This article seeks to expose suffering by bearing witness to the survivor’s

utterances, a reality made manifest through human intersubjectivity. To share one’s

traumatic experience with another human being can be markedly painful and potentially

retraumatising to the victim, but it can also serve as a powerful affirmation on the journey

12 J. Trenholm et al.

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toward healing, sense-making and integrating the experience. Labels such as

posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been used extensively but have also been

criticized as western concepts, ill-suited for cross-cultural use (Bracken 1998). What is

understood is that trauma profoundly affects emotions, cognition and the body as was

clearly evident in this study. The mind/body seeks homeostasis by attempting to modulate

arousal, reorient, defend and adapt (Ogden, Minton, and Pain 2006). This response is

contingent upon, among many things, removal of the threat.

By extension, health care workers risk traumatization. They verbalized hopelessness

and feelings of frustration in stabilizing those in their care, only to discharge them and

having them return, reviolated. In some interviews, when the participant was at a loss for

words, the caretaker/interpreter voiced their concerns. Nobody is immune to the effects of

war trauma whether affected directly or indirectly as noted in secondary traumatization

(Canfield 2005).

In this deeply traumatized population, mental health care scarcity rivals that of

general health services. Mental illness is misunderstood and challenges how illness is

interpreted. Cross-cultural interpretations vary (Agbayani-Siewert, Takeuchi, and Pangan

1999). Bizarre behaviour, not necessarily cured with a pill, is often rationalized as a

result of witchcraft or the work of the devil (Bosmans 2007). The one regional

psychiatric hospital in the study area works to overcapacity. Despite a handful of

dedicated doctors, some in training; there is a lack of mental health professionals and

availability of appropriate psychotropic drugs. Since a common consequence of

insecurity is lack of material basics which constitutes another form of trauma (Miller and

Rasmussen 2010), any mental health interventions require that at a minimum livelihoods

are restored and basic needs met. Security and humanitarian aid are part of global

structures called to redress.

Pregnancy resulting from rape is a physical manifestation of the traumatic event. For

the perpetrator bent on cultural destruction, the child born is an extension of the attack,

‘the bomb that continues to explode’ as one leader articulated (Trenholm, Olsson, and

Ahlberg 2009). For the already traumatized community, it is a prolonged invasion. The

survivor is placed in an impossible position, as her body becomes the nexus in a battlefield

of conflicting cultural and ethnic allegiances; seen as claimed territory, stigmatized as

Madonna or whore (Welldon 2004), good mother/bad wife or vice versa as dictated by her

internalization of prevailing norms. Women who expect male protection are complicit in

the masculine construction of the emasculated husband who ‘failed to protect’. The

militarized rebel is another masculine construction in which women are forced to negotiate

their norms of violent domination.

The child born of rape further exemplifies multiple discords. ‘Fathered’ by the enemy

yet sometimes acknowledged as a gift from God; the latter invokes ‘sacred’ motherhood

and, according to the participants, constituted a reason to live. These incompatibilities

must be negotiated by the traumatized and stigmatized woman without community

support. Forced to deal with embodied violence, participants stated outright that they do

not even feel human. These survivors of rape identify as ‘the abject’, defined in the work of

Kristeva (1982) as repulsively expelled, to the point where they identify as nonhuman.

A woman trained in subordination, steeped in shame over a traumatizing event, banished

from family and community and all that it entails, may not even feel worthy of seeking

care. The demands inherent in child-rearing and role-modeling, when one’s own

rudimentary needs are unfulfilled, is hardly sustainable.

Fear of sexually transmitted ‘disease’ was another common refrain. Many believed

they were raped in order to ‘contaminate’ them and/or destroy their ethnic roots. Affected

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women wanted to be tested and cleared of disease; this was seen as conducive to

acceptance by their partners and communities. Their fears of HIV infection seem to be

more related to sociocultural meaning of sexuality than the entailed suffering or death

from HIV/AIDS. The damaging gossip, stigma and discrimination they describe is

consistent with Goffman’s (1963) ‘social death’.

Rejection of violated women by their traumatized husband/community can be

understood as a rational response albeit supportive of the enemy’s motives. Fear of rebels

returning for her is legitimate. However, the most pervasive fear was of contracting HIV/

AIDS. Those showing signs of weight loss, despite food insecurity and a negative HIV

test, remained suspect. Such suspicion and hypervigilance can be a result of traumatization

(Ogden, Minton, and Pain 2006).

The perpetrators were referred to almost unanimously and collectively as Interhamwe,

the Hutu rebel group from Rwanda. Several of the participants call this war-driven

persecution, genocide of the Congolese people. Local women are experts of their

experiences and are a valuable source of information toward humanitarian and peace

efforts. However, focusing on a known foreign enemy in a particular geographical

warscape, could render invisible international meddling and how ethnicity has historically

been manipulated to divide people and maintain chaos.

Despite participants’ ability to name the collective perpetrator, the women

underscored the difficulty in naming, charging, prosecuting as well as apprehending and

incarcerating precise individuals. Official justice systems are dysfunctional and much of

local/indigenous systems which enforced a modicum of control have been eroded, initially

through the ‘modernization’ process (Olukoshi and Nyamnjoh 2005; Sango and Esongo

2007) and currently by insecurity and displacement.

‘New wars’ of gun-toting banditry, euphemistically labeled low-level conflicts, may

actually obscure deeper wounds concerning ethnicity, gender and poverty that drive sexual

violence in these warscapes. They also divert attention from the many global actors

implicated in the provision of guns and the exploitation of resources evident in the DRC

conflict’s nomenclature: ‘Africa’sWorldWar’ (Prunier 2009). It is difficult to identify who

is who in this prolonged conflict of shifting allegiances and clandestine dealings.

Structural violence reappears in the form of international arrangements, both

originating from and further unleashing extreme inequalities. Rich countries backed by

corporations and enabled by weak local governance cash in on the chaos of war and reap

the rewards of cheap precious minerals sought by people they appear to see as disposable

(Harmon-Snow and Barouski 2006). Klein’s (2007) description of ‘disaster capitalism’ is

apt here, where chaos functions as a distraction while exploitation is enabled behind the

scenes . Rebels, who are largely responsible for perpetrating sexual violence or what

Galtung (1990) calls visible/direct violence, are supported with funds and weaponry by

outside sources as they rape and terrorize in order to access precious income-generating

resources in this mining region (Piaseci-Poulsen 2010). Young boys, some child-soldiers,

descend hundreds of meters into the earth’s crust, risk life and limb picking away at rich

veins of minerals necessary for electronic devices, while earning a pittance (Piaseci-

Poulsen 2010). Thousands of kilometers away, a same-aged adolescent contemplates his/

her next Iphone.

Conclusion

The women in this study described profound losses and pervasive insecurity not just in the

broad sense of living in a warscape but a more intimate loss of bodily integrity, physical

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health and emotional affect, a sense of belonging and place, economic sustenance as well

as culturally embedded life course possibilities, such as marriage and motherhood. This

grave situation can be seen as resulting from disparate inequalities generated through

global processes which intersect with cultural norms defining men and women, ethnicity,

governance, etc. Given the losses and suffering that permeated their existence, these

women demonstrated a tremendous ability to survive and negotiate the hostile terrain of

warscapes. The voices of women concerning their very sensitive intimate reflections

regarding sexual violence, ethnicity and its consequences reveals some of the contextual

intricacies of their experiences embedded in a global matrix rather than just another

isolated news story about someone, somewhere who has lost everything. This article calls

for a critical rethinking concerning how structural violence, inherent in global market

expansion and humanitarian aid representing so-called ‘globalization processes’,

highlights things that matter and people who do not matter. This article provides space

for reflections upon these individuals’ experiences so often lost in the rare but superficial

reporting of collective mass trauma in Congo.

The raping of women in DRC is entangled in a web of complexity supported by

globalization processes which exacerbate inequities, thereby deepening the suffering and

marginalization of certain groups. In the DRC, the dire consequences of trauma,

dispossession and a new generation of ‘lost’ children follows suit. The classic question

then begs: If a woman screams in rural Congo and nobody hears it, does it really make a

sound?

Acknowledgments

A profound appreciation to the women who accepted to be interviewed and shared their experiences;also to Dr Denis Mukwege, Murhabazi Namegabe, Kubisa Muzenende, Jules Chitera, RehemaChofi, Sifa Rose Chitera, George Ruhimbasa and Mufariji Assy Nkuba.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by Vardforskningsmedel and Smalands nation, Uppsala University.

Notes on contributors

Jill Trenholm was a doctoral candidate at the time of writing who shared her time between theMedical Faculty: Women’s and Children’s Health, International Maternal and Child Health unitand at the Centre for Gender Research at Uppsala University in Sweden. Her doctoral project wasan ethnographic study titled Women’s Violation, Lost Children and Traumatized Masculinities;investigating war rape in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). She has worked for yearsas a registered nurse in trauma as well as sexual assault and domestic violence while alsocompleting an undergraduate degree in Peace and Conflict Studies in Canada. She has two otherpublications concerning this topic: Battles on Women’s Bodies; Perspectives of Local Leaders onWar Rape in DRC and Constructing Soldiers from Boys in DRC, an exploration of male ex-childsoldiers and the perpetration of sexual violence. She successfully defended her thesis in September2013.

Pia Olsson is originally a nurse-midwife and currently works as an associate Professor inInternational Health at Uppsala University in Sweden, at the Medical Faculty in Women’s andChildren’s Health, International Maternal and Child Health unit. She has extensive experience in

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qualitative research that focuses on sexual and reproductive health in Sweden, Finland as well as inother countries within Africa and Asia.

Martha Blomqvist is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Gender Research at UppsalaUniversity. Her work has focused on the intersections of gender in work and organizationpredominantly in the Swedish context.

Beth Maina Ahlberg is Professor of International Health with Sociology background at theDepartment of Women’s and Children’s Health, Unit of International Health, Uppsala University.She is also head of research at the Skaraborg Institute for Research and Development. She hasextensive experience in research in countries in eastern and southern Africa and in Sweden. Herparticular focus has been on methodological issues in the study of sexual and reproductive health,gender issues as well as migration and health.

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ABSTRACT TRANSLATIONS

La guerra global, etnica y de genero: mujeres y violacion en la Republica

Democratica del Congo

El proposito de este estudio fue echar luz sobre las perspectivas de las mujeres que

experimentaron violencia sexual perpetrada en paisajes de guerra del este de la Republica

Democratica del Congo. Lxs civiles son blanco de violacion, saqueo y pillaje, lo que

produce efectos daninos sobre el tejido social y el sosten que provee la comunidad.

El artıculo esta basado en once entrevistas semiestructuradas y cuatro narraciones escritas

de mujeres en edad reproductiva, reclutadas de organizaciones que proveen apoyo post

violacion sexual. El estudio parte de un proyecto de investigacion etnografico mas amplio

que investiga el fenomeno de la violacion en la guerra. El analisis tematico guio el analisis

a traves de la optica teorica de la violencia estructural y la interseccionalidad. Las mujeres

expresaron una inseguridad total y una multitud de perdidas, desde la integridad corporal,

la salud, la perdida de la familia, posibilidades en el rumbo de su vida, de medios de vida y

un sentido de lugar; una profunda desposesion de la identidad y marginalizacion. Los

embarazos que resultan de la violacion reforzaron el estigma y cargaron a la sobreviviente

con la crianza de un/a ninx estigmatizadx en los margenes de la sociedad. Los violadores

fueron mayormente identificados como Interhamwe (rebeldes hutu de Ruanda) que

ingresaron en el Congo luego del genocidio en Ruanda en 1994. Su objetivo, segun las

mujeres, era de diseminar el VIH y embarazar a las mujeres congolesas, y ası destruir a las

familias, las comunidades y la sociedad. Las mujeres sobrevivientes de la violacion de

guerra describieron experiencias de profunda perdida en el conflicto que tiene dimensiones

globales, etnicas y de genero. El conflicto en el Congo por lo tanto requiere una reflexion

18 J. Trenholm et al.

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crıtica sobre como las guerras locales y el consecuente sufrimiento humano estan situados

en una matriz de procesos de globalizacion, habilitados por actores transnacionales e

insertos en la violencia estructural.

Palabras claves: violencia sexual; genero; guerra; Republica Democratica del Congo;

violencia estructural; procesos de globalizacion

全球、种族与性别化的战争：刚果民主共和国东部的女性与强暴

本研究的目的，在于描绘刚果民主共和国东部的战争地景中，经历性暴力犯罪的

女性之视角。公民成为性侵害、抢劫与掠夺的目标，并对社会结构与社群所提供

的生计，造成致命的影响。本研究根据针对生育年龄的女性们所进行的十一次半

结构式质性访谈与四个书写叙事，受访者则是透过提供性侵后支持之团体募得。本研究始于一个探讨战争—性侵现象的较广大民族志计画。主题分析，引导透过

结构暴力与相互交织性的理论视角之分析。这些女性表达了全然的不安全感，以

及从身体的完整性、健康、失去家庭、生命轨迹的可能性、生计到地方感等众多

面向的遗失——一种深刻的认同剥夺与边缘化。由强暴所导致的怀孕，强化了耻

辱，而扶养遭受污名化的小孩，则加重了身处社会边缘的受暴生还者的负担。强

暴的犯罪者，多半被指认为联攻派民兵（卢安达的胡图族反叛者），这些人在

1994年卢安达大屠杀发生后进入了刚果。根据这些女性的说法，这些民兵的目

标，便是传播爱滋病、并使刚果女性受孕，藉此摧毁家庭、社区与社会。战争强

暴的女性生还者，描述了在这些冲突中的深刻遗失经验，并有着全球、种族和性

别化的面向。刚果的冲突，因此需要批判地性反思在地战争，以及随之而来的人

类苦难，是如何座落在由跨国行动者所促成、并深植于结构暴力之中的全球化过

程之基础上。

关键词：性暴力; 性别; 战争; 刚果民主共和国; 结构暴力; 全球化过程

Gender, Place and Culture 19

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