Dakar (Senegal): A new study released on Wednesday shows that 1,152 women are raped every day in Congo, a rate equal to 48 per hour.
That rate is 26 times more than the previous estimate of 16,000 rapes reported in one year by the United Nations.
Michelle Hindin, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health who specializes in gender-based violence, said the rate could be even higher. The source of the data, she noted, is a survey that was conducted through face-to-face interviews, and people are not always forthcoming about the violence they have suffered when talking to strangers. "The numbers are astounding," she said.
Congo, a nation of 70 million people, has been plagued by decades of war. Its vast forests are rife with militias that have systematically used rape to destroy communities.
The analysis, which will be published in the American Journal of Public Health in June, shows that more than 400,000 women had been raped in Congo during a 12-month period between 2006 and 2007.
On average 29 Congolese women out of every 1,000 had been raped nationwide. That means that even in the parts of Congo that are not affected by the war, a woman is 58 times more likely to be raped than a woman in the US, where the annual rate is 0.5 per 1,000 women.
Previous estimates of the number of rapes were derived from police and health center reports in the nation's troubled east where the conflict is concentrated. The authors of the study used figures from a government health survey and pooled data from across the country. AP
That rate is 26 times more than the previous estimate of 16,000 rapes reported in one year by the United Nations.
Michelle Hindin, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health who specializes in gender-based violence, said the rate could be even higher. The source of the data, she noted, is a survey that was conducted through face-to-face interviews, and people are not always forthcoming about the violence they have suffered when talking to strangers. "The numbers are astounding," she said.
Congo, a nation of 70 million people, has been plagued by decades of war. Its vast forests are rife with militias that have systematically used rape to destroy communities.
The analysis, which will be published in the American Journal of Public Health in June, shows that more than 400,000 women had been raped in Congo during a 12-month period between 2006 and 2007.
On average 29 Congolese women out of every 1,000 had been raped nationwide. That means that even in the parts of Congo that are not affected by the war, a woman is 58 times more likely to be raped than a woman in the US, where the annual rate is 0.5 per 1,000 women.
Previous estimates of the number of rapes were derived from police and health center reports in the nation's troubled east where the conflict is concentrated. The authors of the study used figures from a government health survey and pooled data from across the country. AP
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