Rape in Congo 'one of great human crises of our time'

Published on Wednesday 11 May 2011 16:43

Forty-eight women are raped in the central African nation of Congo every hour, according to a new study by the American Journal of Public Health.

The study said that on average 1,152 women are raped every day in Congo - 26 times more than the figure reported by the United Nations, which said about 16,000 women were raped in one year.

The new numbers were found by scouring nationwide health surveys.

Michelle Hindin, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins' School of Public Health, said the rate could be even higher. The source of the data, she noted, relied on face-to-face interviews, and people are not always forthcoming when talking to strangers.

Congo - a nation of 70 million people that is equal in size to western Europe - has been plagued by decades of war. Its vast forests are rife with militias that have systematically used rape to destroy communities.

The analysis shows that more than 400,000 women were raped nationwide during a 12-month period between 2006 and 2007.

"Rape in (Congo] has emerged as one of the great human crises of our time," said Michael VanRooyen, the director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative