Photo Credit: Refugees International/ Andrea Lari
11/08/2006

Women and girls in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have paid the highest price for the war which wracked the country between 1998 and 2003. The frequency and brutality of rape and sexual violence have provided the clearest indication of how rape has been used as a weapon of war. Through collective rape, genital mutilation, and rape committed in front of family and community members, armed men aimed to humiliate and destroy the very fabric of family and communities