Warning: this article contains mentions of rape, domestic violence, war, and, immolation
Over the years, my expectations for comprehensive mainstream war coverage in Sub-Saharan Africa dwindled bit by bit. I lost patience hearing reporters reduce complex conflicts to tribal disputes. I grew tired of reading the gross abstractions about “never ending war” that often accompanies reporting on the Global South. Still, as the current M23 conflict in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has recently begun to receive more coverage from global media outlets, a small part of me expected to see proficient writing on the complexities of the armed conflict.
My hopes were unfounded. The passive reporting of sexual violence in the DRC has instead, left a new sour taste in my mouth; a taste that can specifically be attributed to the lack of structural analysis on root of sexual violence in war, as well as a lack of coverage on the local resistance against this deliberate act of violence.
A documentary that partly avoided falling into the trap of obscuring wartime sexual violence was the first episode in Gloria Steinem’s “Woman” series, which investigated the instrumental use of rape in Eastern Congo. The episode focused on the Kivu region, a nucleus for conflict, where sexual violence has been weaponised to humiliate its communities and assert dominance. The episode was by no means comprehensive, as it admittedly failed to examine how the legitimation of sexual violence in Congolese society was the basis for its exponential increase during the war. It additionally does not report on UN peacekeepers’ sexual abuse of Congolese women. Despite this, interviews conducted by journalist Isobel Yeoung were still able to give viewers a first-hand account of the distressing toll that sexual violence has taken on Kivu. Yeoung also interviewed activists who worked to address the sexual crimes neglected by the government, covering the community response to the violence. For instance, Yeoung met with the Congolese activist Masika Katsuva, who founded the Association des Personnes Déshéritées Unies pour le Développement (APDUD) in 2002, which has rehabilitated over 10,000 women. The documentary further includes a notable interview with the Nobel peace prize winning Congolese gynecologist Dr Dennis Mukwege, as viewers learn about his role in founding the Panzi Hospital in 1999 aimed to treat victims of rape.
Almost ten years after the episode was filmed, there is still a clear relationship between a rise in armed conflict and increased sexual violence. In early February 2025, male inmates raped and burned over a hundred female inmates in a prison in the city of Goma following a jailbreak. This attack took place in the midst of the current upsurge of violence between the M23 rebel group on one side, and the Congolese military, vigilante groups, and UN peacekeepers on the other. As of February 2025, the insurgency has resulted in over 7000 deaths and while no reports have linked the mass rape to a political organisation, the attack demonstrates the scale of sexual crimes during warfare.
Mainstream media tends to over-rely on legal frameworks to legitimise any real issue. This results in a lack of meaningful reporting into “unfounded” topics, such as the manifestation of sexual violence in communities. While the legally binding Article of the Fourth Geneva convention (1949) states that, “Women shall be especially protected against any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault.”: there was still not enough reportage on wartime rape until the late 20th century. The Rwandan genocide of 1994, among other horrifying wars that took place during the decade, revealed how women are systemically abused in armed conflict. During the genocide, an estimated 2500,000-500,000 women were raped within approximately 100 days, which gained international attention. Still, sexual violence in war was only considered a threat to peace and security in 2008 when UN resolution 1820 was passed. Since this topic has clearly not been a primary concern of international law, reporting on the roots of the instrumental use of wartime rape has naturally not received enough coverage in mainstream media.
When these outlets actually address sexual violence during war, they present distorted representations of the women impacted by these atrocities. Rape victims are seen as collateral damage. They are given no name and no agency– as the reigning assumption is that they would surely never dare to resist their situation since it is “all they know.” Leela Gandhi’s essay Postcolonialism and Feminism, discussed this very topic through an analysis of the West’s conceptualisation of the “third world-woman” as she wrote that “such theory postulates the third-world woman’ as victim par excellence—the forgotten casualty of both imperial ideology, and native and foreign patriarchies.”
Gandhi’s description precisely captures the passivity attributed to women in the Global South. It encompasses how the manifestation of gender based violence is often at best, treated as an afterthought and at worst, completely neglected. Take a look at the BBC article covering the Goma rape. Although no groups have taken credit for the assault, the article still contextualizes the ongoing insurgency and counterinsurgency in Eastern DRC. However, the article never addresses the culture of sexual violence in the DRC, nor does it acknowledge any acts of resistance. It does not mention findings about how “50% of women have experienced sexual violence in a domestic context” nor does it touch on the women’s marches calling for an end to the war. Instead, the use of passive voice treats the topic of rape as an incidental event in the conflict; and once again, rape is characterized as an arbitrary consequence of war. Women are presented as the unfortunate victims of this inevitable issue, with the article refusing to recognize the organized attack on women during war.
Wartime rape is often written about as if it were an individual rogue attack and not a system of violence worthy of political analysis. Yet whether one wants to admit it or not, wartime rape thrives off of government neglect. For example, UN experts on the crisis in the DRC affirmed the Rwandan government’s backing of the M23 group, one that has committed various human rights abuses including rape. The Human Rights Watch reported similar instances of sexual violence committed by Congolese soldiers since 2022. The UN itself confirmed that over 90% of sexual assault allegations against peacekeepers in 2023 originated from The DRC and The Central African Republic. Nonetheless, the consequences of mass sexual violence committed by government and IGO (Intergovernmnetal Organizations) agents lacks thorough investigation. Although there has been an increased recognition of sexual crimes, such as the ongoing trial of soldiers in the DRC accused of rape, governments still fail to take a closer look at the how the culture of sexual violence in armed conflict manifests.
Mass sexual violence during war is not incidental. It is a military strategy that humiliates and demoralizes women with the aim to humiliate and demoralize their societies. From the system of comfort women in imperial Japan to the increased rape in the DRC, women’s sexual subjugation has historically been magnified in military conflict. Therefore, it is entirely necessary for more in-depth analysis into the use of rape as a war tactic to be taken.
Media coverage must take a clearer stance when reporting the violence committed by soldiers and the failures to address the root of these crimes. We must reject the idea that Congolese women are unnamed victims. We must affirm the agency of women in the DRC conflict, as well as women globally.