Dettke, Elizabeth2024-04-112024-04-112012-05-01Dettke, Elizabeth. "The Consequences of Rape During Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo." Cornell International Affairs Review Vol. 5, Iss. 2 (Spring 2012). https://doi.org/10.37513/ciar.v5i2.423.https://hdl.handle.net/1813/114922“I rape because of the need. After that I feel like a man.” These are the words of a rebel soldier who ruthlessly roams the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in search of his next victims. Rape has been used in the past during warfare to weaken populations and ruin communities and family bonds but never to the extent witnessed in the DRC today. Literally, tens of thousands of women have been raped and this number is most likely largely underestimated. The conflict has been called Africa’s First World War and one of the deadliest since World War II with the death toll reaching 5.4 million in a decade. Ending sexual violence as a weapon of the DRC war remains one of the greatest challenges to the protection of women’s rights. The psychological and physical repercussions of the mass rape of women, children and sometimes even men in the DRC will undermine the capacity of the Congolese people to trust each other. It is possible that the experience of rape and violence could prevent the country from ever being capable of effectively building a nation state.en-USarticlehttps://doi.org/10.37513/ciar.v5i2.423