コンゴの涙

photo: Jean Chung/WPN

コンゴ民主共和国には様々な武装勢力が混在し、そこでは女性への性的暴力が横行する。
国連人口基金（UNFPA）によると、国内で月平均1100件のレイプ被害が報告されている。

保健専門家と被害者の証言によると、兵士たちによるレイプのほとんどは身体的虐待を伴う。木の棒や銃などで膣を傷付けられた被害女性は、排泄コントロールの機能が失われる外的後遺症、フィスチュラになることが多い。北キブ州ゴマにある病院には、たくさんの女性たちがフィスチュラの治療のために入院している。2008年2月‐3月撮影。

08060208212299昨年9月、トムベ（18）とオデッタ（8）の姉妹は、ジャガイモ畑で働いていた時にルワンダ解放民主勢力（FDLR）と見られる3人の武装兵にレイプされた。トムベには外的後遺症が残った。

08060208220937
7歳の少女は今年1月、コンゴ政府軍（FARDC）の兵士にあめ玉で誘い出され、森へ連れ込まれた。抗生物質と消毒で治療を受けていたが、撮影の2週間後に退院した。

08060208213586鎮痛剤の注射を打たれるイマキュレイト（18）。ルワンダ解放民主勢力（FDLR）の3人の兵士にレイプされた当時、イマキュレイトは妊娠7か月。すぐに地元の村で帝王切開により出産したが、胎児を助けることはできなかった。十分な医療技術のない中で行われた手術は彼女に手のひらほどの大きさの傷口を残した。毎日、看護士による消毒が行われている。


国連や国際団体は、こういった武装組織がレイプを「戦争の武器」として利用していると説明する。その目的は、敵の戦意を失わせ屈辱を与えること。最終的に女性を傷付けることで、妊娠できない体にする。

「これは形を変えた大虐殺だ」

Women in the DR Congo suffer from Sexual and Gender-based Violence (SGBV) by different militia groups. According to UNFPA, an average of 1,100 rape cases reported each month in the country, and according to UNICEF, 18,000 cases of rape were reported in 2006 in three Congolese provinces, including North Kivu.
Health experts and victims testified that after the rapes - usually gang rapes includes physical abuse - the offenders punctuate women's vaginal area with wooden sticks, handles of hoes, or guns causing severe wounds to those women and, if survived, women suffer from "traumatic fistula" problem which make them completely incontinent.
A large number of women in Goma's hospitals who sought help from all over North Kivu province had this so-called "traumatic fistula" problems, forcing them to wear cloth diapers everyday. UN and international organizations say that rebels use rape as 'a weapon of war,' and the purpose of it is to discourage and humiliate the enemy, and ultimately harm the women so that women become infertile. Some say this form of violence as "another form of genocide."

Tuombe, 18, stands in front of the window covered by a plastic sheet at Keshero Hospital, which has a separate ward for victims of sexual violence in Goma, North Kivu province, Thursday, March 6, 2008. Tuombe and her eight-year-old sister, Odetta, were raped by three gunmen appeared to be FDLR last September as the two sisters were farming potatoes. Odetta does not have the traumatic fistula, but Tuombe does, and was waiting for the repair operation.

A seven-years-old girl sits on a hospital bed inside the women's ward which is home to about 30 victims of sexual violence at Gesom Hospital, in Goma, North Kivu province, Monday, Feb 28, 2008. The counselors said that she was raped by one FARDC (National Congolese Army) soldier in Zungungu village of Masisi area last Jan, 2008. They said the soldier lured her saying he was going to give her candies, and took her to the forest. She came to the hospital on Jan. 19, and has been treated with antibiotics and daily disinfections. She was discharged in about two weeks later.

A solitary tear trickles down Immaculate's cheek as she receives a pain-killer injection at Keshero Hospital specializing in victims of sexual violence in Goma, North Kivu province, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008. Immaculate, who was 18 years old, was raped by three militia men from FDLR in the Masisi area, was seven-month pregnant at that time of the sexual violence. The medical staff in her village quickly performed the cesarean section after the rape, but could not save the fetus. The unprofessional job of the surgery left a palm-sized open wound, and the nurses at Keshero Hospital had to disinfect the wound every day. This was when Immaculate had been in the hospital for two weeks since the violence. By the time I left the Congo in late March, the head doctor at the hospital said they would perform an operation to close the wound in the first week of April.