CONGO– An estimated 1,152 women are raped every day, or 48 per hour, in Congo according to a study to appear in the American Journal of Public Health.
In one particularly war-ravaged part of the country, 67 out of every 1,000 women have been raped at least once. By comparison, the annual rate in the US is 0.5 per 1,000. “The message is important and clear: Rape in (Congo) has metastasized amid a climate of impunity, and has emerged as one of the great human crises of our time,” says the director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.
Study authors relied on figures from a government health survey and pooled data from across the country to conclude that 29 Congolese women out of every 1,000 were raped.
Congo has been called the worst place on earth to be a woman, and it is tragically living up to its reputation.
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