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Why eastern DR Congo is ‘rape capital of the world’ Women told me of their daily choice — to stay at home and face starvation. Or, go out to the fields for food and be raped. Most women chose the latter. It had become the norm. The war continued until 2003, when a peace treaty was signed. Officially, the fighting came to an end, but it didn’t stop. Nor did the rape. I returned to Shabunda in 2005 to find the women I had interviewed and photograph four years earlier. It was an unsettling search, for most of those women had died or disappeared in the forest after an attack, never to be seen again. The new women I met had similar tales of horror. But there was a twist. The people I spoke to this time related organized rape camps, with daily roll-calls. There was a new efficiency in the rape, it had become an integrated part of the rebel forces lives. As these women told me, it was now systematic. Some years later, in 2009, I returned to make a film about rape and found a disturbing new trend. Women told me how they expected to be raped. Not once but many times. The women I met, spoke of gang rapes, three or four times. Sometimes it was “only” two soldiers, more often gangs of men,10, 20, over and over again. Many had conceived children and the girl children, some just babies only a few months old, were being raped as well.

Why eastern DR Congo is ‘rape capital of the world’

Women told me of their daily choice — to stay at home and face starvation. Or, go out to the fields for food and be raped. Most women chose the latter. It had become the norm.

The war continued until 2003, when a peace treaty was signed. Officially, the fighting came to an end, but it didn’t stop. Nor did the rape.

I returned to Shabunda in 2005 to find the women I had interviewed and photograph four years earlier. It was an unsettling search, for most of those women had died or disappeared in the forest after an attack, never to be seen again.

The new women I met had similar tales of horror. But there was a twist. The people I spoke to this time related organized rape camps, with daily roll-calls. There was a new efficiency in the rape, it had become an integrated part of the rebel forces lives. As these women told me, it was now systematic.

Some years later, in 2009, I returned to make a film about rape and found a disturbing new trend.

Women told me how they expected to be raped. Not once but many times. The women I met, spoke of gang rapes, three or four times. Sometimes it was “only” two soldiers, more often gangs of men,10, 20, over and over again.

Many had conceived children and the girl children, some just babies only a few months old, were being raped as well.