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45–210 PDF 2008

S. HRG. 110–581 

RAPE AS A WEAPON OF WAR: ACCOUNTABILITY 

FOR SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN CONFLICT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LAW 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

APRIL 1, 2008 

Serial No. J–110–82 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

JON KYL, Arizona 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

BRUCE A. COHEN, Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

STEPHANIE A. MIDDLETON, Republican Staff Director 

NICHOLAS A. ROSSI, Republican Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LAW

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chairman 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JON KYL, Arizona 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

JOSEPH ZOGBY, Chief Counsel 

BROOKE BACAK, Republican Chief Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS 

Page 

Coburn, Hon. Tom, a U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma ........................ 5 

Durbin, Hon. Richard J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois .................... 1 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 64 

Feingold, Hon. Russell D., a U.S. Senator from the State of Wisconsin, prepared statement ................................................................................................... 68 

WITNESSES 

Askin, Kelly Dawn, Senior Legal Officer, Open Society Justice Initiative, 

New York, New York ........................................................................................... 10 

Jackson, Lisa F., Documentary Maker, and Director of ‘‘The Greatest Silence: 

Rape in the Congo,’’ New York, New York ........................................................ 6 

Mukwege, Denis, M.D., Director, Panzi General Referral Hospital, Bukavu, 

South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, accompanied by Jean Moorhead, 

Interpreter ............................................................................................................ 13 

Wachter, Karin, Gender-Based Violence Technical Advisor, International Rescue Committee, New York, New York ................................................................ 8 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Amnesty International USA, New York, New York, statement .......................... 23 

Askin, Kelly Dawn, Senior Legal Officer, Open Society Justice Initiative, 

New York, New York, statement ........................................................................ 43 

CARE, Atlanta, Georgia, statement ....................................................................... 57 

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), Wendy Lehman, Chicago, Illinois, statement ...................................................................................................................... 62 

Ensler, Eve, Founder, Artistic Director, VDay, New York, New York, letter .... 67 

Fox, Ritu Sharma, President and Co-Founder, Women Thrive Worldwide, 

Washington, D.C., statement .............................................................................. 69 

Human Rights Watch, New York, New York, statement ..................................... 76 

International Center for Transitional Justice, New York, New York, statement ...................................................................................................................... 79 

Jackson, Lisa F., Documentary Maker, and Director of ‘‘The Greatest Silence: 

Rape in the Congo,’’ New York, New York, statement ..................................... 92 

Mukwege, Denis, M.D., Director, Panzi General Referral Hospital, Bukavu, 

South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, accompanied by Jean Moorhead, 

Interpreter, statement ......................................................................................... 98 

Physicians for Human Rights, Frank Donaghue, Chief Executive Officer, 

Cambridge, Massachusetts, statement ............................................................... 110 

Rothenberg, Daniel, Managing Director of International Projects, and Elizabeth Drew, Project Coordinator, International Human Rights Law Institute, 

DePaul University College of Law, Chicago, Illinois, statement ..................... 123 

Thomas-Jensen, Colin, Policy Advisor, Enough Project, Washington, D.C., 

statement .............................................................................................................. 143 

Wachter, Karin, Gender-Based Violence Technical Advisor, International Rescue Committee, New York, New York, statement ............................................. 148 

Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, New York, New 

York, statement .................................................................................................... 154 

(1) 

RAPE AS A WEAPON OF WAR: ACCOUNTABILITY FOR SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN CONFLICT 

TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 2008 

U.S. SENATE, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LAW, 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 

SD–226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard J. Durbin, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Durbin and Coburn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN, A U.S. 

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 

Chairman DURBIN. This hearing of the Judiciary Committee’s 

Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law will come to order. 

The subject of this hearing is ‘‘Rape as a Weapon of War: Accountability for Sexual Violence in Conflict.’’ This is the first-ever 

congressional hearing on sexual violence in conflict. It is a sad testament to our failure to take action to stop this horrific human 

rights abuse. 

We will have a few opening remarks, and I will recognize any 

Senators who are joining us, including my Ranking Member, Senator Coburn, who will be here later in the session, and then turn 

to our witnesses. Let me make an opening statement. 

Today we will discuss the systematic and deliberate use of rape 

as a weapon of war to humiliate, expel, and destroy communities. 

Tragically, mass rape has been a feature common to recent conflicts in Bosnia, Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, East 

Timor, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone. It is not new or unique to these 

conflicts. 

In World War II, the Japanese Imperial Army raped an estimated 20,000 women, ranging from infants to the elderly, in the 

city of Nanking in China in a 1-month period. 

Rapes in Nanking, and in too many conflicts since then, have frequently been carried out in public and in front of other family 

members. Men are often forced to rape their mothers, sisters, or 

daughters. Women are mutilated and often killed after the rape. 

Children are particularly at risk of being subjected to wartime 

sexual violence, and in some countries, girls and boys are abducted 

and repeatedly raped. 

2 

Women and girls who survive sexual violence are frequently stigmatized and later rejected by their families and communities. 

We have preceded most of these hearings—in fact, all of them— 

by showing a brief video that we hope will put the hearing in context. This video features clips from the documentary on rape in the 

Democratic Republic of Congo by Lisa Jackson, one of our witnesses today, who I appreciate joining us. I would like to ask those 

who are present to view this video as an introduction to this hearing. 

[Videotape played as follows:] 

‘‘Up to 500,000 women were raped in the Rwandan genocide. 

‘‘As many as 64,000 were raped in the Sierra Leone civil war. 

‘‘Over 40,000 were raped in the Bosnia conflict. 

‘‘And today, as you read this, women are being raped in refugee 

camps in Darfur and Chad. 

‘‘These acts go beyond opportunistic rape and pillage in the chaos 

of war. 

‘‘Rape is used as a systematic and deliberate weapon of war to 

humiliate, demoralize, expel, and destroy civilian populations. 

‘‘Women and girls are tortured and mutilated in front of their 

families. 

‘‘Rape has been used to change the ethnic makeup of a group by 

forcibly impregnating women. 

‘‘Today, the use of rape as a weapon of war is at its worst in the 

Democratic Republic of Congo. 

‘‘They have taken our belongings. We were raped by 20 men at 

the same time. Our bodies are suffering. They have taken their 

guns and put them inside of us. They kill our children and then 

tell us to eat those children. If a woman is pregnant, they make 

your children stand on your belly so that you will abort. Then they 

take the blood from your womb and put it in a bowl and tell you 

to drink it. When we were living in the forest, it wasn’t just one 

man. Every soldier can have sex with you. We got pregnant there. 

We gave birth in the forest, alone, like animals, without food or 

medicine. But by the mercy of God we had the courage to escape 

to the village. We are all alone. Our husbands have been killed, or 

they have denied us. Even our families have denied us. We don’t 

know where to go, what to do. 

‘‘Mass rape in war has also taken place in Burundi, Burma, East 

Timor, Kosovo, and Liberia. 

‘‘Laws prohibiting wartime rape have been disregarded for centuries. 

‘‘After World War II, the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals largely 

ignored wartime sexual violence. 

‘‘That is beginning to change. 

‘‘That Yugoslav and Rwanda Tribunals have prosecuted sexual 

violence as genocide, torture, war crimes, persecution, and crimes 

against humanity. 

‘‘We must do more to hold accountable those who use rape as a 

weapon of war. 

‘‘To diminish the cases of rape, I think the first thing is we have 

to fight the problem of impunity. When the assailant is prosecuted 

and condemned, others will be afraid and won’t commit the same 

type of infraction. 

3 

‘‘Video courtesy of Lisa F. Jackson, from the documentary ‘‘The 

Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo.’’ 

‘‘Images used in this production are not necessarily of survivors 

or perpetrators of sexual violence.’’ 

Chairman DURBIN. Lisa Jackson, thank you so much for contributing a portion of that video. It is so touching. It reminds me of 

a visit that Senator Brownback and I made to Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo and visiting DOCS Hospital, and Goma is 

one of those poor, poor places on Earth that is wracked by poverty 

and disease and war and volcanoes. And at this hospital, DOCS 

Hospital, the women were sitting in the dusty road outside the hospital, queued up, waiting sometimes for months for an opportunity 

for a surgery for obstetric fistula, which in many instances was the 

result of brutal rape and assault. Because of the problems, physical 

problems they had, they had been rejected by everyone, and they 

had nowhere to go. And they just literally sat in the dusty road 

hoping for the surgery, sometimes multiple surgeries. They still 

thought that was their only chance to survive. But thank you. The 

images that you have given us and that I know you will be talking 

about here will make a big difference. 

It is appalling that today women and girls are being raped in 

conflict situations around the world. It reflects our collective failure 

to stop the use of women’s bodies as a battleground. 

The scale of this problem is daunting. A recent report documented conflict-related sexual violence in 51 countries in Africa, 

the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East in the last two 

decades. 

Wartime rape is not inevitable. The widespread prevalence of 

sexual violence in recent conflicts results in part from the lack of 

accountability for those who commit the rape. 

Government and rebel forces violate human rights and these 

poor people with impunity, perpetuating the stigma that surrounds 

these crimes. 

Historically, wartime sexual violence was tolerated as unfortunate but unavoidable. 

Throughout the 20th century, rape and other forms of sexual violence were included in increasingly specific terms in international 

agreements on the conduct of war. Prejudice and misconceptions 

meant these crimes were initially framed as private acts violating 

family dignity and honor, rather than the violent public crimes that 

they are. 

As noted in the video we just watched, the Yugoslav and Rwanda 

Tribunals made significant progress by prosecuting perpetrators of 

sexual violence. That we have moved beyond the not-so-distant debate about whether sexual violence in conflict is a war crime is an 

important forward step. 

Despite these developments, wartime sexual violence and the experience of those women and men who survive it remain invisible 

far too often. 

During today’s hearing, we are going to discuss the legal options 

for holding accountable those who use rape as a military tactic. 

While a growing number of perpetrators of wartime sexual violence 

have been prosecuted, a much larger number have escaped acVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:10 Nov 06, 2008 Jkt 045210 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\45210.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
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countability. The average wartime rapist runs very little risk of 

being prosecuted. 

The United States and other countries must play a greater role. 

I am sorry to say that if a foreign warlord who engaged in mass 

rape came to the United States of America today, he would probably be beyond the reach of our laws. It is not a crime under U.S. 

law for a non-U.S. national to perpetrate sexual violence in conflict 

against non-U.S. nationals, so the U.S. Government is unable to 

prosecute such perpetrators of wartime rape who end up in our 

country. 

There is also no U.S. law prohibiting crimes against humanity, 

one of the most serious human rights violations, which includes 

mass rape and other forms of sexual violence. 

And we must make it clear that genocide and torture, two of the 

most serious human rights violations that are a crime under U.S. 

law, can include wartime sexual violence. 

These loopholes have real consequences. For example, take the 

case of Emmanuel ‘‘Chuckie’’ Taylor, son of the warlord Charles 

Taylor, whom the Justice Department is prosecuting under the torture statute. As the head of the notorious Anti-Terrorist Unit of the 

Liberian Government, Chuckie Taylor was implicated in wartime 

rapes committed by the ATU, but it is unlikely that he could be 

prosecuted for these crimes against humanity in the United States. 

Another example is Marko Boskic, who found safe haven in our 

country after reportedly participating in the execution of men and 

boys in the Srebrenica massacre. Under current law, the United 

States was unable to prosecute Boskic for his crimes against humanity and charged him only with visa fraud. 

In addition to punishing individual perpetrators, governments 

that tolerate and fail to take steps to stop wartime sexual violence 

must be held accountable for their actions. At the very least, we 

should ensure that U.S. tax dollars do not fund state armies that 

fail to prevent their forces from engaging in mass rape. 

We must work to end the use of rape as a weapon of war, but 

as long as the practice persists, we should support programs that 

provide protection, medical care, psychological services and legal 

remedies to survivors of wartime sexual violence. 

As I have said so many times and I will repeat again today, this 

Subcommittee will focus on legislation, not lamentation. We must 

end impunity for wartime sexual violence. I look forward to working with the members of this Subcommittee to ensure that our laws 

hold accountable those who use rape as a weapon of war. 

Before I turn to him, I just want to thank my colleague from 

Oklahoma. You could not find two more unlikely Senators sitting 

at the same table, as we have so many times, and we have found 

common ground so many times. Senator Coburn and I may disagree on so many things, but I just want to thank him personally 

for working extra hard to find that common ground so that in the 

past, this small, little, new Subcommittee, has generated what I 

think will turn out to be historic legislation. I want to recognize 

Senator Coburn now for any opening remarks. 

5 

STATEMENT OF HON. TOM COBURN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA 

Senator COBURN. Senator Durbin, thank you so much for your 

kind words, and thank all of you for the compelling stories and the 

information you bring to us. I am committed, as I know you are, 

to us forging a solution that will become law so that we can, in 

fact, prosecute those that are in our country for these terrible acts. 

I also want to thank you and your staff. The diligence and the 

awareness of the problems that are out there that have not been 

addressed by the U.S. Congress or the U.S. Senate means that they 

are doing great work. And I know that your staff is a reflection of 

your leadership, and I appreciate that. 

We do not always talk so kindly to one another when we are on 

the Senate floor, but there are lots of things that we come together 

on, and we have been able to pass several bills so far that are going 

to make a big difference in terms of how we handle in this country 

those who commit such atrocities. 

So I look forward to our witnesses, and I look forward to the action that is going to follow that in terms of legislation that I believe 

will be accomplished fairly quickly and at a time when no longer 

people can come here under safe haven for deeds that they have 

committed outside of this country. 

Thank you. 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you, Senator Coburn. 

Could the witnesses please rise for the oath? Would you raise 

your right hand? Do you affirm the testimony you are about to give 

before the Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? 

Ms. JACKSON. I do. 

Ms. WACHTER. I do. 

Ms. ASKIN. I do. 

Dr. MUKWEGE. I do. 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you. Let the record reflect that the 

witnesses all answered in the affirmative. 

Our first witness is Lisa Jackson, producer and director of ‘‘The 

Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo,’’ a documentary on the systematic use of rape as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic 

of Congo. ‘‘The Greatest Silence,’’ which will premier on HBO next 

week, won a special jury prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. 

Ms. Jackson has been involved in documentary film making for 

over 30 years and has won a number of awards, including two 

Emmys. 

I happen to serve in the Senate with a colleague from Illinois 

who has won two Grammys. I am still trying to win my first award 

here. I do not know that I will ever do that. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman DURBIN. Ms. Jackson attended Sarah Lawrence College and studied film making at MIT. I know this is a deeply personal issue for you. I thank you for the courage it took to make this 

film and for joining us today. We look forward to your testimony, 

and I ask each of the witnesses if they could try to restrict their 

comments to 5 minutes. Your entire statement will be made part 

of the record. Then Senator Coburn and I will have a chance to ask 

questions. 

6 

Ms. Jackson? 

STATEMENT OF LISA F. JACKSON, DOCUMENTARY MAKER, 

AND DIRECTOR OF ‘‘THE GREATEST SILENCE: RAPE IN THE 

CONGO,’’ NEW YORK, NEW YORK 

Ms. JACKSON. Thank you. Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member 

Coburn, and members of the Subcommittee, I am honored to be 

asked to come before you to describe from my own perspective some 

of what I witnessed while shooting a documentary film in the 

Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006 and 2007. During that time 

I interviewed many women and girls who had survived sexual violence. I also talked with peacekeepers, doctors, activists, and, most 

chillingly of all, with self-confessed rapists, uniformed members of 

the Congolese army who boasted to my camera about the dozens 

of women they had raped—women like the one that you just heard 

in the video clip, whose story is no exaggeration. I heard its variation many times: the cannibalism, the egregious acts of brutal violence, the unspeakable degradations, the resulting abandonment, 

shame, and total despair. 

What has been happening to women in the DRC in the last 10 

years is beyond the pale of any historical precedent. They are being 

attacked by armed militias from Uganda and Burundi, by Hutu 

genocidaires who fled from justice in Rwanda, by warlords and 

their thugs, and by members of the very army and police forces 

who are supposed to protect them. Even United Nations peacekeepers have committed rape and sexual exploitation. Congo’s is a 

war where women’s bodies have literally become the battleground. 

This is a war being fought over riches, not ideologies, and militia 

are devastating the civilian population in order to loot the country’s 

resources, especially the tin, cobalt, and coltan, that we all require 

for our consumer electronic devices. Perhaps another hearing might 

explore the causes and ruinous consequences of this illegal plundering, but everyone in this room should consider the possibility 

that there is the blood of Congolese women on their laptop computers and on their cell phones. 

But over the course of this conflict, hundreds of thousands of 

women and girls have been intentionally and systematically targeted, gang-raped, mutilated, forcibly abducted, and used as sex 

slaves. It is sexual terrorism, pure and simple. 

I met raped women of all ages, who at times would line up and 

wait for hours to talk with someone who would listen without judgment, hoping I would relay their stories to a world that seemed indifferent to their horrific plight. 

Marie Jeanne is a 34-year-old mother of eight, who was raped by 

five soldiers when she was 6 months pregnant. She has been abandoned by her husband who tells their children that she wanted to 

be raped. 

Safi was raped at age 11 while soldiers were looting her home. 

Her huge brown eyes still have a slightly stunned look. 

Maria was 70 years old when she was raped by three soldiers. 

When she told them, ‘‘I am an old woman,’’ they said to her, 

‘‘You’re not too old for us.’’ 

I thought about these women when I interviewed soldiers, members of the Congolese army, who talked brazenly to me about the 

7 

rapes they had committed. They were practically swaggering, describing their reasons and methods of rape without a hint of remorse, because they knew that in Congo’s culture of impunity they 

would face no reprisals for their crimes. They seemed to consider 

rape their right. 

I asked the soldiers how many women they had raped. Five, 11, 

18, they replied. One man had lost track. ‘‘It is hard to keep record 

of the number of women I have raped,’’ he said. ‘‘For an approximate number, I would say 25.’’ 

In my 30 years of years of film making, interviewing these soldiers was the single, most devastating moment that I had ever experienced. I had just recorded men confessing to unspeakable 

crimes, yet when the interview was over, they just melted back into 

the forest. And I thought to myself, ‘‘Who will be their next victims? ’’ 

Yes, the Congolese Government passed a sweeping law last year 

regarding sexual violence, a law that, for instance, finally makes 

rape with guns and sticks a crime. But I heard over and over again 

stories about the futility of enforcement, about rapists who would 

pay a bribe of $3 or $4 and walk free, about a police sex crimes 

unit with literally a staff of one, and about women who face brutal 

reprisals if they dare denounce their attackers. They are left to 

bear the pain alone, without the solace of peace or the possibility 

of justice. 

The international community cannot continue to turn a blind eye 

to what is happening in the Congo because an elected government 

is now in place. Future U.S. to Kabila’s government should be contingent on Congo’s ending the culture of impunity, ensuring assistance to victims, establishing security in all regions so that the 

women of Congo can live their lives with the dignity and safety entitled to every human being. We must all use our leverage to end 

this violence for the sake of women and girls, for the sake of the 

Congo, and for the sake of the future of Africa. 

I will leave you all with the words of Maria, the 70-year-old rape 

survivor from Bunyakiri, who said to me: ‘‘Our country will be destroyed completely if this keeps happening. Women are suffering. 

We have forgotten what happiness is.’’ 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jackson appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you very much, Ms. Jackson. 

Karin Wachter is our second witness. She is the Acting GenderBased Violence Senior Technical Advisor at the International Rescue Committee. That is a long title. In 2002, she launched IRC’s 

Gender-Based Violence Program in the Democratic Republic of 

Congo, which has gone on to provide services to 40,000 survivors 

of sexual violence through a network of local partners. Now based 

in New York City, Ms. Wachter plays a key role in designing IRC’s 

response to sexual violence in emergencies and provides technical 

guidance for programs throughout Africa. She holds a master’s degree in international education from the University of Massachusetts and a bachelor of arts degree in social science and drama 

from the University of Michigan. 

Thank you for being here today. Please proceed. 

8 

STATEMENT OF KARIN WACHTER, GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE 

TECHNICAL ADVISOR, INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 

Ms. WACHTER. Let me begin by saying that I feel extremely privileged for having been invited to speak here today. Above all, I wish 

I could share with you the concerns and hopes of the tens of thousands of women and girls who come forward for help, having been 

assaulted, tortured, humiliated, and disabled simply for having 

been born female and being caught in the cross-fire of war. 

In the past 6 years, I have seen firsthand the sexual and physical violence perpetrated against women and girls in ten different 

conflict-affected African countries. It is not an exaggeration to 

name conflict-related sexual violence a global human rights, public 

health, and security crisis. The use of sexual violence is both a tactic of warfare and an opportunistic consequence of conflict and displacement. They often go hand in hand. 

The systematic use of rape in war has many purposes, including 

ethnic cleansing, elimination, and the domination of target populations. Up to half a million women were raped during the Rwandan genocide. Tens of thousands of Bosnian women and girls were 

subjected to egregious acts of violence. Hundreds of thousands of 

women and girls in Eastern Congo have been brutally raped, a 

threat and reality that continues today. 

This form of warfare is tragically effective. It destroys the fabric 

of a community in a way that few weapons can. It produces unwanted children, it spreads disease, and it leaves an imprint on the 

individual and collective psyche that is difficult to erase. 

This strategic use of sexual violence is usually accompanied with 

a sharp increase in opportunistic rape and other forms of sexual violence, carried out not only by the armed groups in an environment 

of impunity, but within the family and community as well. The 

physical health and psychological and social consequences of this 

kind of violence are very real, and they often go untreated. You can 

only imagine what it does to a family to watch your daughter gangraped or to be forced to commit the atrocity yourself. 

Given the significance burden and responsibility that women and 

girls carry in providing for their families, trampling upon their 

physical health and ability to function within society dramatically 

unhinges the family unit. In most contexts, women and girls are 

the ones punished for having been raped. Often abandoned, the 

survivors are left further exposed to sexual and physical exploitation. 

The effects of this kind of widespread sexualized terror on the 

family and community have long-term implications for a nation’s 

capacity to heal, stabilize, and rebuild after war. And unfortunately, for women and girls, the threat of violence remains long 

after the fighting ends. 

In Sierra Leone, in 2007 alone, 1,176 girls and women sought 

care for sexual and physical violence at IRC centers: 65 percent of 

those cases were under the age of 15; 64 percent of those cases 

were rape or gang-rape; the youngest client was 2 months old. 

A recent study conducted in Liberia indicated that violence 

against women and girls is dramatically widespread. In the study 

population, 55 percent of the women surveyed had experienced vioVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:10 Nov 06, 2008 Jkt 045210 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\45210.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
9 

lence in the home; 13 percent of minors in one county and 11 percent of minors in another county had been sexually abused in the 

past 18 months. 

Please let me assure you that at the bottom of all of this suffering is, in fact, a message of hope. 

The international community now maintains that sexual violence 

is to be assumed in all humanitarian emergencies, including natural disasters. It is becoming understood that the burden of proof 

for sexual violence in humanitarian emergencies should be to provide evidence that rape is, in fact, not rampant. The humanitarian 

community has made great strides in developing industry standards for establishing the response to conflict-related sexual violence 

in humanitarian emergencies. 

At this point, we know what it takes to launch an effective response, and we know how to monitor the quality of that response. 

What is harder is securing the necessary resources and deploying 

the required technical expertise. 

In addition, we have made good progress in gaining the commitment and buy-in from key American donors to allocate much needed resources to this crucial issue. We still have a long way to go, 

but what this means is that we are now able to hit the ground a 

little faster to set up life-saving services at the onset of an emergency. 

We are deeply encouraged by the bipartisan legislation recently 

introduced by Senator Biden and Senator Lugar, the International 

Violence Against Women Act—(IVAWA, S. 2279)—which would 

make violence against women a key priority in U.S. foreign assistance programs. 

In recognition of how violence against women is exacerbated by 

conflict and continues long thereafter, the IVAWA bill is designed 

to address the issues in war-torn, post-conflict, and development 

settings. Those of us working day in and day out on this issue eagerly wait for this piece of legislation to be passed. 

Sexual violence and its extreme consequences do not need to be 

an inevitable component of conflict and displacement. 

I thank Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Coburn, and the 

members of the Subcommittee for your time and interest in this 

worthwhile cause. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wachter appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you, Ms. Wachter. 

Dr. Kelly Dawn Askin is a senior legal officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative, and served as legal advisor to the judges of 

the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and 

for Rwanda. She also advised or trained prosecutors, judges, and 

registries at the Serious Crimes Unit in East Timor, the International Criminal Court, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and 

the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. She has 

lectured in over 65 countries and published extensively in international criminal law, international humanitarian law, and gender 

justice, including her book ‘‘War Crimes Against Women: Prosecution in International War Crimes Tribunals,’’ and her three-volume 

treatise ‘‘Women and International Human Rights Law.’’ Since 

1995, Dr. Askin has taught and served as a Visiting Scholar at 

10 

Notre Dame University, Washington College of Law, Harvard, and 

Yale. 

Thank you for joining us today. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF KELLY DAWN ASKIN, SENIOR LEGAL OFFICER, 

OPEN SOCIETY JUSTICE INITIATIVE, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 

Ms. ASKIN. Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Coburn, and distinguished members of this Subcommittee, I commend you for taking up the issue of wartime sexual violence, a terrible crime that 

is destroying the lives of millions of individual victims, their families, and communities in dozens of conflicts worldwide. I am so 

grateful that this ground-breaking Subcommittee—which in less 

than a year has provided extraordinary leadership on ensuring accountability for genocide, gross human rights abuses, conscripting 

child soldiers, and trafficking in women—is turning its sights to 

this horrific scourge. 

In 2004, I was in Chad in collaboration with the Bush administration’s Darfur Atrocities Documentation Project where I traveled 

to the border of Darfur and spoke with victims and witnesses of 

rape and other sex crimes committed by the Government of Sudan 

and their Janjaweed puppets. Over the past few years, I have spent 

quite a bit of time in places like Rwanda, Uganda, Sierra Leone, 

and Democratic Republic of Congo where sexual violence has been 

committed in epidemic proportions. 

But let me be very clear: Wartime sexual violence is not just an 

African problem. It is a problem of enormous magnitude worldwide. 

I have worked with each of the international courts set up in the 

past 15 years and have traveled to dozens of conflict and post-conflict zones. During the course of my work on international crimes 

and gender justice, I have had the opportunity to speak with wartime sex crime survivors from Africa, Europe, Asia, Latin America, 

and the Middle East. Whether survivors from East Timor, Bosnia, 

Burma, Iraq, Argentina, or Darfur, the stories victims of sex crimes 

tell are strikingly similar. They were assaulted by men with weapons, often attacking in gangs, and in public. 

Historically, rape has been a war crime for centuries, although 

only rarely and selectively enforced. The past decade has witnessed 

unprecedented advances in prosecuting atrocity crimes. Contemporary international justice initiatives first began after reports of 

crimes committed during the 1990s conflicts in the former Yugoslavia galvanized the world, evoking reminders after the Holocaust 

that never again would such acts be allowed to happen, much less 

go unpunished. Ultimately, and with strong U.S. leadership, the 

U.N. Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 1993. The statute of this tribunal authorizes prosecution of genocide, crimes against humanity, 

and war crimes. And less than a year after the Security Council established the Yugoslav Tribunal, a genocide raged through Rwanda, with as many as 700,000 people massacred and hundreds of 

thousands of others maimed, raped, and otherwise brutalized during 100 days. So by the end of 1994, the Security Council also set 

up the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. 

The Yugoslavia and Rwanda Tribunals have been unparalleled in 

their treatment of gender-related crimes, and this has had and will 

11 

continue to have a major impact on other international or hybrid 

courts set up to prosecute war crimes in places like Sierra Leone, 

East Timor, the Balkans, and Cambodia. 

The United States has been a driving force in establishing and 

supporting most of these courts, as well as in promoting international justice more generally. In these tribunals, rape has been 

successfully prosecuted as a war crime, a crime against humanity, 

and an instrument of genocide. The tribunals have formally recognized not only rape but sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, forced 

sterilization, and forced nudity. Additionally, various forms of sexual violence committed against both men and women have been 

prosecuted as torture, persecution, and enslavement. These courts, 

principally through the use of crimes against humanity charges, 

have forcefully and unequivocally recognized that sex crimes have 

been used strategically as instruments of war, terror, and destruction, means of inflicting harm far beyond the individual victim. 

While the cases in the Yugoslav and Rwanda Tribunals embody 

tremendous progress in international criminal law, the cases tried 

represent a minuscule percentage of the sex crimes actually committed and, thus, for tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of other cases, there will likely be wholesale impunity. 

Criminal prosecution of sex crimes is absolutely critical in order 

to punish the crimes, highlight its gravity, and enforce the rule of 

law. Rape is common in peacetime, and its frequency and savagery 

multiply during wartime. In virtually all conflicts, there is opportunistic rape, rape committed because the atmosphere of violence, 

the prevalence of weapons, and the breakdown of law and order 

present the opportunity. But over the last few decades, the trend 

is toward calculated and concerted efforts to harm a broader group 

through the use of sexual violence inflicted on the women and girls, 

the bearers of future generations. Rarely are these crimes prosecuted, particularly when the judicial system is in shambles, and 

the government leaders are the architects of the violence. In addition to prosecution, it is critical to address gender stereotypes that 

serve to perpetuate sexual violence. 

The shame and stigma wrongfully attached to victims of sex 

crimes must be shifted to the perpetrators of these crimes. In addition to the physical, psychological, and sexual harm inflicted by 

rape, sex crime survivors often face severe ostracism, HIV/AIDS or 

other sexually transmitted disease, and serious reproductive 

harms. If the shame is placed on the perpetrators for their despicable acts instead of on the victims, I am confident that we would 

see a reduction in the occurrence of sex crimes. 

Prosecuting wartime sexual violence and denying impunity to the 

perpetrators of horrific crimes are bipartisan issues. The United 

States can close gaps in its criminal codes which might allow perpetrators to escape justice. The United States should be able to 

prosecute any person found in this country who is responsible as 

an individual or a superior for war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide, including for sex crimes. 

Let me just mention two core recommendations to the Subcommittee which can improve U.S. law and practices on redressing 

wartime rape. 

12 

First, enact a Sexual Violence in Wartime Accountability Act 

that criminalizes wartime sexual violence, provides for prosecution 

of anyone who commits sexual violence with a nexus to an armed 

conflict, whether in the United States or abroad, and provides for 

penalties commensurate with the gravity of these offenses. The law 

should also designate persons who commit wartime sexual violence 

as inadmissible aliens, allow the deportation of persons who commit wartime sexual violence, and deny impunity and safe haven to 

such persons. 

Second, the Subcommittee should consider enacting legislation 

making crimes against humanity, including various forms of sexual 

violence, crimes under U.S. law. 

The bottom line: The U.S. should return to the forefront in promulgating legislation on wartime sexual violence. It is critical to 

modernize our criminal codes to provide more protections to the 

victims of sex crimes and ensure that perpetrators neither escape 

justice nor find safe haven in this country. The United States 

should have the ability to prosecute a range of sex crimes when 

committed with a nexus to an armed conflict as a war crime, a 

crime against humanity, or as genocide. Limiting prosecutions solely to war crimes would fail to recognize the widespread and systematic nature of many sex crimes, as well as their tactical commission as a means of terrorizing, demoralizing, and ultimately destroying the targeted group. 

I would be pleased to answer any questions the Subcommittee 

may have. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Askin appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you very much, Dr. Askin. 

Our next witness is Dr. Denis Mukwege, who is the Director of 

the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

He is one of the world’s leading experts on treating survivals of 

sexual violence in conflict. 

Dr. Mukwege has a remarkable story. He worked in a hospital 

in Lemera in South Kivu Province where he established an obstetrics and gynecology program, something that he has in common 

with my colleague, Senator Coburn, who is also a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology. The destruction of this hospital in 1996 

during the conflict forced him to move to Bukavu. In Bukavu, the 

absence of a health facility to assist women during their deliveries 

prompted Dr. Mukwege to spearhead an effort to build a maternity 

ward with an operating room at Panzi. 

The growing number of women seeking assistance for brutal, conflict-related rape led him to create a special program for the treatment of survivors of sexual violence. An average of ten women seek 

treatment for sexual violence injuries every day at the Panzi Hospital, and an estimated 30 percent of these cases involve injuries 

so serious that the patient must undergo major surgery. 

Dr. Mukwege studied medicine in Burundi and specialized in obstetrics and gynecology at Angers University Hospital in France. I 

want to thank him for being here today, and I will tell you, as I 

mentioned earlier, having visited one of these hospitals and understanding what you face every single day, you are truly a hero for 

13 

what you do for some of the poorest people on Earth. And it is an 

honor to have you before our Committee. 

Dr. Mukwege will testify in French. His assistant, Jean Moorhead, sitting to his left, will simultaneously translate into English. 

I will now attempt to say three or four words in French, after 6 

years of time in classrooms: ‘‘Bienvenue. Commencer, s’il vous 

plait.’’ 

[Laughter.] 

STATEMENT OF DENIS MUKWEGE, M.D., DIRECTOR, PANZI 

GENERAL REFERRAL HOSPITAL, BUKAVU, SOUTH KIVU, 

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO, ACCOMPANIED BY 

JEAN MOORHEAD, INTERPRETER 

Dr. MUKWEGE. Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member Coburn, and 

members of the Subcommittee, it is a great honor for me to be invited to testify before this tribune concerning the acts of violence 

against the civilian population, and especially the women, in the 

eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. 

I thank you for accepting to take your precious time to listen to 

my testimony about the sexual terrorism that the women in the 

Eastern Congo have lived with for almost 10 years, and this is 

known by the national and international community, without anyone making a serious decision to end this shameful crime against 

humanity in the 21st century. 

The word ‘‘rape’’ or ‘‘sexual violence’’ cannot fully translate the 

horror that hundreds of thousands of women are living in this part 

of the world. My testimony refers to my daily contacts with these 

victims in the hospital, and the thousands of women whom we 

treat. 

It is important to point out that this sexual terrorism is done in 

a methodical manner and according to the method of terror each 

armed group uses against their victims. Generally, the victims are 

raped by several men at a time, one after another; in public, in 

front of parents, husbands, children, or neighbors; rape is followed 

by mutilations or other corporal torture; sexual slavery often goes 

on for months; and there are all sorts of psychological torture. 

On arriving at the hospital, women victims complain of physical, 

psychological, and social problems, and they show sexually transmissible infections, especially chlamydia, which is a source of 

chronic abdominal pain and results in sterility; HIV infection, accompanied by opportunistic diseases; genital lesions ranging from 

simple wounds to complicated genital lesions stopping urinary or 

digestive function such as urogenital and recto-genital fistulas; fibrosis of the vagina, et cetera. 

It goes without saying that this woman, who has become incapable of fully using her capacities as a woman because all possibility 

of motherhood is taken away from her, and in addition is weakened 

by AIDS, hopes in her pain for an easy death. And we are all witnesses that this is voluntary murder. 

The woman is deeply humiliated, and this brings on behavioral 

difficulties which can result in suicide, disinterest in living, not caring for anything, and aggressiveness. These women are often rejected by their own family and their husbands. This exclusion and 

14 

isolation can worsen the behavioral problems which were mentioned before. 

This results in a breakup of the family, and often the woman or 

girl victim is excluded and condemned instead of the rapist. The result is the destruction of potential mothers and the spread of HIV 

on a large scale, which brings about the disappearance of the population without the capacity of the population renewing itself. 

The analysis of this phenomenon shows that the rapists are not 

doing this to satisfy some kind of sexual desire, but simply want 

to destroy the woman. They want to destroy life. 

This sadistic desire to destroy pertains not only to the woman, 

but to her whole family and the whole community. This situation 

is so much more serious because it does not concern 10,000 women 

but, according to estimates, several hundred thousand women. 

‘‘My name is Madame X, and I am 47 years old. On the night 

of August 24, 2007, while we were sleeping, four intruders speaking another language, and probably coming from Kahuzi Biega 

Park, broke down the door of the house. They tied up my husband, 

stole everything in the house, and demanded money. Two of them 

raped me, and the two others raped my 13-year-old daughter and 

took her into the forest. Up to now, I do not know if she is still 

living. When they first raped me, the second took a piece of wood 

wrapped in a piece of cloth and began to clean my private parts. 

In putting the piece of wood deeply into me, he wounded my bladder and my private parts. The next morning, the village people who 

had not run away took me to the dispensary. Two days later, a 

medical team from Panzi found me at the dispensary and took me 

to the hospital. I was treated and am now better, but I am afraid 

to return home because the intruders are still in the forest.’’ 

This is an example of what we are living with every day. Thus, 

I am asking the national Congolese community to invest thoroughly in putting an end to this crisis, similar to no other, that is 

going on in eastern Congo by using political, judicial, and whatever 

other means to isolate the authors of these crimes and stop them 

from committing any more crimes. 

I am also asking the international community to make rational 

use of MONUC, the United Nations forces in the Congo, to protect 

the civilian population and especially the women, which is part of 

their mandate, and yet this situation continues to this day. 

I am also asking the American Government to use its influence 

on the governments of the countries of the Great Lakes Region to 

stop this practice of rape being used as a weapon of war and to 

help stop the leaders of these horrible crimes, who are known to 

everyone; where they are staying is no secret, and their acts are 

known to everyone. 

Members of the Subcommittee, the eyes of these women are now 

riveted on you. Their eyes will not leave you until you have actively 

taken steps to alleviate their suffering. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Mukwege appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman DURBIN. Dr. Mukwege, thank you very much for that 

moving testimony. When I visited DOCS Hospital in Goma, and 

asked about the doctors who were there, they told me that there 

15 

was one surgeon for every 1 million people. And I asked them what 

these doctors were paid, and I was told that they work for the government and that they were paid $600 a month, when they were 

paid. 

Can you tell me if the circumstances at your hospital are similar? 

Dr. MUKWEGE. The situation of doctors in the Congo today is 

catastrophical. I have worked for almost 25 years in this area, in 

this region, as the only gynecologist. It is practically impossible to 

find a gynecologist who will come and work under these conditions. 

They prefer to go to South Africa or other countries where they are 

better paid and treated. And to get around this problem, I have 

trained some of my colleagues, doctors, in gynecological and obstetrical interventions to be able to help me to work in the hospital. 

Chairman DURBIN. May I ask you this? You have spoken to us 

graphically about the physical damage being done to the victims. 

Would you speak for a moment about the psychological element? 

What I found in many of these women in Goma was rejection by 

their families, by their tribes, by all of their friends. They were 

alone after they had been victimized. You have given us examples 

of women who have been victimized. Are these women welcomed 

back to some part of their background, their family, their community, their village? What is their future after the surgery? 

Dr. MUKWEGE. After surgery, we come up against two types of 

problems. The first group are women who are cured physically and 

who do not have AIDS. It is easier to reconciliate this group of 

women with their families, and, with the help of churches and 

NGO’s, we make many efforts to reconcile these women with their 

families. There has been a favorable change today in the way that 

people look at the women, and we have been working with the 

churches not to condemn these women. And this has led to an acceptance on the part of the community and the families of these 

women. 

But even if the woman does not have AIDS or she is not very 

sick, when the rapist gives a child to the woman he rapes, it is 

hard for the family to accept the child, and for the community also. 

And we have been trying to work with the family to accept the 

child, because when the father of the child has killed the whole 

family, it is absolutely difficult for the family or the community to 

accept the child. 

We have a problem because with very young girls, many of them 

are incurable, 13, 14 years old. The bladder was destroyed. The rectum was destroyed. The vagina was destroyed. And in that state 

it is hard to cure them. So they cannot go home because when they 

go home, they do not smell good because they are incontinent, and 

they always come back to the hospital. And it is a problem because 

we keep these young women. 

They never want to leave the hospital. They always find a reason 

to stay at the hospital, and it is hard for the hospital because the 

hospital cannot keep all these women. And that is a big problem 

for us. They always find a reason to come back and stay there. 

Chairman DURBIN. If I could interrupt you for a moment, I want 

to give Senator Coburn a chance to ask questions. I misstated earlier. He is a family practice physician with a specialty in obstetrics, 

so I want to make sure that is clear for the record. 

16 

Senator Coburn? And then we will continue with questions to the 

rest of the panel. 

Senator COBURN. Well, first of all, let me thank each of you for 

your testimony. I was intrigued by Dr. Askin’s recommendations, 

and I just wondered what Ms. Wachter and Ms. Jackson thought. 

I do not know if you have read her testimony. She gave us some 

very specific things that she thought we could do. Do you have any 

comments about what those are? She listed, I believe, five. Is that 

not correct, Dr. Askin? Five specific areas that we can do in terms 

of domestic law that will have an impact on international law. 

Could either of you comment on that? Are you aware of what her 

recommendations were? Ms. Jackson? 

Ms. JACKSON. I have not read her recommendations, so I cannot 

really comment, and not being sort of an expert in these sort of policy type of areas, I will let Karin take this question. 

Ms. WACHTER. Unfortunately, I have just received the testimony 

myself, so I was not able to read through the recommendations. 

What I would say is that what Dr. Askin is saying in terms of impunity and having to hold perpetrators accountable is absolutely 

important. From the standpoint of an organization that gets on the 

ground and provides services to the survivors of these kinds of 

crime, we certainly want to promote the idea that while we are 

looking at issues of impunity, we look at issues of continued support and services on the ground, and also help to change the laws 

to make it more amenable within the countries themselves to deal 

with these issues. 

The International Violence Against Women Act that has been recently introduced is an exciting opportunity to make sure that this 

can happen. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Dr. Mukwege, you have described very literally the complications that come from this. Chlamydia is a silent 

killer in this country as far as reproductive health, but it is not so 

silent where you are treating. And I would dare say probably your 

experience on reconstructive vaginal, rectal, and urethral surgery 

is greater than most in this country. Are there areas where we 

could as a country be of help in attaining further expertise for 

those women who have failed repairs? Is there something that we 

can do to help make them whole through either our research or our 

training where we could enable you to be more effective? 

Dr. MUKWEGE. This is quite an opportunity. We really need 

someone who can do this kind of surgery or experts who could do 

this kind of surgery, because it is not the usual kind of surgery 

that people do. We need assistance in urology and gynecology surgery. There is no urologist in Goma or Bukavu, and if a mission 

of gynecologists and urologists, American gynecologists and urologists, could come to help the inoperable cases, because there are 

other techniques of derivation of tubes to be able to help them. 

That would be very helpful for us. 

We do have a new group, a new contact with Harvard University 

where they wanted to send experts, but up to now the experts they 

have sent, it is more on a research basis, and we have not had anyone who does this kind of surgery to come. 

Senator COBURN. Just for the audience’s sake, my own personal 

experience is that if we have a recto-vaginal fistula or urethro-vagVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:10 Nov 06, 2008 Jkt 045210 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\45210.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
17 

inal fistula, we attempt to repair it once. But in the central part 

of the United States, what we always do is refer to one center in 

St. Louis because there is such a limited exposure. 

My worry is that we do not have this expert, that Dr. Mukwege 

actually has more expertise than we have in this country, and I 

will try the question one more time. 

Is there a way where we could create a specially trained group 

of physicians that would help you or at least make physicians 

available to you that would help you? 

Dr. MUKWEGE. At Panzi we have trained eight generalist doctors 

in these kinds of operations. But we still need help because—and 

if the American Government could help us create a training center 

at Panzi for doctors, we could get some experts from the United 

States, the urologists, that we could also work with, because we 

have certain knowledge about this, and we could work together and 

we could train other doctors. 

Senator COBURN. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you, Senator Coburn, and I appreciate 

your being here at this hearing. 

I will just add a comment. One of the things I noted was that 

as soon as these doctors are trained, many of them are subject to 

being poached by the United States, Germany, France, South Africa, where they can make dramatically more money in dramatically 

better situations. And that is one of the dilemmas here where we 

are complicit in the problem. We are attracting these doctors from 

Africa, and nurses, to come to the United States to serve our needs 

when they are desperately needed in many parts of the world, like 

Africa. I am trying to address this. It is a terrible dilemma for an 

American Congressman, but one that we clearly have to face. 

Dr. Askin, I want to followup on what Dr. Mukwege has said. 

Speaking as a lawyer who has not been a prosecutor in criminal 

cases, it is my understanding that to prove a case of rape, you need 

the testimony usually of a victim. In this case, we are dealing with 

children and victims who are clearly not consensual in any way, 

shape, or form in this. So as you advise these judges and others, 

prosecutors and others, tell me how they make the case when we 

are dealing with people who are too ashamed to speak of the atrocities that have been visited on them. And also, just as a footnote 

to this, after leaving Congo, I went to Kigali in Rwanda and stayed 

at the Hotel Rwanda and walked around to some of these scenes 

that I had been told about in that terrible atrocity and genocide in 

Rwanda. Aside from the museum, which highlights what happened 

during that genocide, I found Rwandans, by and large, not wanting 

to talk about it. They wanted to put it behind them. 

So tell me about that aspect as well, that by the time a tribunal 

meets, a war many times has passed, and people do not want to 

reflect and dwell on the pain of the past. Tell me how cases can 

be made under those circumstances. 

Ms. ASKIN. Thank you, Senator Durbin. That is an excellent 

question. 

Actually, because so many of these crimes are committed in public, often it is not necessarily just the victim who is testifying. It 

18 

is witnesses. The tribunals have found it very effective to ask virtually every person that they interview about sexual violence. 

There is one case, for instance, at the Rwanda Tribunal where 

rape as a crime against humanity has been charged, and yet they 

have never called a single victim. They asked everybody else: 

Peacekeepers, did you know about wartime rape? Did you see any? 

Did you see the evidence? And many times they will report, because it is so notorious, that everybody can talk about, yes, it was 

widespread, it was systematic; there were these patterns of conduct 

in these particular places. 

And doctors like Dr. Mukwege, I was with him in Bukavu in January, and he has this phenomenal documentation of patterns of 

conduct of different groups. You know, some of the ones that just 

jumped out at me, you know, one particular group, when they attack women, they cutoff the husband’s head and leave it on the 

chest of the woman while they are raping her, and she eventually 

goes mad. Another group has, you know, attacks with foreign objects. 

I do disagree to some extent with the claim I think that is quite 

frequent that people do not want to talk about this. Now, I do 

think that they want to get on with their life, and 10 years later, 

you know, they may have married, maybe their husband does not 

know about what happened to them. But I have found in much of 

my work that people have been extremely willing to talk about the 

sex crimes committed against them, testifying, doing—you know, 

when many of them come from justice systems where there are not 

necessarily fair trials, when everybody in the community will know 

if they leave for weeks at a time to go away. I think there certainly 

is the shame and stigma, but I do think that people are willing to 

talk about it. And I have spoken to several women who have found 

the experience extremely empowering to be able to go into court 

and tell their story. 

But, you know, there is no question that it is a difficult crime, 

but I think the public nature of so much of it has made the testimony somewhat easier. 

Chairman DURBIN. Ms. Wachter, Dr. Mukwege has said in his 

testimony—I am paraphrasing here—that mass rape as we are 

speaking of here is less—and some of these are my words, but 

paraphrasing his—less an issue of sexual desire and more a crime 

of violence to destroy the woman, destroy the family, destroy the 

tribe as part of, you know, this kind of tactic of war. 

So is this something that in your experience becomes a calculated 

and announced policy? Or is it something where it drifts to this 

level of violence and then continues unabated without any attempt 

at restraint? How calculated, how specific is this as a tactic of war? 

Ms. WACHTER. I think that is an excellent question, and it is one 

that we oftentimes ask ourselves. I think that there are clear examples, such as in Bosnia, where it was a clearly defined policy. 

In DRC, my sense of it is that it has been so effective in controlling, in demeaning, in demoralizing the population caught between 

the different rebel groups and the military that it is more a spreading practice, as they see it as being very effective in carrying out 

their so-called military aims. And also because the soldiers such as 

in Congo are underpaid, they are not taken care of, they are actuVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:10 Nov 06, 2008 Jkt 045210 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\45210.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
19 

ally using this as a tactic to get their food from the population. So 

it is oftentimes hard for us to say. 

Chairman DURBIN. One of the comments made by Dr. Mukwege 

was about the role of the United Nations forces in Congo, for example, and I was with those forces, visiting refugee camps, and he 

called for more vigilance on their part. So speaking of the refugee 

camps—and I imagine you have seen them or have friends who 

have visited there—are the United Nations forces in those instances, to your mind, doing the job, making certain that there is 

safety and security at least within the refugee camps? 

Ms. WACHTER. Also an excellent question. I think that oftentimes 

the U.N. forces have their hands tied a bit, but that they are not, 

in fact, able to do the job as it was envisioned, and certainly not 

up to the expectations of the community itself. Certainly in the 

Congo example, the Congolese population is looking to MONUC to 

be providing them that protection, and they are unable to. 

Chairman DURBIN. There have been mentions here several 

times—it has been mentioned several times—of peacekeepers being 

involved in this terrible crime. Is there any evidence that they are 

being prosecuted? Ms. Jackson? 

Ms. JACKSON. Yes, often they are sent back to the host country, 

so the Uruguayans, the South Africans, the Bangladeshis will be 

sent back with a cut in pay, but they will face no reprisals at home. 

I had a good friend who was actually in charge of the MONUC investigation and prosecution, and they could bring no charges 

against any of the dozens and dozens of peacekeepers who were 

setting up brothels and exchanging wheat for sexual favors. So, no, 

the host countries do not—there is no pressure on them to prosecute. 

Chairman DURBIN. Dr. Mukwege also spoke about the women 

after surgery, and it appears from your documentary that you have 

interviewed many of these women who have been through this experience—and some, I am sure, have received some medical attention—being lost souls with no place to turn. Tell me what your experience has been, Ms. Jackson, as you traveled around and spoke 

in some of these different regions, about what happens to these 

women ultimately. 

Ms. JACKSON. Well, I think it needs to be emphasized that the 

women who make it to Panzi Hospital are a minority. The ones 

who get there often walk for months through the forest. This is a 

country with no infrastructure, with no roads. So the women who 

get there, because they have, you know, hitched a ride on a truck 

or family members have helped them limp through the woods, are 

the minority. And the majority of women never make it to any sort 

of medical facility. 

They are forgotten women in a forgotten war, and they are very 

much—they have become sort of the walking dead. They are ostracized within the community, as he mentions. They are incontinent. 

They are, you know, constantly soiling themselves. Yet the women 

will come together, and I met many groups of women, all of whom 

have been raped, all of whom have been rejected by their families, 

all of whom had children that they could no longer care for, who 

often will congregate, for instance, in churches, in parish halls. And 

that becomes their new community, because they are forced to start 

20 

over again. They are forced to start over again. They have nothing 

left. 

And, of course, their children become picked off by the militias, 

and they are conscripted as child soldiers. They end up working in 

the mines for slave wages. So you can see how the family begins 

to break down as soon as the women is victimized. 

Chairman DURBIN. Have you run into any coordinated efforts to 

help them, like micro credit programs or anything of that nature? 

Ms. JACKSON. Well, there are many, many NGO’s on the ground 

in Eastern Congo, and the IRC has wonderful programs, Women 

for Women International. 

The micro loan thing is—you know, it can work, but this is a 

country with no banking system. And when you go into a village 

in, you know, a 4 x 4 with an NGO logo on the side and go into 

a home, immediately that home is—the presumption is that you 

are leaving money and goods behind, and often people are robbed 

after you come into a village. I mean, I learned to go in, you know, 

very much under the radar. 

So, you know, the country is in such desperate straits that aid 

needs to come from so many areas, you know, for women’s economic empowerment, for their physical and reproductive health, 

you know, to address the impunity issue, to deal with their children, a generation that has been raised in this horrible conflict. 

So micro credit is a definite possibility, but how one enacts that 

is difficult. 

Chairman DURBIN. We have spoken of many countries where this 

use of rape as a tactic of war has been prevalent. We focused on 

the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, and not to take anything 

away from the tragedy and genocide of Darfur, I hope that today’s 

hearing will encourage people to look more closely at the sad, tragic 

situation in Democratic Republic of Congo. 

I would like to go to really the heart of the hearing and back to 

Dr. Askin. It is our hope that we can make it clear that the United 

States under its law is not going to look the other way when someone who is guilty of these crimes comes to our country, even if the 

victims have not been Americans, even if the crime did not occur 

on American soil, that we will not give them the comfort of safety 

and security in our Nation. They would face prosecution. 

I do not know if this has any great value on the ground in these 

countries that we are speaking of. It certainly has great value to 

me from a moral position that we are trying to say to the world 

this is what everyone should do so that there is no safe haven. And 

I would ask, Dr. Askin, if you could comment on that aspect of the 

hearing. 

Ms. ASKIN. Absolutely. I mean, I think that we have seen for the 

last, you know, 20 or 30 years that there have been perpetrators 

of horrible atrocities who have ended up coming to the United 

States, and there has not been, until more recently, laws on the 

book to prosecute them if they committed the crimes in Argentina 

or Chile or outside the United States. And I think that sends a signal that this is a safe haven, that, you know, perpetrators can come 

here because we do not have laws that can prosecute them. 

Often, we do not extradite—or sometimes we do, but because 

sending them back, the country is unable or unwilling to prosecute 

21 

them themselves. So there is nothing to do, you know, under the 

Alien Tort Claims Act or other civil remedies, but there need to be 

legal remedies, particularly for when crimes are committed outside 

the United States and the perpetrator comes to the U.S. And I do 

think it sends a signal not only to the victims but to other countries that you take these crimes seriously. 

It is frustrating to see over the years how many generals or superiors who have committed crimes in other jurisdictions have come 

here and been subject to very little criminal penalty. 

Chairman DURBIN. What of the argument some make that we 

should just deport these people back to the country where this occurred, which is where they should be prosecuted, since it is likely 

there will be more evidence? What do you make of that argument? 

Ms. ASKIN. Most of the time the countries in question are ones 

that cannot prosecute or will not prosecute, and so they will essentially go back with impunity. Sometimes they may be subjected to 

torture. Most of the countries do not have the due process standards that this country has. 

You know, I do think that there is a duty to prosecute or extradite to a country where they will get a fair and effective prosecution. 

Chairman DURBIN. Let me ask you, Dr. Askin, as my last question: Can you point to a country which has handled this well, 

where you believe that they have recognized the problem and have 

done the right thing in terms of prosecuting those who have committed these crimes against humanity? 

Ms. ASKIN. I think you are starting to see that increasingly in 

Spain and Belgium where they are increasingly prosecuting crimes 

committed outside their jurisdiction, for war crimes, crimes against 

humanity, and genocide. They have laws on their books that enable 

them to do that, and I think there has been even some situations 

where, you know, somebody has gone to their country for medical 

reasons, and they have arrested and are prosecuting them. 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you. 

Dr. Mukwege, I am going to ask you a question which you may 

not be prepared to answer. I hope you are. But if those who are 

following this hearing on C–SPAN want to help you and your hospital in its efforts, is there a charity, an American-based charity, 

for example, that they could support that might be able to help you 

with your important work? 

Dr. MUKWEGE. Thank you very much for asking me that question. I want to say thank you because we have already benefited 

from a program. We are benefiting from an outreach program—but 

it is not on a very large scale—to go to different villages and get 

women who are not able to come to the clinic. We go to see the 

women in the villages. We talk about this, too, and the problems 

of rape, and women come forward and are examined by the doctors. 

Or we take them to the hospital to get help. We have a limited 

amount of help with that. 

The additional aid we are asking today would be the training 

that we talked about, if we could maybe build a training center for 

training doctors in gynecology and fistulae, and we could cooperate 

with the American doctors with what we know and what they 

know. And we would like those two programs—the outreach proVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:10 Nov 06, 2008 Jkt 045210 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\45210.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
22 

gram going to the villages and getting the women, plus the training 

center—those are the two kinds of programs that we would like to 

continue and develop. 

Chairman DURBIN. Thank you. I will try to work with you to 

achieve those goals and find the appropriate agency or NGO to 

help us reach them. 

I want to place in the record at this point the written statements 

from the following organizations and individuals: Amnesty International, CARE, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Human Rights 

Watch, International Center for Transitional Justice, Physicians for 

Human Rights, Women Thrive Worldwide, Women’s Commission 

for Refugee Women and Children, Eve Ensler, Colin Thomas-Jensen of ENOUGH, and Daniel Rothenberg of DePaul Law School’s 

International Human Rights Law Institute. Without objection, 

these will be included in the record. 

The record will remain open for a week for additional materials 

from interested individuals or organizations. Written questions for 

the witnesses must also be submitted by the close of business one 

week from today, which we will ask the witnesses to respond to, 

if they can, in a timely fashion. 

As we close this hearing, I want to urge everyone listening to 

contemplate the challenge that Dr. Mukwege posed to all of us 

today when he said that the eyes of the women and girls who have 

suffered unimaginable wartime violence in his Democratic Republic 

of Congo and countries around the globe are fixed on all of us. We 

have a moral obligation to take action to help these brave survivors 

and to stop the use of rape as a weapon of war. 

This hearing will stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Submissions for the record follow.] 

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