The DRC is a vast mineral-rich nation with an estimated population of approximately 68 million to 72 million people in an area that is roughly one-quarter the size of the United States. It was colonized in 1885 as a personal possession of Belgian King Leopold II, administered by the Belgian government starting in 1907, and achieved independence from Belgium in 1960. For almost 30 years of the postindependence period, the DRC was known as Zaire and was ruled by an authoritarian regime under Joseph Mobutu. Following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, some perpetrators of the genocide and refugees fled into eastern DRC. See figure 1 for a map highlighting eastern DRC and countries that border eastern DRC. The Mobutu regime was toppled in 1997 by Laurent Kabila, who led a rebel group from eastern DRC with the assistance of Rwanda and Uganda. Kabila was assassinated in 2001 and leadership shifted to his son, Joseph Kabila. During the period of the senior Kabila’s regime, the nation experienced a period of civil war during which numerous rebel groups, with the assistance of Rwanda, Uganda, and other neighboring countries, captured significant parts of the DRC. The war continued into the regime of Joseph Kabila, and resulted in the deaths of an estimated 5.4 million people by 2007. After decades of instability and war, the central government in the capital, Kinshasa, currently has little administrative capacity and control over remote regions, such as eastern DRC. The lack of control is exacerbated by the long distances and the rudimentary infrastructure, which make transportation and communication difficult. While the precise magnitude of sexual violence in the DRC is difficult to establish, the high number of sexual assaults in the DRC, and the severity of these assaults, has attracted the attention of the international community, including the U.S. government, other foreign governments, the UN, and NGOs. State has identified the DRC as a priority focus for U.S. efforts to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls. In August 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to the city of Goma in North Kivu in eastern DRC, where she met with victims of sexual violence and the providers of medical and other services to those victims; while in Goma, the Secretary announced $17 million in funding to assist female victims of sexual violence in the DRC. Additionally, State and USAID coordinate multiple programs in the DRC designed to assist the victims of sexual violence, including through legal aid to facilitate prosecutions. The UN Organization Mission in the DRC (MONUC) was first deployed to the DRC in 1999 to support the implementation of a cease-fire agreement. Over the past 11 years, MONUC has steadily grown in size from an initial force of about 5,500 troops to its authorized size, through June, 30, 2011, of more than 20,000 total military and police personnel. MONUC’s mandate prioritizes the protection of civilians. In 2010, MONUC was renamed the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) to reflect an increased emphasis on stabilization. The United States is the largest donor to MONUSCO, contributing almost one-third of MONUSCO’s $1 billion annual budget. In addition, in early 2010, the UN Secretary General appointed Margot Wallström as Special Representative for the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict. The primary role of the Special Representative is to keep the issue of sexual violence in the forefront of public and diplomatic dialogue. A number of NGOs are also active in addressing sexual violence in the DRC through providing medical, legal, and vocational training services to victims of sexual violence; researching sexual violence issues; and advocating for specific policies and prevention mechanisms to end the violence and/or provide assistance to sexual violence victims. We identified five population-based surveys, shown in table 1 below, that provide data on the rate of sexual violence in eastern DRC and Uganda. We identified three population-based surveys for eastern DRC that provide data on the rate of sexual violence: (1) a survey by McGill University researchers in partnership with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and others (McGill University), (2) a survey by the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center (UC Berkeley), and (3) a survey by the Democratic Republic of the Congo Ministry of Planning with support of the Ministry of Health. All three surveys were conducted since 2006 and utilized random sampling of the population in parts of eastern DRC to identify whether respondents had been the victims of sexual violence, among other things. McGill University Survey (2010) Data from a survey conducted by McGill University in 2010 estimated that 9 percent of the population had experienced sexual violence in the 1-year period from March 2009 through March 2010, and 13 percent of the population had experienced sexual violence in the 2-year period from March 2008 through March 2010. The McGill University survey found that self-reported sexual violence and other human rights violations were prevalent in specific territories of eastern DRC. Over the period covered by the survey—1994 through 2010—the survey estimated about 33 percent of the population had experienced some form of sexual violence. The McGill University survey employed a rigorous methodology and utilized generally accepted survey design, implementation, and analysis principles. The survey was conducted in March 2010 and provides the most recent information on the rate of sexual violence in eastern DRC. The survey employed statistical weighting, a procedure used when deriving generalizable estimates from a complex sample. The survey estimates are also accompanied by 95 percent confidence intervals, which give an indication of the precision of estimates. Additionally, the survey was designed as a multistage cluster survey. This multistage cluster survey included stratification by region, a technique that ensures representation across geographic areas, and clustering of villages, a typical practice for household surveys in developing countries that can reduce the cost of conducting a survey by reducing the number of locations to which interviewers must travel. However, the findings from the survey conducted by McGill University are not generalizable to the entire population in eastern DRC. Some of the villages in eastern DRC were inaccessible because of security concerns, difficult terrain, or poor infrastructure; consequently, the survey is generalizable only to certain territories surveyed in eastern DRC. The territories of Mwenga and Walikale in eastern DRC are not represented in this survey, and if the rates of sexual violence were higher in these areas, then the overall rate of sexual violence identified in this survey would be an underestimate. For example, according to UN officials, more than 300 people were mass-raped in 13 villages in Walikale, North Kivu, by armed groups between July 30 and August 2, 2010. Figures on this attack and others like it in Mwenga or Walikale would not have been captured in this survey, if any occurred. UC Berkeley Survey (2007) A survey conducted by UC Berkeley, in partnership with the International Center for Transitional Justice and the Payson Center for International Development at Tulane University, in late 2007, estimated about 16 percent of the population had experienced sexual violence over the period 1993 through 2007. Additionally, the survey estimated that 23 percent of the population had witnessed an act of sexual violence in their lifetimes. The UC Berkeley survey was conducted between September and December 2007 on attitudes about peace, justice, and social reconstruction in eastern DRC. It was designed similarly to McGill University’s, as a multistage cluster survey, but it is difficult to assess the accuracy of the survey because it did not employ the standard survey estimation techniques used in the 2010 survey conducted by McGill University. UC Berkeley followed generally accepted survey design and implementation principles, but the analysis did not employ the use of statistical weights. The use of weights is a generally accepted analysis procedure when deriving generalizable estimates from a complex sample. Although researchers at UC Berkeley planned for a self-weighting sample (one where every element in the population has the same probability of being selected), the final sample was not self-weighting. The decision not to use weights in the analysis of the survey data means that we cannot conclude how different the reported estimates of sexual violence rates from this survey are from what would have been otherwise obtained had the data been weighted using complex sample design formulas. In addition, reporting of estimates is generally accompanied by a measure of precision, such as a margin of error or a confidence interval. As this survey does not provide a margin of error, it means that we cannot assess the precision of its estimates. DRC Ministry of Planning Survey (2007) The Democratic Republic of the Congo Demographic and Health Survey was conducted nationwide from January to August 2007 by the DRC Ministry of Planning with the support of the DRC Ministry of Health and a number of foreign government, international, and nongovernmental organizations, including USAID, various UN agencies, and the World Bank. The survey estimated that in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, about 8 percent and 6 percent of females between the ages of 15 and 49, respectively, had experienced sexual violence within the 1- year period preceding the survey. The survey also estimated that in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces about 25 percent and 18 percent of females, respectively, had experienced sexual violence at some point in their lives. It was a nationally representative survey designed to provide information on fertility, mortality, family planning, and reproductive health of women in the DRC and includes some information on the rate of sexual violence in the DRC for females. The survey followed generally accepted survey design, implementation, and analysis principles and was designed as a multistage stratified cluster survey. Survey estimates were calculated using statistical weighting, and these estimates were accompanied by 95 percent confidence intervals indicating the precision of an estimate.