DRC soldiers arrested for molesting women

October 27, 2004 - (SA - Kinshasa) Police in Democratic Republic of Congo have arrested 10 regular army soldiers and two police officers for molesting women, the UN radio station Okapi reported as Amnesty International denounced widsespread and unpunished rape.

The 12 suspects were detained after women dressed in tight-fitting trousers in public places in Kinshasa were beaten and had their clothes torn by members of the security forces and bystanders, police said.

The detainees were due to appear before a military court, police sources told the radio station.

The report came the same day as Amnesty International urged DRC authorities to take action to help victims of sexual aggression, particularly rape, in a document released to the government and the press.

"Amnesty International urgently requests the DRC government and the international community to take necessary measures to give rape victims adequate medical attention," said a summary of a 64-page text.

In Kinshasa, several citizens went on radio and television to denounce the attacks, which some women described as a "violation of our right to freedom of dress", while others said the clothes were too sexually provocative and called for more "modest" and traditional clothing.

In the east of a vast country emerging from a brutal five years of war, however, the report from human rights watchdog Amnesty International said that the rape of tens of thousands of women and small children, as well as sexual attacks on men, had gone unchallenged as armed factions fought over land and resources.

"Because of a legal system reduced to helplessness, there's neither justice nor reparation for the crimes these people endured," the report said.

"The climate of permanent insecurity means that women live in fear of further attacks or reprisals should they dare to speak out against their attackers."

Amnesty accused the transitional government set up last year as the war drew to a close of having "done very little to deal with the suffering of a civilian population traumatised and weakened by years of war".

Minister for Human Rights Marie-Madeleine Kalala said the government was determined to deal with impunity of all kinds, adding that it would be attentive to sexual aggression, particularly rapes in the east, which were especially "unacceptable in the absence of war".

"The DRC is committed to fighting crime and has shown this by ratifying the Rome statute creating the International Criminal Court," she said, referring to a tribunal based in the Netherlands.

From: http://www.suntimes.co.za/zones/sundaytimesNEW/basket6st/basket6st1098851094.aspx