Congo (Kinshasa)

More attention is being paid today to the inter-relationality between gender and war/conflict than ever before, raising interesting and often frustratingly confounding questions. For example, do the gender roles which dictate our wartime behaviour create a cyclical effect in which our behaviour in wartime further reinforces and defines our peacetime gender roles?

The international community's efforts to increase the number of rape convictions in Democratic Republic of Congo have created unfair trials and led to growing numbers of false convictions, according to a new documentary.

The Permanent Missions to the United Nations of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States submitted to the Security Council's Committee established pursuant to Resolution 1533 (2004) concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the name of Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka, to be added to the list of individuals and entities subject to a worldwide travel ban and asset freeze.

A national assembly candidate charged with organising the mass rape of 387 people has staged a campaign rally in the eastern Congolese town of Walikale.

Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka, running for one of two seats in the Walikale district of the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), held the rally on Thursday in full view of police, the Congolese army and within three kilometres of a UN peacekeeping base.

The 11 candidates contesting presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo all pledge to improve peace and security in the country - promises received with varying degrees of scepticism by Congolese voters.

First, Cmdr. Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka ordered his militia to join an attack on a group of villages in eastern Congo, where the fighters gang-raped at least 387 women, men, girls and boys, according to a United Nations report of the atrocities.

DR Congo: As Electoral Campaign Starts, Congolese and International NGOs Call for Urgent Measures to Prevent Escalating Violence

Contested election could lead to widespread violence, warns a coalition of 41 NGOs

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo should immediately arrest an armed group leader running for political office who is wanted for crimes against humanity, including mass rape, Human Rights Watch said today. A Mai Mai militia leader, Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka, is running as a candidate for the National Assembly in elections scheduled for November 28, 2011.

Thousands of women and girls who have been abducted by armed groups, enslaved and repeatedly raped during conflicts across Africa are left without support when the war ends, experts say.

After the bullets have stopped flying, peacekeepers and governments focus on disarming fighters – who are usually men and boys - and helping them to return home and reintegrate into their communities.