If sexual violence against women is often overlooked when discussing war crimes, sexual violence against men is often completely ignored. But, in recent months the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has seen a massive upsurge in sexual violence against men, the New York Times reports.
Although still in a relative minority in relation to the hundreds of thousands of instances of sexual violence against women in the DRC, the impact on affected men is the same. In fact some would argue that due to the taboos on homosexuality and resulting social ostracizing of a man who has been ‘made a wife’ by another man, men have an even harder time ‘bouncing back’.
Aid workers have said they cannot fully explain this sudden upsurge – the American Bar Association reports that 10% of reported rapes to its Goma clinic in June were brought by men.
But it would seem the increase of rape against men in a society where such traditional gender roles exist heavily underscores the fact that sexual violence in this context is not a random act – it is being used as a weapon of war by armed groups to force certain communities into submission.