Gender, Violence and Politics in the Democratic Republic of Congo by Jane Freedman

Author:Jane Freedman [Freedman, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Africa, Social Science, Peace, Political Science, History, Women's Studies, General
ISBN: 9781409467786
Google: _I3mCgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 39276779
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-11-28T09:27:31+00:00

Varying Forms of Violence: Examining the Continnum

As we have argued throughout this chapter, it is vital to understand sexual and gender-based violence in the conflicts in the DRC as part of a wider continuum of gendered violence which exist in the country. Domestic or intimate partner violence is a widespread problem in the DRC, and there is at present no form of state protection for women who are victims of such violence, nor are there shelters or refuges for domestic violence victims. Whilst legislation has been passed on sexual violence (see below), there is no specific legislation treating domestic violence, and thus no legal recourse to remove a violent partner from the household or to prevent an occurrence of such violence. Local attitudes seem to condone a certain level of violence within households. In focus group discussions, participants seemed to approve of the use of a ‘light tap’ by men to keep their wives in line. As one participant said, ‘If a woman doesn’t listen to her husband, she’ll get a few slaps, that’s the way it is’.9 The main discussion was on the acceptable degree of force to be used, and not whether the use of force was legitimate in the first place. Some of the women in the focus groups also said that they welcomed the fact that their husbands or boyfriends used some kind of physical force or violence against them, because they felt that this was a sign that the man in question loved them. One woman remarked that; ‘if he doesn’t hit you, it’s because he doesn’t love you’.10 It can thus be seen that a certain degree of violence in relationships between men and women is not just tolerated, but even expected.

The idea that certain types of gender-based violence are accepted and condoned by customary laws and traditions is supported by an anthropological study carried out in several regions in the East of the DRC. This study showed that while there were certain types of sexual and gender-based violence which were considered as crimes and punishable under customary law, including mainly the use of physical violence to obtain sexual relations, there were many other forms of violence which were not considered as such, and were condoned or even encouraged by customary law (REJUSCO, 2010). Focus group discussions in all regions of the DRC also supported this idea that traditional laws and customs condone various type of practice which can be seen to constitute forms of gender-based violence. Many of these customs revolve around marriage which is often conceived not as an individual decision, but as a communal process. Thus the practices of sororate and levirate where women may be forced to marry the brother of their dead husband, or the widow of their dead sister, are still in force in many places. Marital ‘kidnapping’ is also tolerated in some regions. This practice involves the kidnapping and sequestration of a young girl by a man who wishes to marry her. As the man will have

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.