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STORY: UN / WALLSTROM AJPH STUDY
TRT: 2:51
SOURCE: UNTV / MONUSCO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 12 MAY 2011, UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
RECENT - UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior UN headquarters
12 MAY 2011, UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK CITY
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Margot Wallström, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, United Nations:
“We welcome reports and studies of this kind because it helps us to better understand this phenomenon and as we often say, we cannot prevent what we fully don’t understand.”
FILE - MONUSCO - 21 SEPTEMBER 2008, MASISI, NORTH KIVU PROVINCE, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
3. Various shots, women and children fleeing
12 MAY 2011, UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK CITY
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Margot Wallström, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, United Nations:
“There is a difference in the way we count because the United Nations also has to verify these figures so when we report we do it in such a way that we can do follow up that there is assistance to be given to the victims so the extrapolation we cannot do that like maybe an academic report can do.”
FILE – MONUSCO - 1 NOVEMBER 2009, MARABO, ITURI DISTRICT, BUNIA AND DUNGU, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
5. Various shots, women
6. Tracking shot, MONUSCO’s Moroccan peacekeepers in military jeep
12 MAY 2011, UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK CITY
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Margot Wallström, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, United Nations:
“It is important to move beyond numbers. As much as we want to try to describe the magnitude of the problem it must take us beyond counting the numbers of rapes for example, must bring us into looking at how we can prevent it.”
FILE – MONUSCO - 2 OCTOBER 2010, KAMPALA VILLAGE, WALIKALE TERRITORY, NORTH KIVU PROVINCE, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
8. Various shots, Wallström meeting women in village
12 MAY 2011, UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK CITY
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Margot Wallström, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, United Nations:
“We also have to realize that we’ll never have a complete full picture. I think it’ll always be under-reported because of all this other sort of surrounding the risk or the fear of stigma or shame.”
FILE – MONUSCO - 2 OCTOBER 2010, KAMPALA VILLAGE, WALIKALE TERRITORY, NORTH KIVU PROVINCE, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
10. Various shots, Wallström meeting women in village
12 MAY 2011, UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK CITY
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Margot Wallström, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, United Nations:
“I remember this young woman who I met in Walikale and she said that she had been taken out of her home the night before she was getting married and had been gang raped. And her whole future destroyed in a way and she was not only devastated but she was also angry. I could feel that she was also furious that this could be done to her and she said that a dead rat is worth more than a woman who has been raped.”
FILE – MONUSCO – MARCH-APRIL 2004 / SONGO MBOYO, EQUATEUR PROVINCE, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
12. Wide shot, MONUC human rights officer leading group of rape victims out of the forest
13. Various shots, rape victims
United Nations (UN) Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Margot Wallström said that the new study on sexual violence published in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) would help the organization “better understand this phenomenon” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where she added, rape “will always be under-reported” because of the "risk or the fear of stigma or shame.”
The AJPH study released this week said that almost every minute a woman is raped in the DRC. The figure was reported to be 26 times higher than UN estimates. It also reports of a phenomenon of increased social tolerance for sexual violence, due to its prevalence in conflict, and to factors linked with conflict, such as impunity.
Wallström’s office has, however, found that definitional ambiguity is one of a number of factors that explains the difference between various findings.
In an interview with the UN today (12 May), Wallström said there was a “difference in the way we count.” She explained that the UN “has to verify these figures” in order to provide assistance to the victims.
According to her office, official UN figures tend to be conservative, because the organization can only report to the Security Council information on sexual violence that has been verified by the organisation itself.
Ultimately, she added “it is important to move beyond numbers” and look into how we can prevent the rapes.
The Department of Peacekeeping Operations, which has a mission in the country, confirmed that sexual violence is a serious problem in the DRC, and UN and its and international partners have been working together in past years to support the Government in addressing it.
Wallström has travelled to the DRC thrice since her appointment early last year as the Special Representative. Last October, while visiting the Walikale region, she met with the victims of sexual violence who were raped by members of armed groups, many of them in front of their families and neighbours.
She spoke of a young woman who was “taken out of her home the night before she was getting married and had been gang raped.” The victim told her “a dead rat is worth more than a woman who has been raped.”
Following the incident in Walikale where approximately 235 women, 52 girls, 13 men, and 3 boys were raped, earlier this year, the UN reported 50 to 80 cases of sexual violence perpetrated by the Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) in Fizi, South Kivu.
The UN estimates some 11,000 rapes in 2010 but the figure is considered to be much higher.
