Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on June 11th, 2013

[Jocelyn Kelly]

One of the projects we have undertaken is looking specifically at the experiences, attitudes, and motivation of non-state combatants, including especially the Mai Mai militia. We found a number of practices within armed groups that promote sexual violence against civilians. One is the depersonalization of combatants; they often undergo a sustained and very violent initiation into armed groups that leads to the sense of dehumanization.

Another thing we've seen is an attitude that civilians are there to be preyed upon. One quote we often heard from soldiers is that civilians are “fields to be harvested”. There is the sense that if soldiers have given up so much to take up arms to protect the Congo, they have the right to take what they want from civilians.

We also see combatants drawing lines among different kinds of human rights abuses. They avoid certain types of rape that they see as especially bad, for instance, rape of the very young or very old or forced incest. By separating rape into evil rape and okay rape, they justify undertaking certain forms of abuses against women and can reconcile that in their own mind.

It's an interesting finding, in the sense that we can learn about how soldiers think about sexual violence in some of these subgroups. The work we undertook was only with certain subgroups of one militia. As you know, there are many in DRC. What's very true is that there's a varying landscape of motivations for undertaking sexual violence in Congo. Often it is not an order per se that comes from a military commander, but it is either condoned or people look the other way, or it's looked at as a way for soldiers to exert control over civilian populations or to take what they want. Many rebel commanders have no interest in trying to prevent rape among their troops.

This is definitely an area of research that we found interesting and points to potential intervention points. One is something as simple as saying that all rape is rape and that you must change attitudes around the way that combatants look at women. Another is to undertake more effective disarmament and demobilization. Something that I think is very much of concern, and which many people have talked about in DRC, is that when combatant groups are integrated into the national army, it's poor and incomplete integration.

At one point I was in a town called Walungu and was talking to those I thought were rebel soldiers, as they identified themselves as part of a rebel group. Then at some point I noticed that a number of them were wearing national military-issue uniforms. I asked them about this, and they said that reintegration happened about a year ago. But at no point did they identify themselves as national military, nor did they think of themselves that way. They continued to behave in the way they had as a non-state armed group.

I think we see a deep need for more effective demobilization and reintegration programming, as well as much more effective security sector reform within the Congolese national military. That includes putting soldiers into barracks so they're not always around the civilian population, and providing more sustained salary support so soldiers don't have this mindset of needing to take what they can get from civilians because they don't get anything from the government. It certainly involves an enormous amount of training and attitudinal change.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Kelly.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you, Mr. Jacob.

Nina Grewal, it's your turn.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Ms. Kelly, for your time here and your presentation. Certainly we all appreciate that.

We know that you are the director of the women in war program at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and that you've spent almost five years in the DRC and in speaking about combatants and non-state armed groups and conflict-related sexual violence.

In a recent blog posting you reflected on the complex process of trying to understand one of the most incomprehensible human behaviours. Could you discuss some of your experiences and give your reflections on spending some five years in the Democratic Republic of Congo?

[Jocelyn Kelly]

Certainly.

I think, again, this gets to the work with non-state armed combatants, many of whom are perpetrators of the violence that we're trying to understand here today. One thing that struck me as particularly heartbreaking while working in DRC is that when you talk to many of these rebel commanders and combatants, you're trying to understand what many of us think of as entirely incomprehensible behaviour. It is very intense abuse of civilians and sexual violence against women. Many of us find it incredibly difficult even to hear the descriptions. For me, I think the most challenging thing was recognizing that many of these soldiers had actually witnessed and undergone the very violence that they were then propagating. This is one of the core aspects of the conflict in DRC and one of the most heartbreaking.

Again, returning to that question of the cycle of violence, we often saw both men and women actually joining armed groups as young girls and boys. While some of them were kidnapped and some of them faced intense pressure to join, others joined out of a sense of anger or wanting to protect their communities from the violence that their own families had undergone.

One girl actually talked very eloquently about how she joined a Mai Mai rebel group because she had watched her mother and sister being raped. So her decision to become a soldier was informed by the fact that she had seen this violence occur in her household and she wanted to take up arms in order both to take revenge and to protect others from having to undergo this.

The most heartbreaking thing is that once in an armed group, many soldiers face incredibly horrific and dehumanizing conditions that would challenge our human understanding. I think that changes people and their systematic approaches to creating soldiers who are able to abuse civilians.

This gets us back to the question of how to mentally demobilize soldiers who often have no concept of how to live in civilian communities. While we think that taking away guns means disarmament, what we find is that soldiers who are put back into civilian communities still exhibit the same behaviours they did while they were combatants, involving violence, taking what you want, and preying on civilians. This is incredibly destabilizing for communities in DRC.

Again we get back to that question of how you demobilize the combatants who need to be demobilized. That's through long-term, sustained psychosocial services that are also linked to economic support. Many combatants find that not only can they not find a job, but they don't actually have the social skills to make it in civilian communities. They simply have not learned those skills. Services need to be geared to providing those capacities.

In addition some soldiers actually do choose to remain soldiers and join the national army. However, right now that is not always a positive or sustainable option for getting a salary, making money, and behaving like an honourable soldier. What I think is most interesting in speaking to many of these combatants is that there is this sense of, or longing for, honour and discipline and a sense of structure. It's just not something that they are able to achieve in their current situations.

So if the Congolese government undertook to create a disciplined, well-paid military, there would be an enormous amount of interest from combatants who have a desire to be in an organization like that. Unfortunately, right now that's just simply not the case.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Ms. Kelly, in a recent report you wrote, “Characterizing Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo”, you stated that one in three women reported being rejected by their husbands, and one in 15 report being rejected by their communities after rape. You continue to say that the stigma they face as survivors of sexual violence can be as traumatic as the attack itself. Can you explain how sexual violence is detrimental to human rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in addition to the emotional effects of sexual violence?

[Jocelyn Kelly]

Absolutely, and thank you so much for taking the time to read our report. I would just make a note that those statistics do come from a smaller survey, so it's not necessarily a population-based survey. Those were numbers we found in a smaller clinic-based sample of women who reported experiencing sexual violence. I do think those numbers are reflective of other organizations who do find that roughly one in three women faces actual social isolation or full-on rejection from their own families as a result of experiencing sexual violence. A number of other women actually feel forced to leave their own communities as a result of the negative attitudes toward women who have undergone rape.

As you can imagine, this exposes women to dire cycles of vulnerability without a family structure, with no way to earn money, and who are often taking care of children. These women are forced to live on the streets and create a living on their own. Often, this forces them tragically to turn to transactional sex, or leaves them being passed from hand to hand, from relative to relative, with nowhere to go.

One thing that's interesting and shows the linkages between different aspects of this conflict is that sometimes women who are rejected by their families end up in these artisanal mining towns, because they are the few places that women can go with the hope or promise of economic opportunity. They are places where many women feel like they don't need families to be able to make it. There we very much see this cycle of vulnerability where women who do travel to mining towns often have no other option but to engage in transactional sex work instead of being able to undertake other forms of employment.

One of the things that women told us was that as hard as it may be to understand, the stigma can actually be more traumatic than the rape itself because it has lifelong repercussions. In a highly social society where women are often sadly defined by their relationships with men, being expelled from a family or a community means that they're left with literally no support structures to rely on. It was very poignant to hear women talk about that.

Again, tying things into some of the other issues we've talked about, women really saw education, both for themselves and their children, as a way to lift themselves out of some of these cycles of vulnerability.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you.

Do I have any more time, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

No, unfortunately you don't.

Mr. Cotler.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was going to ask a general question about the renewed round of fighting, but I think I'll go to some of the initiatives the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative has undertaken and has information on. My question follows up Nina Grewal's one about the prevalence of forced marriage amongst women and girls to fighters—what has been referred to as bush wives—and sexual slavery in the DRC.

What about the problems of the re-integrations of these women and their children as a result of the forced marriage problem?

[Jocelyn Kelly]

Thank you for this wonderful question.

This is an issue that we've looked at closely and one that is extraordinarily important. What will hopefully change, as part of the wider women, peace and security agenda, is an understanding that demobilization programs traditionally have been targeted at male combatants. There was an assumption that women were simply not part of armed groups. We now recognize that this is absolutely not the case; there are often large numbers of women associated with non-state armed groups throughout eastern DRC. Many of these women are truly sexual slaves, although some have chosen to join or identify with the armed group they're in.

As you can imagine, many of these women also have children during their time with armed groups. Often, they face dire medical issues upon demobilization. However, we see that DDR programs—disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programs—are simply not geared to addressing the needs of women. Often, girls simply don't receive the services that men do. They don't feel safe in the camps created for demobilizing combatants because they don't have a space dedicated to them.

We see that people don't have the capacity to address the health and reproductive issues that women face as a result of their time in armed groups and that many women are providers for a number of children when they demobilize.

One way to address this challenge is to think of ways of creating programming that explicitly addresses the needs and experiences of women who've been in these armed groups, from a health, psychosocial, and economic perspective. Currently, that is an enormous gap in programming.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Let me also relate it to how the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative works. There have been increased attacks on human rights defenders who have been engaged in issues of sexual violence. There was also a failed assassination attempt of the director of the Panzi hospital. In fact, you've been working with them as well. Can you give us some insight into the situation of human rights offenders at this point and the attacks upon them?

[Jocelyn Kelly]

I think this is an area of enormous concern. As many of you know, Dr. Mukwege, who is the director of Panzi Hospital, is truly the hero at the forefront of the issue of sexual violence in DRC and has dedicated his life to helping women there. He did face an assassination attempt recently, and despite that has returned to Congo to continue his work.

I think it's a reflection of a deeper problem relating to human rights and DRC. While you have some heroes who undertake work with complete disregard for their personal safety, this is simply not a safe situation for people to work in. What I think it relates to is the broader issue of the fact that peace and stability must be a foundation for other efforts.

I've seen clinics and schools built and I've returned months later to find them rubble, or washed away, or abandoned because of a recent attack. I think that in order for true progress to occur in Congo, we need to think about how to create a relatively sustained peace where people like Dr. Mukwege can undertake their work knowing they'll wake up the next day and have the ability to continue.

I think, frankly, it probably reflects to some extent a disregard for human rights and certain wider political structures.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

This was going to be my original question, but I thought it too broad. I'll just take it up right now where you left off, because we've had renewed fighting in the Congo, a U.N. Security Council resolution, then discussions between the government and the rebels, and now reportedly peace talks and the like. Number one, are women involved in the peace talks and in the peace-building process? What do you see as the prospect for this latest round of perspective peace-building attempts?

[Jocelyn Kelly]

I always remain hopeful. I think peace building has a terrible track record in involving women. I think one of the statistics from U.N. Women is that only 16% of all peace negotiations have involved women at any point.

I think this is an opportunity for us to change that. I think with Security Council resolutions 1325 and 1820 and continuing such resolutions, we are really at an exciting frontier for the women, peace, and security agenda. I think one of the best ways to demonstrate the commitment to this would be to have women at the forefront of peace negotiations in Congo. I think there's something very, very powerful in knowing that you are going to be accountable to women at the end of a conflict. So far that has almost never been the case.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you, Mr. Cotler.

We'll turn now to Mr. Schellenberger, please.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you very much for being here.

Peace is essential for a stable country. We all know that. After a couple of decades of fighting in the Congo, if you're in rebel groups and you're not getting paid, you only get what you pilfer. I can understand that.

Is any of the sexual violence against women motivated by religion?

[Jocelyn Kelly]

That's such an interesting question. I would have to say that, while there are often very elaborate kinds of magical belief systems within subgroups, almost kind of a mythology that is created as being a part of armed group, in terms of traditional religion that's not something I'm aware of happening.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Before the conflict started, they didn't have these rapes and sexual violence against women, but since the violence has started, this sexual violence against women has grown. It seems to me as if it's almost a fight against women. When that is happening, they get discharged from their village or divorced by their family. Have there been recent changes? Has it gotten more prevalent recently or over the years?

[Jocelyn Kelly]

Yes, this is such a powerful observation. I think you're exactly right. One other thing I think I've heard other experts on Congo say is that many armed groups try very hard not to fight each other, and instead, in a very cowardly way, end up exerting force on civilian populations almost as their way of showing how strong they are.

So it is often truly a war fought on the battleground of women's bodies, and more broadly on civilian communities, rather than through direct combat between armed groups. I think this is one of the saddest and most shocking things about the conflict in DRC.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

It's a very cowardly way, I would say.

[Jocelyn Kelly]

Absolutely, and I think another point you made, which is really important, is that we certainly see forms of violence against women that we never saw before the conflict, including public rape, or forced incest, or rape of the very young or the very old. However, I do think it's important to recognize that sexual violence is a continuum. It occurs in peacetime, and it will continue to occur when the conflict ends, and this is something that we have to keep in mind. Drawing a distinction between conflict-related sexual violence and non-conflict sexual violence is sometimes important, but in order to truly address the issue of violence against women, we actually have to look at this as a continuum, as opposed to a dichotomous issue.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

That was my question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

That's it? All right.

This gives me a chance then to pop in and just ask for a little additional clarification.

You mentioned that the groups in some cases avoid combat with each other and exploit the population, which raises two alternative possibilities in my mind. Perhaps they're both correct, but it would seem to me that either one or the other is.

Possibility number one is that these groups are operating a bit like the condottieri of the Italian Renaissance, groups that could have fought each other but were actually trying to avoid inciting any casualties and would engage in demonstrations of strength in some other manner. That's one possibility.

The other possibility is that these are simply groups of brigands, to some degree. They started evolving into groups that really didn't have a cause except self-perpetuation.

What would be the case?

[Jocelyn Kelly]

I think both explanations are valid, and I really think the second explanation rings true. I think after two decades of instability, those mechanisms that are successful, that actually work, are often mechanisms of “take what you can, and take what you can by force while you can”. I think it's tragic, but many of the more traditional economic systems have begun to disintegrate as a result of this sustained insecurity, and what has emerged is an adapted system of economic opportunism that involves starting a rebel group.

One of the sadder things I saw on a recent trip to DRC occurred when I was with my Congolese mentor, Justin Kabanga, who is head of this psychosocial assistance organization. We were in a car together on a remote rural road, and two seven-year-old boys had pulled a string across the road, and we slowed down because they had created a very small roadblock. We rolled down the window and one boy asked for money, and I was horrified because this was seeing a young generation of Congolese boys mimicking what they saw as what men did.

It really created an interesting conversation with Justin about what kinds of jobs.... Some children play store, and these boys were actually playing rebel group. I think what people often do is that they see the most viable way to make money is to create these semi-politically motivated, but mostly just opportunistic, armed groups.