Insidious, less costly, with visible repercussions in the very long term, protected by the impunity that reigns supreme in this field: war rape is the perfect crime.

War rape has a devastating impact not only on individual victims but also on the community. If they are not addressed and prosecuted, violence continues to increase, and a culture of rape takes hold in countries where war rape has taken place long after conflicts have ended. Witnesses to rape – which often takes place in public or before family members, children and young adults – subsequently integrate this notion as a norm. This plants seeds for a fertile breeding ground of violence that continues to operate, and which Dr. Mukwege calls “the metastasis of war rape”.

Rape as a tool of war results in the destruction of the victim and, in turn, of her family, her home group and her community. It is then the very balance of a society that is shattered, leading to the exclusion and rejection of victims, impoverishment, stigmatisation of children born of rape, escalation of violence, weakening of the economy of the community, the country concerned, etc.

This multiple detonation weapon is thus at the origin of a whole series of consequences at different levels.