BURUNDI

1
BURUNDI

• NO PROTECTION FROM RAPE IN WAR PEACE

2

• Burundi is a country in central Africa

3

• From 1993 to 2006 Burundi experienced a civil war
  driven by ethnic rivalries that resulted in the
  killing of 300,000 civilians
• Sexual violence has been widely used during
  Burundis 10-year civil war to terrorize and
  humiliate the population
• Many women were raped during military operations,
  or during night-time raids by government
  soldiers.
• Armed political groups and criminal gangs
  attacked civilian homes, looting and raping.
• Although the civil war in Burundi ended last
  year, the problem of rape in Burundi is still
  prevalent in both the community and the home and
  is becoming a widespread issue

4

• Rape is committed in Burundi by not just your
  average man but also commonly by police and
  government officials
• Between 2004 and 2006 an average of 1,346 women a
  year reported being raped which averages out to
  26 a week -- and those are just the few that
  actually report it.
• The Burundian authorities are failing to punish
  rape and other sexual violence
• Because rape is not taken seriously by the
  authorities and victims themselves are shunned by
  relatives and their communities, women rarely
  report the crime.

5

• Poverty, a patriarchal society, and a culture in
  which rape and sexual violence are not taken
  seriously, contribute to a situation where many
  women are too afraid to report the crimes
• Furthermore, women in Burundi are subjected to
  various forms of gender discrimination, including
  the social stigma to which rape victims are
  subjected by their community.
• In Burundi rape is seen as the victims fault a
  result of the victims behavior of the clothes
  she wears

6

• "I was going with three children to get water
  when a soldier stopped us on the road. The
  children managed to escape, but I fell and he
  caught me. He took me to a church, which they had
  turned into some kind of bar with food and
  alcohol everywhere. The soldier raped me in the
  church, and he told me I would be blessed because
  it was a holy placeAnother one refused to rape
  me. The first soldier forced a bottle of beer
  inside of me. I started bleeding and shouting.
  The soldiers covered me with a military coat and
  left me outside the church to die."

7

• Victims of rape not only suffer the physical
  effects of the brutality, but may also be
  socially excluded, abandoned and deeply
  traumatized. Police, local authorities and even
  the justice system have treated rape victims
  claims with disregard, even contempt, and have
  perpetuated the impunity of perpetrators.

8

• In its report, Amnesty International, along with
  its partner organization in the central African
  nation, ACAT called on the government of Burundi
  to immediately address the issue by monitoring
  rape, with the goal of developing adequate laws
  and judicial policies to prevent rape and respond
  to victims. Currently, government figures are
  sparse and unreliable, with no independent
  monitoring system to record rape.

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• A clear message must be delivered by the
  government now violence against women is a
  violation of human rights which cannot be
  tolerated, rape is a crime, perpetrators must be
  brought to justice.