A new study set to be published in the American Journal of Public Health in June, 2011, found that 1,152 women are raped every day in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Surveyors found that an average of 29 out of every 1,000 Congolese women had been raped, making a woman in the DRC 58 times more likely to be raped than a woman in the United States. The highest numbers were reported in the conflict-ridden province of North Kivu where 67 out of 1,000 women reported that they had been raped.
The new data puts the incidence of rape in the DRC 26 times higher than previous estimates by the United Nations. The increase is likely due to the fact that the authors of the study included reports of domestic and intimate partner violence in addition to military-based sexual assault. While the statistics reported in the study are startling, they represent only those attacks reported in face-to-face surveys which likely account for only a fraction of sexual assaults in the DRC.
Compiled from: 48 Women Raped Every Hour in Congo, Study Finds (13 May 2011), WUNRN.