DRC: New laws have little impact on sexual violence

Five years after the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) revised its laws against sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), these crimes continue to go unpunished because of judicial inaction and a legal culture at odds with the changes. The laws, ignored and misinterpreted, have left escalating numbers of sexual violence survivors unprotected, and perpetrators free to violate again. When the penal code was amended in 2006, it was intended to 'prevent and severely reprimand infractions relating to sexual violence and to ensure systematic support for the victims of these crimes,' according to the text. To this end, it included previously ignored sexual violations addressed in international humanitarian law, and toughened up sentencing for those who violated the vulnerable, including children, the disabled and subordinates.