Lightbourne, 0774979 - Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: A Neglected History and its Silenced Survivors

Abstract

This thesis seeks to understand the colonial sexual violence that terrorized the Congolese indigenous population in the 19th and 20th centuries and the sexual violence that plagues the Democratic Republic of the Congo today. It will attempt to explain how both contexts relate to one another. Through a decolonial and feminist case study, the project will focus on male survivors of sexual violence to highlight their marginalization and bring attention to their often ignored victimisation. The overall goal of the project is to argue that the colonial roots of gender and sexual violence in the DRC have grown into the structural sexual violence present today, forming a colonial continuum of sexual violence, and that the colonial systems of gender that were created deprive male survivors of a safe space to exist and to be heard.