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UN warns Congo to end 'rule by rape'
Responding to brutal rape sprees during political turmoil in Guinea, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo, members of the UN Security Council edged towards tougher policies on tackling sexual violence during wars and instability, last week.
Margot Wallström, the UN's recently appointed envoy on sexual violence in conflict, urged council members to tackle a scourge that has seen countless women violated during eras of instability and violence "from the Trojan War to the nuclear age".
But human rights groups accuse the 15-nation body of dawdling on the issue for the past decade and warned that its failure to grasp the issue was leaving women in turbulent areas at ongoing risk of rape and other forms of sex attack.
They point to the scores of women who suffered rape, mutilation and sex slavery during an opposition protest in September last year. The atrocities occurred in a stadium in the Guinean capital, Conakry, at the hands of forces loyal to the military junta leader, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara. Women and girls were carried away to barracks and officers' homes to serve as sex slaves for several days, according to UN reports. Others were raped at the scene. Some suffered hideous assaults with rifles.