Unearthing Sexual Violence in the Congo Free State and its Contemporary Significance 

Charlotte Mertens, University of Melbourne

Research Grant, 2017

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Goals

The project asks the following questions: How did sexual violence occur during one particularly violent colonial encounter, namely the period of the Congo Free State? How was the use of sexual violence linked to the imperial economy of the colony and rubber exploitation? What do the project findings reveal about present conceptualizations and understandings of wartime rape in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo?

Main Findings

Pawning, hostage taking, kidnapping, rape, sexual slavery, and sexual torture were the most common forms of gender-based violence committed by both sentries and colonial officials during the period of the Congo Free State. They were part of instilling a culture of (sexual) terror among the indigenous population.

This culture was highly gendered. While many of the origins of sexual violence in the Congo Free State can be traced back to practices conducted by slave traders and early colonial military expeditions, gendered patterns emerge in the perpetration of sexual violence specifically when it is used in pursuit of a particular objective, such as the practice of taking native women hostage in order to force the men to meet the requested rubber quota.

The archive shows women were often raped when held as hostages. They were raped when pawned to a White man or sentry in order to meet tax demands. The kidnapping (also referred to as rapt) of women, especially the “beautiful” ones, is a recurring theme in the archive.

White men and sentries stole local women and made them their concubines. While sexual violence was widespread and very common, no clear evidence could be found that rapes occurred systematically or strategically to extract resources. 

The evidence found in the archives emphasizes both the banality of brutal sexual violence and the cruel intimacy inherent to colonialism (in a context of extreme demand for resources but not necessarily because of it).

The archives illustrate that economic rationalities do not necessarily explain the use of sexual violence and torture, although the system of production did enable the violence. While sexual violence was used as punishment or as extortion, it mainly functioned as a display of colonial power. I, therefore, argue sexual violence is not a direct result of the regime’s demand for resources but is an integral aspect of the violently intimate colonial state. Sexual violence does not logically follow out of colonial occupation but structures and underwrites colonialism. 

There is no doubt profit was central to the Congo Free State regime. The incentive and sentry system as well as forced labor enabled gross atrocities and abuse, such as the severing of hands and feet of Congolese people when the rubber quota was not reached, yet sexual violence should not be seen as a direct result of the extreme demand for resources. The evidence found in the archives emphasizes both the banality of brutal sexual violence and the cruel intimacy inherent to colonialism (in a context of extreme demand for resources but not necessarily because of it). The archive further demonstrates colonial law’s selective recognition of Black people’s agency through criminality alone. The repression of sexual violence crimes committed by White colonials was central to colonial power.

These findings are important when examining contemporary sexual violence in eastern Congo. In particular, the wide prevalence and brutal nature of sexual violence in the Congo Free State refute current representations of Congo’s rapes as exceptional and profoundly different to the violence experienced in the West. My findings also show that sexual violence should not be seen as a direct result of the extreme demand for resources. This is relevant to the current context of eastern Congo where sexual violence is not directly tied to resource extraction and rebels’ greed. Finally, my findings show the centrality of sexual violence to colonial power and the politics of empire. Sexual violence structures colonialism. This enables an understanding of wartime rape as structural violence, which means an analysis of violence that examines the structures, ideologies, and institutions that legitimate, condone, and perpetuate it.