By Waceke Njoroge
Sexual violence often goes hand in hand with war situations. This is the case in Burundi, where impunity, and lack of accountability and proper judicial systems are a major challenge to countering sexual assaults against, women, children, and men.
According to the report of the Commission of Inquiry on Burundi, members of the ruling party’s youth league, the Imbonerakure, have repeatedly gang-raped women since a wave of political protests began in 2015. Many of the rape victims are speculated to have been targeted because of their ties, mostly familial, to perceived government opponents.
The report said that in 2021, an estimated 176,000 people (98 per cent of them women) needed protection from sexual and gender-based violence in Burundi.
The commission was established by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2016 and mandated to conduct a thorough investigation into human rights violations and abuses committed in Burundi since April 2015. It presented its last report to the council on September 23, 2021.
The commission acknowledged that its work was affected by staff reductions and a recruitment freeze at the United Nations, as well as travel restrictions resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, which delayed the establishment of its secretariat. These factors affected the conduct of field investigations, among them gender-based and sexual violence.
But other organisations have, over the years, pointed out the high incidence of sexual violence in Burundi. A statement released by Unicef in 2018 said nearly one in four Burundian women (23 per cent) and 6 per cent of men have experienced sexual violence, and that children are particularly at risk. Only a small percentage of sex-related incidents are reported, and so the actual number might be higher.
Most of the crimes documented were committed between April and December 2015 and bear similarities depending on the victim’s gender. Women were generally in their homes when they suffered repeated rape, often accompanied by insults, threats, and beatings, according to a report by TRIAL International. Men suffered abuse after their arrest during questioning or in a detention facility, whether official or not. They were all subjected to similar methods of torture of a sexual nature. Survivors reported both immediate injuries and longer-term consequences, including sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancies, anxiety, and depression.
In April 2015, then Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza announced that he would run for a third term, setting off a political and human rights crisis. Police violently repressed demonstrations and the government cracked down on perceived opponents and critics. Targeted killings and attacks by government forces and armed opposition groups escalated. By December, several hundred people had been killed.
Many women fled Burundi immediately after their rape, before they were able to get emergency medical services. Human Rights Watch said that between 2015 and 2016, many women were not identified as rape victims when they arrived at humanitarian transit camps on the Tanzanian side of the border and so did not get emergency care for HIV exposure or emergency contraception, which are among World Health Organisation minimum standards for post-rape care. Rape appeared to be used to try to deter people from fleeing Burundi. This was peculiar as the perpetrators consisting of security forces and Imbonerakure would rape the victims, then order them to return home from the refugee camps in Tanzania.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), from May through September 2015, 323 (264 women and 59 girls) reported cases of rape or sexual assault that occurred in Burundi. These include those trying to flee to Nyaragusu, the first and biggest refugee camp in Tanzanian hosting Burundians. UNHCR said that of all incidents reported from June to October 2015, according to the women, 16 were allegedly perpetrated by the police and 177 by other members of the security forces or Imbonerakure.
Violence in schools, including sexual violence and unwanted pregnancy, are further specific barriers to girls’ education. In 2020, more than half of children aged between four and 19 in the provinces bordering Tanzania were not enrolled in school.
The UNHCR report said this reflects a general breakdown in social norms, withering of traditional conflict resolution and community sanction mechanisms, and absence of functioning state law enforcement and judicial institutions. While the war might have been the trigger for an increase in sexual violence, only when there is genuine peace and increased security – not just absence of armed conflict – will the level of sexual violence fall significantly in Burundi, it added.
In most cases, victims were targeted due to suspected or proven opposition to the regime. As such, they were attacked on account of their political activism, due to their participation in protests against a third term, and/or for the political opinions of their family.
These crimes were committed by state agents or individuals under their authority. In most cases, the atrocities suffered were the result of coordinated actions between the Imbonerakure and members of defence and security forces, namely police officers, the national intelligence service (SNR), or the army.
Most healthcare centres do not have the resources or skills necessary to provide victims of sexual violence with appropriate care specific to their needs, the commission’s report said. Comprehensive emergency services are insufficient and hard to access, with only six integrated centres in the entire country, whose operational capacity has dropped significantly since World Bank funding ended.
The report added that women and girls living in extreme poverty run a greater risk of being exposed to sexual violence and often adopt harmful survival strategies, such as prostitution, which further heighten their risk of being subjected to sexual and gender-based violence. Women in refugee camps are not safe from rape, and services to assist them are inadequate and need to be better funded.