An analysis has found that over 400,000 women in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had experienced rape in a 12-month period in 2006 and 2007.

Dr. Tia M. Palermo, Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine, Graduate Program in Public Health, and colleagues, found in their analysis that 1,152 women are raped every day, 48 raped are every hour, or four women are raped every five minutes.
"These estimates of the incidence of rape are 26 times higher than the 15,000 reported by the United Nations for the DRC in 2010," said Dr. Palermo.
"The shockingly high number is also seven times higher than the estimated 57,000 women raped during Sierra Leone's entire 10-year conflict," Dr. Palermo added.
Sexual violence occurred in all of the country's provinces, the study shows, while the number of women raped during a 12-month period in the eastern conflict area of North Kivu - 67 per 1,000, is more than double the national average of 29 per 1,000.
These estimates demonstrate that the level of sexual violence is both magnitudes higher and more geographically dispersed than previously estimated.
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The authors of the report suggest that their findings point to the need for a stronger policy response to curb sexual violence in the DRC.
The study, spearheaded by The Center for Health Services and Outcomes Research, Medicine, has been published in the American Journal of Public Health.
Source-ANI