Margot Wallstrom is the UN’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict. Today, she made a statement that if the United Nations were a functional organization, she would have been fired in a heartbeat. Mrs. Wallstrom called the Democratic Republic of Congo “the rape capital of the world”. In addition, to support her claim, she used a report made based on the research conducted in the province of South Kivu. According to BBC, this report compiled by Harvard Humanitarian Initiative:

showed that 60% of rape victims in South Kivu were gang raped by armed men, more than half of the assaults took place in the victims’ homes and an increasing number of attacks were being carried out by civilians.

Now the tragic thing is that many people hearing Mrs. Wallstrom would be deceived in simply believing what she said without any attempt to contextualize her statements or understand how she arrived to her conclusions – that is, in very flawed way.  Now, I do not question that the senior UN official had the best intentions when appearing before the UN Security Council. Her determination to make a strong statement is therefore understandable. But her conclusions are inexcusable.

First, to call a country the size of Texas “the capital of rape” is just pathetic because it really does not account for the variations within that country.

Second, to base your judgment on evidence derived from Eastern Congo – where most of the violent encounters between MONUC and the local rebels occur –  is, to say the least, unjust.

Why?

As it happens, I have traveled to both South and North Kivu. The two provinces are in a devastating shape. People are literally dying every day because of the civil war and its consequences (lack of access to medical care, food or other critical goods, supplies and services). At the same, I have also travelled to other parts of the Congo. In the western part of the country, the situation is nowhere near as bad or unsafe as in the Eastern Congo.

The DRC is considered a failed state because the government does not have full control over its entire territory – the Kivu provinces being the best examples of places that fall outside the jurisdiction of the state and its capacity to account for what happens in these regions.

Saying the Congo is the capital of rape means that the UN senior official reduced the entire country to an entity which, at best, can be indicative of what happens on 10 percent of its territory.

Given the fact that most of my readers are from the United States, I think it is better that I give you an example that you can relate to more closely. Since no reliable data comes from Congo at this time, I will give you another example which I find equally informative.

Johannesburg is widely considered to be the most unsafe city in Africa. But guess what? Washington DC has a higher criminality rate than the city of Johannesburg. For example in 2008, according to the FBI, a total of 8,135 violent crimes occurred in Washington DC. For the same year, according to the South African Police Authorities, a total of 6458 crimes would fall under the same categorization of violent crimes as defined by the FBI in the United States.

Let’s even be a little more specific. Remember that I’m comparing the two cities for 2008 based on official statistics which you can find here for Jo-burg and here for Washington DC.

Now, if we look at these statistics (and bear in mind the difference in size: DC – 600,000 residents, Jo-burg 4 million) and apply the same standards as Mrs. Wallstrom did, I think it is “safe” to assume that the United States of America is “the world capital of the crime”. I mean, if the allegedly most unsafe place in Africa has crime rates (violent or non-violent) which are considerably smaller than Washington DC, then it appears that the two are comparable: we can definitely say the US is the capital of crime.

What don’t we do it? Because when it comes to developed countries officials do not open their months before they have access to and have thoroughly analyzed all the data.  Coming back to the story of Congo, if the Mrs. Wallstrom were to speak about the US she would definitely look over the data for the entire country and then realize that even if the case of Washington DC is worrying it is not indicative of what happens in the rest of the country.

Well, she should have done the same with Congo. Instead, she labeled the DRC the “capital of rape” by looking over the figures that reflect (only partly I would say) the realities in two provinces instead of trying to look at the data or the projections and estimations for the rest of the country.

And ladies and gentlemen this is exactly how harmful stereotypes of Africa continue to surface in mainstream media. One uninformed official here, another amateur there, and what he have at the end of the day is this story of Africa the capital of rape, crime and whatever wrongdoing you have in mind. Once again, the intentions might be good but the outcome is simply disgusting.

Shame on you Mrs. Margot Wallstrom and on all the Wallstroms out there.