INVESTIGATION OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN EASTERN DRC With the signing of the Luanda Peace Agreement, the “Second Congo War” officially ended in 2003 and a new government was elected in 2006.(4) However, the violence and insecurity continue, particularly in Eastern DRC, where armed militias exert local political influence in the largely un-policed region. The Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), whose Hutu leaders are linked to the Rwandan genocide, is believed to be largely responsible for the region’s instability.(6) The other armed group responsible for much of the fighting and displacement is the Congolese Tutsi rebel group, Congrès National Pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP) led by General Laurent Nkunda.(7) However, there are multiple other armed groups who have entered the fray. In January of 2009, the Rwandan and Congolese governments joined forces against the FDLR in an attempt to disband it. Under this agreement, Rwandan soldiers were permitted to enter DRC to uproot the FDLR in exchange for Rwanda removing Nkunda from power. Nkunda was arrested in late January 2009 and the CNDP signed a peace treaty with the government to become a political party in March 2009.(7) However, the effort to disband the FDLR continues and has caused more fighting and more displacement in the eastern Provinces of North and South Kivu. It is estimated that up to 45,000 civilians continue to die each month, primarily from disease and malnutrition(1) and an estimated 1.8 million civilians have been displaced from their homes.(8) RAPE AS A WEAPON OF WAR Use of sexual violence as a weapon of war is usually strategic and systematic. Rape is used to terrorize civilian populations, causing people to flee and leave their homes, their belongings and their fields.(9) In other conflict settings, mass rape is used during cultural and ethnic cleansing as a means of polluting bloodlines and forcibly impregnating women to produce “ethnicallycleansed” children.(2, 9) These “ethnically-cleansed” children are often recognized as children of the enemy and they are extremely vulnerable to stigma, maternal rejection, statelessness, and abandonment.(10) Finally, rape is strategically used to inflict shame, suffering and humiliation. For women who have been raped, the capacity to care for their children and to participate in community life is greatly diminished. They find that the potential for re-integration into their relational social networks is starkly reduced. Because the stigmatization and humiliation can last for decades, widespread infliction of sexual violence may effectively destroy the cultural and social bonds of entire communities.(11) A key factor in this destruction is the impact that the rape of women has had on men in the victim’s family and community. Sexual violence, as the ultimate display of power and dominance, is used by the opposing force to signify the weakness and inadequacy of the men in the targeted social grouping or community. These men absorb this message, perceiving their inability to protect women against assault as their own final humiliation in the war.(12) Rape as a weapon of war has been employed by warring parties and occupying armies since early historical times.(9, 13) After World War II, the war crimes tribunal in Japan prosecuted perpetrators of the rape of Nanking, where an estimated 20,000 women were raped in the first month of the Japanese occupation of Nanking,(14) setting the precedent for the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits wartime rape and enforced prostitution. This prohibition in 5