instance, with the exception of the Mai Mai, armed military groups in Eastern DRC have been largely unopposed; community members have not taken up arms to defend themselves and efforts of the Congolese national army have been weak and scattered (furthermore, the Congolese army is itself implicated in the sexual violence). Due to the one-sided nature of the conflict, combatants have had the time and energy to rape civilians as they carry out military offensives. Although neither the local community nor the Congolese national army really caused much of a threat to the militias within Eastern DRC over the period studied, the militias do fight each other. Most of these battles have centered on control of the vast resources that lie within the soil and on control of key territories and major cities. Less commonly, military engagement between militias has occurred on the basis of ethnic tensions. In most of these inter-militia battles, civilians have been the undisputed victims, regardless of the intended military target. In many ways, the current war in Eastern DRC has been a proxy war with the armed militias directing their violence on civilian populations rather than on another military group. The most recent example of civilian targeting as a proxy for direct military engagement is the FDLR’s violent retaliatory attacks on local communities since the DRC and Rwandan militaries joined forces in January 2009 in a combined operation to defeat and disarm the FDLR.(51) PROTECTION Protection of women and girls during conflict has become a priority within the international community, particularly since the United Nations (UN) Security Council passed Resolution 1820 in June 2008, which recognized that sexual violence is often deployed as a military tactic and called for a response to the problem.(54) Data on the location and circumstances of sexual assaults are critical for the development and implementation of successful protection programs. Knowing that the majority of attacks are on individual homes at night, aid organizations need to collaborate with local communities and devise new protection interventions specific for South Kivu. For instance, firewood patrols, which have been used to protect women from rape in other conflict settings, may have limited utility in decreasing rates of sexual violence in South Kivu, where according to the data collected, most attacks occur on individual houses. By strategizing with local community members, the UN and other aid organizations need to identify new and innovative protection programs based on the patterns of attack that are most prevalent in the region. To protect women in Eastern DRC, the environment of impunity must also end. At the national level, sexual violence laws need to be fully enforced and the process for seeking justice needs to be simplified and accessible for survivors. It will also be important to create the capacity to investigate and prosecute crimes against women within Eastern DRC, including the incorporation of trained female officers into investigation teams. CIVILIAN ADOPTION OF RAPE Overall, 6% of sexual violence survivors in this dataset described their assailants as being civilian (accounting for 1% of assaults in 2004 and 38% of assaults in 2008). Sexual assaults perpetrated by civilians had a pattern distinct from the military sexual assaults described above. 38