Report denounces abuses of women during the ’16-Year War’ in the country

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Report denounces abuses of women during the ’16-Year War’ in the country

1:07 CAT | 14 Feb 2019

Photo: O País

Women who lived in conflict zones during the ‘Sixteen-Year War’ in Mozambique suffered serious human rights violations, including sexual abuse and murder, according to a report by Lawyers Without Borders, Canada, which notes that these crimes were never investigated.

The survey, which focused on four provinces, is based on 245 interviews with women over 40 of age who were living in conflict areas at the time, all of whom report cases of rape, assault and murder committed by military personnel, notably from the government and Renamo forces.

The 83-page report, which was released in Maputo yesterday, says “group rape” was one of the most common forms of violence against women during the Sixteen-year War, highlighting cases that occurred in the provinces of Zambézia and Nampula.

“I was raped by six men and I was unconscious. When I woke up I could not even walk. Another day, they came to the house where I lived with my husband, and I hid. He was captured. They forced us to have sex, raped me and killed my husband,” one of the interviewees from Zambezia province revealed.

According to the report, if a couple was found, the man was raped in front of his wife, women were raped in front of their husbands, while single women and girls were usually taken off to military camps and bases to become cooks or sex slaves.

“They murdered my six children. I’ve watched them all being killed. Then they tied my husband to a chair and raped me and laughed at my husband. They finished what they were doing and burned down the house, then took me with them to a base,” one victim from Gaza province says.

The report says the lack of a justice commission after the end of the war in 1992 has contributed to a sense of injustice in the victims, as well as encouraging a sense of impunity among the perpetrators.

“In fact, we still cannot forget the problem that the war created in us,” one Sofala victim told the authors of the report.

The Sixteen-year War in Mozambique began two years after the country’s independence, opposing the government-led army and the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) guerrilla.

Official figures indicate that close to one million people died during the conflict, which ended with the signing of the 1992 General Peace Agreement by then-Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano and the late Renamo leader, Afonso Dhlakama.

Source: Notícias