There are crises the world discusses constantly.And then there are crises people somehow learn to speak about quietly.The Democratic Republic
There are crises the world discusses constantly.
And then there are crises people somehow learn to speak about quietly.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has endured decades of conflict, displacement, exploitation and extraordinary violence against civilians. Through all of it, Congolese women and girls have carried a particularly brutal burden.
Sexual violence is not sitting at the edges of this emergency. It is inside it.
The numbers coming from the DRC are so enormous that there is a danger of reading them as numbers alone. We cannot do that.
These are women.
These are girls.
These are children.
Here are seven truths the world needs to know.
1. More Than 35,000 Cases of Sexual Violence Against Children Were Recorded in Just Nine Months
UNICEF reported that more than 35,000 cases of sexual violence against children were recorded across the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the first nine months of 2025.
That number deserves to be read again.
More than 35,000.
And UNICEF warns that even this staggering figure almost certainly undercounts what is happening. Fear, stigma, insecurity and lack of access to services prevent many children and families from ever reporting an assault.
This is not simply a wartime problem tucked away in one corner of the country. UNICEF found sexual violence against children occurring throughout the DRC, including outside active conflict zones.
2. Girls Are Carrying an Enormous Share of This Violence
Adolescent girls make up the largest and growing share of reported child Survivors.
In UN-verified data on grave violations against children during 2025, 589 of the 592 children subjected to sexual violence were girls.
Conflict creates precisely the conditions predators exploit: separation from family, displacement, hunger, collapsed institutions, unsafe roads, abandoned schools and weakened systems of protection.
Girls are living inside those conditions.
3. During One Period of Intense Fighting, a Child Was Reported Raped Every Half Hour
During January and February 2025, protection organizations in eastern Congo received reports of nearly 10,000 cases of rape and sexual violence.
Children represented an estimated 35 to 45 percent of those cases.
UNICEF calculated that during the most intense period of the conflict, reports amounted to approximately one child raped every half hour.
That does not mean every rape was reported.
It means the violence reaching organizations was already occurring at that horrifying rate.
4. Sexual Violence Surged as Fighting Intensified
When fighting escalated in eastern Congo beginning in January 2025, reports of grave violations against children rose dramatically.
Within about a month, reported sexual violence against children had increased by more than two and a half times.
Abductions increased sixfold.
Killings and maiming increased sevenfold.
Attacks on schools and hospitals increased twelvefold.
War does not merely put children near violence. It dismantles many of the structures that normally stand between children and people willing to harm them.
5. Women and Girls Are Being Subjected to Rape, Gang Rape and Sexual Slavery
The violence does not end with individual assaults.
The United Nations documented 1,534 Survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in the DRC during 2025, including women and girls subjected to sexual slavery, prolonged captivity and repeated rape.
Again, these are verified cases, not an estimate of every person harmed.
The UN has repeatedly warned that stigma, insecurity and difficulty reaching medical care mean many Survivors remain invisible in official statistics.
6. Reaching Safety Does Not Necessarily Mean Reaching Help
A woman can survive the attack and still face another emergency.
Can she reach a clinic?
Can she get emergency contraception?
Can she receive treatment that reduces the risk of HIV infection?
Can she receive care for injuries?
Can she obtain trauma support?
Can she seek justice without putting herself in greater danger?
In one week around Goma in early 2025, nearly 500 cases of sexual violence were reported, including more than 150 involving children. UNFPA cautioned that these represented only people who were able to reach care despite violence, disrupted services, fear of retaliation and stigma.
Survival should not depend upon whether a woman can somehow cross a war zone quickly enough to find an operating clinic.
7. The World Has Known About Congo’s Sexual-Violence Crisis for Years
Perhaps this is the truth that should trouble us most.
This is not a hidden emergency.
International institutions know.
Governments know.
Humanitarian organizations know.
Journalists know.
The United Nations knows.
Congolese women have been speaking.
Yet in 2026, the UN was still describing the DRC as one of the countries recording the world’s highest numbers of verified conflict-related sexual violence cases.
There is a particular kind of abandonment that happens when suffering is documented repeatedly without producing protection equal to its scale.
The women and girls of Congo should not have to become more brutalized to become more visible.
They should not have to produce another photograph, another testimony, another mass grave, another hospital record or another horrifying statistic before the rest of the world decides that their suffering deserves sustained attention.
Congo is not silent.
People have been speaking.
The question is whether the rest of the world has decided to listen.
And somewhere beneath all these enormous numbers is one girl who never asked to become evidence of a humanitarian crisis.
She deserved protection before she became a statistic.