Reporting Rape in Congo: A Unique or Paradigmatic Case?
Year: 2014
Type: preprint
Abstract: This paper analyses media reporting on rape across Africa and within the Democratic Republic of Congo. The central question is whether Congo deserves the title of “rape capital of the world.” We find that not only is this question difficult to answer with existing data on rape in Congo, but that media reporting suffers from a number of biases in its reports on rape. The paper concludes that the emphasis on description of a general environment of rape rather than on description of ground-based facts makes it difficult to decipher what we actually know about the underlying dynamics of rape in Congo. Regardless of the merits of the bestowing of the title initially, we highlight how a pernicious circle emerges as the title is perpetuated by international agents and reinforced in the media.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Authors: Summer Lindsey, Monica Duffy Toft
Institutions: Columbia University, University of Oxford
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2346627865