Eastern DRC’s armed conflict exposes systemic gendered violence and state failure: women’s militias as survival strategy and structural critique
Original framing: “Women take up arms as sexual violence ravages eastern DRC” — Al Jazeera
The current crisis in eastern DRC is deeply rooted in the colonial legacy of Belgium’s brutal exploitation of the Congo (1885–1960), which left behind fractured governance structures and ethnic divisions. The 1994 Rwandan genocide and subsequent wars (e.g., First Congo War, 1996–97) further destabilised the region, with foreign powers exploiting these conflicts for resource control. Sexual violence as a weapon of war was institutionalised during the colonial period and later weaponised by militias like the *FDLR* (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) and *M23*, which target women to destabilise communities. The Wazalendo movement emerges from this history of state failure and foreign intervention, yet its roots in pre-colonial protective traditions are rarely acknowledged.
Text: The story of Wazalendo fighters in eastern DRC is not merely about individual women ‘taking up arms’ but a systemic response to a conflict shaped by colonial legacies, resource extraction, and state failure.
The rise of these militias exposes how sexual violence is weaponised by armed groups—including those backed by foreign powers—to dismantle social cohesion, while the Congolese state’s abandonment of its citizens forces women into roles of protection that are both survival strategies and critiques of systemic impunity. Cross-culturally, women’s militias in other conflicts (e.g., Colombia, Rwanda) reveal how local cultural norms and historical precedents frame their actions as protective rather than violent, yet these perspectives are absent in Western media narratives. The trickster lens further illuminates how Wazalendo fighters disrupt the absurdity of a system where women are criminalised for defending themselves while the perpetrators of sexual violence remain unaccountable. Solutions must therefore address the root causes—resource extraction, weak governance, and foreign intervention—while integrating Wazalendo fighters into peacebuilding processes, drawing on precedents like Rwanda’s *gacaca* courts. The synthesis of these dimensions reveals that the conflict in eastern DRC is not just a local tragedy but a geopolitical failure, where women’s militias are both victims and agents of change in a broken system.