DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The American Journal of Public Health has found in a new study a staggering increase in the rate of rape in the central African nation of Congo.
The study says 1,152 women are raped every day in Congo, a rate equal to 48 per hour. That's 26 times more than the figure reported by the United Nations, which said around 16,000 women were raped in one calendar year.
Congo is a nation of 70 million people equal in size to the United States east of the Mississippi. It's been plagued by decades of war. The new numbers were found by scouring nationwide health surveys. Previous figures were derived from rapes reported to police or at health clinics in only a small section of the country.
