It is important to stress that women and children were the main victims of the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed primarily against the civilian population of the DRC between 1993 and 2003 and listed in Section I of this report. Women and children were therefore the main victims of violations of the right to life, to physical integrity and to safety. They were also particularly affected by forced deportations, slavery, looting and the destruction of goods and property. This over-exposure can be explained by their specific vulnerability and also by their demographic weight within the DRC’s population.⁹⁵⁸

Finally, it would have been unthinkable to produce an inventory of the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the DRC between March 1993 and June 2003 without considering, however briefly, the role played by natural resource exploitation in the perpetration of these crimes. In a significant number of cases, the struggle between different armed groups for access to, and control over, the DRC’s resources served as a backdrop to the violations perpetrated against the civilian population.

The first two chapters will therefore analyse the fate of women and children in the DRC between 1993 and 2003 and focus particularly on the specific acts of violence to which they were subjected. The third chapter will be devoted to the link between the perpetration of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law and natural resource exploitation in the DRC.