After a recent article in the American Journal of Public Health reported that more than 400,000 women aged 15 to 49 were raped in a 12 month period, the Archbishop of Canterbury used his World Aids Day message to emphasise the role of sexual violence in the spread of HIV.
In a video message recorded during his visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dr Rowan Williams described sexual violence as "one of the most shameful facts of our day".
While in the DRC, the Archbishop met victims of sexual violence and saw the work that churches are doing to help victims recover physically and spiritually.
Williams described the conflict-ridden DRC as the "epicentre of a great deal of appalling violence in recent years" and voiced his concern at how sexual violence was being used as a weapon of war to "humiliate and subdue others."
"The women in Congo, especially in this part of Congo, have suffered dreadfully because of this. And the connection between sexual violence of this kind and the spread of HIV/AIDS is one of the most shameful facts of our day," he said.
“Trauma is something which cannot be overcome overnight but when people feel they’ve been abandoned by families, by communities, because of the shame and stigma of HIV/AIDS, the church in this part of Congo has been there for them.
"For these people, who have been abused systematically, been raped, violated, abducted often at the youngest of ages – for these people, the church has been the family that mattered.”
Churches in the DRC have been supporting survivors of sexual abuse by providing them with medical care and trauma counselling, as well as advocating against stigma. Williams urged the international community to lend their weight to this work.
“As we seek to confront the terrible scandal of sexual violence as one of the causes of HIV and AIDS, let’s hope and pray that communities like the churches here will continue to fight as hard as they can against the stigmatising and marginalising that so reduce human dignity.”