Denis Mukwege, Honorary Doctorate

On October 9, during the Africa-France Summit, the University of Montpellier honored Congolese physician Denis Mukwege by awarding him an honorary doctorate during a ceremony held in the anatomy lecture hall of the historic building of the Faculty of Medicine.

“Above all, I wanted to raise your awareness and draw your attention to the profound suffering of my compatriots […] The daily lives of the people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, who are plagued by indescribable violence amid the shocking—even complicit—silence of the international community. ” The man speaking these words as he prepares to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Montpellier is a doctor. There is no moralizing, no reproach in the tone of this sixty-year-old man who is receiving this honor so that he may better give voice to the tens of thousands of women and children he treats and cares for in his hospital.

Rape as a method of warfare

It is impossible to talk about Denis Mukwege without mentioning the recent history of his country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the conflict that continues to plague it. The First Congo War broke out in 1996, plunging this vast country—then still known as Zaire—into extreme violence from which it has still not emerged 25 years later: 5 million dead, millions displaced, and hundreds of thousands of rapes of women and children. It is the deadliest conflict since World War II, and the stakes are nothing less than control over the country’s abundant mineral resources.

In 1996, Denis Mukwege was the medical director of Lemera Hospital in South Kivu, in the eastern part of the country. After studying medicine in Burundi and completing a residency in gynecology at the University of Angers in France, the young doctor had chosen to return to practice in his home country seven years earlier. When war broke out, his hospital was brutally destroyed, and many patients, doctors, and nurses were murdered. After a brief exile in Kenya, he returned to practice in the Congo, where the war was still raging. As a gynecologist, he saw the first victims arrive of what would soon be described as mass rapes, committed with unspeakable brutality against hundreds of thousands of Congolese women and children. “Women beaten, gang-raped, shot, mutilated, starved. Rape and sexual violence are increasingly being used as a method of warfare,” he recounts in his latest book, *The Strength of Women*.

60,000 female patients

“It was the circumstances that made me a specialist in rape-related injuries,” he continues . And indeed, faced with the sheer number of victims and the severity of their injuries, the doctor specialized in cutting-edge reconstructive surgery of the female genitalia and in debilitating gynecological conditions. In 1999, he founded the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, his hometown, dedicated entirely to victims of rape and sexual violence, earning him the nickname“the man who repairs women.”Over the course of 20 years, he treated 60,000 patients there.“These rapes affected women, young girls, and even babies indiscriminately; the youngest patient I operated on was 6 months old, and the oldest was over 80,” he reveals.

At Panzi, Denis Mukwege and his team go far beyond reconstructive surgery, developing and advocating for a holistic model of care for victims of mass rape that encompasses not only medical needs but also psychosocial, socioeconomic, and legal aspects.“If a woman arrives feeling like a victim, we want her to leave the hospital with the confidence of a survivor. This process is the very essence of our work at Panzi Hospital.”

Fighting Indifference

The nature of his work was so controversial that in 2012, Denis Mukwege was the victim of a first assassination attempt—and there would be others. His bodyguard was shot dead, his car set on fire, and he himself, bound and gagged, owed his survival solely to the intervention of local residents. He then went into exile for a time in Belgium, where he wrote a thesis on“the treatment of traumatic urogenital and lower gastrointestinal fistulas in eastern DRC.”Upon returning to Bukavu, he continued his work with survivors of sexual violence. To those who question this man’s fight on behalf of women, he replies: “I defend women because they are my equals—because women’s rights are human rights, and because I am outraged by the violence inflicted upon them.”

For his work at Panzi Hospital, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018. Upon receiving this honor, he once again appealed to the international community, calling in particular for the recognition in international humanitarian law and international criminal law of sexual violence as a prohibited and punishable method of warfare, just like the use of starvation or looting. Also in the preface to his book *The Strength of Women*, he notes: “As an activist, I am grappling with the need to change mindsets, actions, and behaviors. I am not fighting against a disease or an anatomical defect, but against far more stubborn adversaries: discrimination, ignorance, and indifference.”

Though he remains under threat in his own country, where he lives under guard within his hospital, Denis Mukwege has not given up on raising awareness, expanding his work in the DRC to include the fight against all forms of violence against women. In his speech delivered in Montpellier—which deeply moved the entire audience during the ceremony conferring upon him an honorarydoctorate —he stated:“Conflict-related sexual violence is merely the overt expression of violence committed covertly in times of peace. That is why we are committed to advocating for gender equality and justice.”