Inside DR Congo’s parliament: the sexism female lawmakers still face

On 15 May 2026, sexist and misogynistic remarks from the highest seat in the National Assembly shook the Democratic Republic of Congo. A widely shared video shows MP Micheline Mpundu finishing her statement and leaving the podium after her intervention. The second vice-president, Christophe Mboso, who was chairing the plenary session that day, publicly commented on her appearance from his seat: “Thank you, colleague, she is very beautiful… huh.”

He continued in Lingala: “Look at her yourselves,” laughed heartily, and mimed the shape of her body with his hands, adding “God created her” and “these are the belongings of another man,” to applause and laughter from the chamber. The session continued as if nothing had happened.

Only after outrage from political figures, civil society actors, and human rights activists, as well as internal pressure from his superiors, did MP Mboso apologise several days later. He faced no sanction whatsoever.

This recent case of sexism and verbal violence forces us to ask again: when will African parliaments, and particularly the Congolese one, stop being hostile spaces for the women they are supposed to represent?

My doctoral research in political science also examines masculinity within Congolese legislative bodies. From an African comparative perspective, I analyse what this video reveals. I do not see it as an isolated lapse in behaviour, but as a structural problem. In this article, I question the gap between what the DRC authorities have pledged on paper and what elected women actually experience.

Comparative analysis of a phenomenon not exclusive to the DRC

Parliamentary violence is part of the broader range of violence women face in politics, both in the DRC and beyond. Long before the video implicating MP Mboso began circulating in Kinshasa, other sexist scenes had been documented. These facts highlight the severity of a phenomenon that hinders women’s full participation in politics at all decision-making levels.

Women’s political participation surged in the early 1990s with democratisation waves that raised real hopes and propelled an unprecedented number of women into African parliaments. The number of women legislators tripled between 1990 and 2010. I remember reading those figures with astonishment the first time. For a long time, there was a stubborn illusion that gaining an elected mandate would be enough to transform institutional culture. That illusion quickly shattered. This presence was experienced as a challenge to the existing system.

It met deep structural resistance, often from male colleagues whether in opposition or the same party. Some believe, and sometimes openly state, that politics is a male domain where women are unwelcome or do not belong.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union, the global organisation of national parliaments founded in 1889, has thoroughly documented this. In its 2016 global survey of women parliamentarians from 39 countries across five continents, over 65.5 % of elected women reported having suffered verbal attacks and insults repeatedly during their term. These figures are statistically alarming. They speak volumes about parliamentary realities.

Most of this violence comes from male colleagues. What is interesting about this study is that it also highlights how society views elected women. It is not their political record that is questioned, but their very right to be there is debated in the media. They are assessed not on their political contributions but on their appearance, marital status, and conformity to traditional roles as educators or mothers.

Sexism does not stop at the parliament doors. It enters with the elected officials, settles in, and sometimes flaunts itself from the speaker’s chair, as we have just seen in the DRC. The regional study conducted jointly by the IPU and the African Parliamentary Union in November 2021 confirmed this reality persists, with insufficient progress on effective political participation by women.

The applause heard in the video is not trivial. It reveals that the problem is not Mr Mboso; it is the system that produces and tolerates such behaviour. Australian philosopher Kate Manne analyses this as a control mechanism that keeps women in a subordinate position, including in so-called democratic institutions. This control does not always involve physical violence. Gestures, words, and laughter from the speaker’s chair – what scholar Mona Lena Krook calls semiotic violence – suffice to remind elected women that, in the eyes of some colleagues, they remain bodies before being legislators. Mboso’s hands mimicking his colleague Mpundu’s body illustrate this reality.

The coloniality of gender, a concept developed by feminist María Lugones, explains the naturalisation of gender hierarchy as a colonial legacy. This sheds light on the contradiction: women parliamentarians are elected by the same voters, in the same ballot boxes, under the same constitutional texts as their male colleagues. Yet they remain subject to patriarchal control systems that reduce them, even from the speaker’s chair, to something other than legislators. They have equal rights on paper, but unequal ones in the chamber.

African cases

Watching the Mboso video, many must have thought of other African countries: Senegal with MP Amy Ndiaye, who was slapped and kicked in the belly while pregnant in 2022, right in the chamber, in front of cameras. In 2025, Nigerian Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduagha was suspended not for professional misconduct, but for daring to name the sexual harassment she suffered from the Senate President.

It is no coincidence that Ndiaye, Akpoti-Uduagha, and Mpundu – three women from three different countries – experienced these instances of violence. These facts show that while African parliaments tolerate women’s voices, their dignity is not yet fully respected.

Congolese cases

On 30 April 2020, Thambwe Mwamba, former President of the Congolese Senate, belittled a woman during a plenary session broadcast on national television. He revealed all the secret meetings they had had, claiming Senator Bijoux Ngoya had approached him to seek support for her candidacy as Senate quaestor. He subtly accused her of making advances. The session ended in chaos, with indignation from several MPs.

On 15 July 2021, while MP Christelle Vuanga was dismantling a colleague’s arguments during a constitutional debate, Nsingi Pululu interrupted her with just these words in Lingala: “You are a woman.” A way to diminish her ability to speak publicly on this sensitive issue simply because she is a woman.

The Mboso affair is not surprising. The DRC has ratified conventions, adopted laws, signed commitments, yet nothing has changed inside the chamber. The gap between text and practice is not new and has been documented. What is new is that we continue to pretend not to see it.

A continuing reflection

French feminist activist Simone de Beauvoir wrote in 1949 that women are defined as “the other.” In 2026, this otherness persists in the Congolese Parliament: elected women are still reduced to their bodies rather than their political speeches.

These incidents signal that the patriarchal system undermines democracy from within. As long as sexist behaviour goes unpunished – as shown by the applause in the video and the absence of any sanction against Mr Mboso – the Congolese Parliament will remain a misogynist place, despite representing the 65 women out of 477 MPs who sit there, barely 13 % of the chamber, in a country where women make up nearly 51 % of the population. The fact that they are under-represented in no way justifies tolerating such conduct.

Other parliaments have found solutions with campaigns like #NotTheCost (NDI) and #NotInMyParliament (European Parliament), proving that culture can change through concrete sanctions and victim protection. The DRC has good laws. The bill on violence against women examined in the Senate in October 2025 is an example, but a law without implementation remains a wish. Silence is no longer an option. Not sanctioning Mr Mboso sends a clear signal to all Congolese women considering a political career.