 The remaining twenty-five percent of sexual assaults were carried out by mixed sex groups, which indicates that one in four incidents of MPR women had actively participated.HRW reported that "Throughout the nine-year Sierra Leonean conflict there has been widespread and systematic sexual violence against women and girls including individual and gang rape, sexual assault with objects such as firewood, umbrellas and sticks, and sexual slavery," and that "the rebel factions use sexual violence as a weapon to terrorise, humiliate, punish and ultimately control the civilian population into submission.