I was unemployed, trying to kickstart a career in political journalism when I received a call from a BBC producer making a documentary about the Democratic Republic of Congo. My uncle works in the Congolese community in north London, translating, teaching English, and offering advice; the documentary makers had come to him looking for a young woman, living in Britain but born in DRC, who had not been back for a long while. I fitted the bill.

I thought they would want a quick interview, maybe to use my words in a voiceover. After a couple of meetings, it became apparent they had something much grander in mind. They wanted to take me to eastern Congo, home of the deadliest conflict in Africa, to learn first-hand about the violence that is devastating the region.

DRC is a country as large as western Europe, and rich in natural resources. It's also trapped in a system of recklessness, lawlessness, and impunity. For over a decade a conflict has been raging in the east of the country, where soldiers from rebel factions – including an 8,000-strong Hutu militia called the FDLR – fight for the control of diamond and mineral mines. The factions may be many and various but the victims never change: they are always women.

In eastern Congo, rape and sexual violence are routinely employed as weapons to subjugate villages and terrorize entire communities. From old women to young children, the soldiers do not discriminate; the stories of their brutality and torture are so horrific that they rarely reach western ears. Inside the country, however, the locals have accepted mass rape as the status quo; even women who have been attacked will tell you: "This is just Congolese life."

I was to meet the victims of this systematic abuse, and the brave women who are both caring for them and standing up against the prevailing, misogynistic culture – which often invites further attack. Visiting the region is an intimidating proposition, not least for a British woman who hasn't been "home" in 20 years. But I felt it was important to find out more and to tell the stories of these women who otherwise didn't have a voice; and if I was afraid of what I might encounter, there was another, compelling reason to go – it would offer me the opportunity to meet my parents properly for the first time.

I was three years old when my mother and father sent me and my eight-year-old sister away from Congo (then Zaire), in the care of our uncle, afraid for our safety if we remained in the country. I had no memories of them – my first memory is of a Christmas in London – and was never able to afford the trip to return home to see them. At 75, Dad already far exceeds the life expectancy for males in the country – which is 51 – and I knew that if I was ever to meet my father then it would have to be sooner rather than later.

My father originally came from a small fishing village roughly two hours from Kinshasa and worked his way up from a junior position in the National Bank to a senior official at its Kinshasa headquarters. By comparison with others in DRC, my family was not badly off. My parents, who had a son and four daughters, had managed to put not only their own children, but also their younger siblings, and various nephews and nieces, through school. They owned their house, which few people do, and when I was two, my dad, then in his fifties, was retiring on a state pension, which is almost unheard of in Congo.

My father has lived through various coups in Kinshasa, from the murder of Prime Minister Lumumba in 1961 – only a year after independence – to the assassination of President Kabila 40 years later. In the late 1980s, he started to hear unsettling rumors, from friends in governmental positions, that there may be more violence on its way. The country had become a toxic place to be: various family members were against President Mobutu's autocratic regime, and my mother's brother was in danger of speaking out against it. My uncle had been at political pickets and rallies, and that meant trouble: soldiers arriving at your house unannounced; taking possessions; having you arrested in the middle of the night. Sometimes they would beat and torture you until you learnt your lesson. My parents were worried for their two youngest daughters if violence did break out. The use of sexual violence as a weapon is not a new thing in Congo; it was less systematic then, but it was happening to young girls, and they decided that the fewer females they had at home the better. Two girls were easier to protect than four. They decided in 1990 that we should escape abroad with my uncle.

The family pooled their savings to get us a flight to the UK and some money to live on when we arrived. I was only three, and remember none of it, but my mother remembers the day we left in every detail, including what I was wearing. After she left us at the departure gates, a friend of hers who worked at the airport saw us on the plane. Apparently, I gave her a message for my mum: she was not to worry, there was nothing to cry about, I was going on an adventure and I'd see her soon.

It's a running joke within the family that nobody knows when my uncle was born – people don't bother much with birthdays in the Congo – but I know he was in his mid-20s, only a couple of years older than I am now when he left Congo. To be a single dad, raising two girls, and not knowing whether you're doing it right – that was an extremely hard job.

It wasn't until I was 12 that I became aware that there was something different about my upbringing. Growing up in north London, I was by no means the only Congolese child with parents back home in Africa – many cousins and friends were in similar circumstances. My relationship with my parents was based on telephone calls; once a month, or whenever the connection was good enough, we'd speak for as long as we could afford to. An hour cost about £5; and with so many relatives wanting to speak to each other, it didn't last long. Then there were the times, during periods of unrest in Congo when the lines would go dead. Those were the harrowing moments. You dreaded a call from a neighbor with bad news.

We maintained a good relationship, although there were occasions when it was hard for a girl growing up in western culture to understand their approach to things. Still, in Congolese communities, anyone older than you has authority over you, and you would never dream of disregarding what they said. I always felt close to my family abroad; I didn't know how close until my grandmother died when I was 15, and I found myself crying for a woman I had never met.

It was 33C when we arrived in Kinshasa, with no sunshine and no breeze, so that the heat hung over the dusty, rundown city like smog. I was worried: was I going to recognize my own mother? Although I'd seen my parents' home in pictures, I almost walked past it and missed it; suddenly, Mum burst out of the house and grabbed me into a hug. I'd told myself not to get emotional, but at that moment the years of my life seemed to flash past me, with a sense that things that had been missing had finally been put in place.

Even though I'd only seen them in pictures, I'd always felt great respect and affection for my parents – the most awkward moments on the phone were when we didn't know what to ask each other, and I worried, in the silence, that they thought I didn't care. Now, in the flesh, they were exactly how I had expected them to be. My mum's a chatterbox who will talk over you, for you, with you. And my poor dad, who's a fairly quiet guy, has been putting up with that for 40 years. It was hilarious to see them bickering together and reminded me of me and my boyfriend – it was strange, but also wonderful, to realize that I'm a younger version of my mum.

As I walked around the house, a dim memory emerged of my sister's communion, and the huge party that was thrown after it; of my tiny three-year-old self dancing between people's legs, and refusing to go to bed when I was told. The house was square and flat; the toilet, shower, and coal fire – on which all the cooking gets done – were all outside. There have been up to 15 people living here at any time: three to a bedroom, the rest sleeping on mattresses downstairs.

Mum's biggest worry was that I'd left at too young an age to have a relationship with her – that I would feel she'd abandoned me. The next few days proved her wrong. We were able to be completely natural with each other, a real mother and daughter: she teased me about marriage, and I told her she worried too much.

It was hard for them to let me venture to eastern Congo, where the dangers are so well-known; and harder still to talk about the things I'd seen and heard when I returned. I thought I knew plenty about the conflict before I left – but my worst-case scenario wasn't even close to the reality.

The extent and extremity of the sexual violence that goes on, on a daily basis, were more shocking than I could have imagined: many women are gang raped, some are mutilated with sticks and knives, and others are doused in petrol and burned. Some of the attacks are performed by child soldiers, while their commanders urge them on, and some are performed on children, even those as young as three. Aside from the horrific internal injuries sustained – as well as pregnancies, and the spread of HIV – there is a social cost; husbands regularly throw raped wives out of their homes, like soiled goods. There are no reliable statistics on rape in Congo. In one village we visited, the local hospital admits hundreds of cases in a year, but reported cases are the tip of the iceberg – many women keep rape hidden; some can't walk to the hospital.

All I'd seen and heard was hard to take back home to Kinshasa. It's a difficult subject to bring up with any man, let alone your own father. My mum, however, has met women who've been raped, and we agreed we need more people to feel rage and disgust about the situation there. When the locals start accepting it as the norm, we as a world have failed them.

At least, being with my family for the next few weeks, I was kept occupied. When I got back to London, living by myself again, the situation was constantly on my mind. For two months, I couldn't switch off the thoughts and images, and I couldn't sleep more than two to three hours a night. I wasn't functioning: I had good days when I was productive and bad weeks when I would wake up crying and go to sleep crying and get nothing done in the middle. Even now, if I read over my journal, I cry; I feel I haven't done enough to help.

My parents have lived in Kinshasa for 50 years since Congo was given the independence their parents and grandparents had fought for; now their country's fallen into ruin, worse off than it was under colonial rule, and that's hard to stomach. But all I've seen and come to understand has made me feel even closer to the people who loved me so much that they sent me away. I'm hoping to go back next summer with my boyfriend. My mum will be delighted to meet him.