The 63-year-old Congolese gynecologist set up the Panzi hospital in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city of Bukavu nearly 20 years ago – shortly after he had his first experience of treating a woman who had been raped and mutilated by armed men.
Dr Mukwege recounted the horrific injury the patient had suffered in a BBC interview, saying the woman had not only been raped but bullets had been fired into her genitals and thighs.
He, along with his colleagues, have since treated tens of thousands of victims.
Panzi hospital now cares for more than 3,500 women a year. Sometimes Dr Mukwege performs as many as 10 operations a day.
“I started a hospital made from tents. I built a maternity ward with an operating theatre. In 1998, everything was destroyed again. So, I started all over again in 1999,” he told the BBC in 2013.
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Panzi hospital has since grown to become a major health facility in eastern DR Congo. Its website says it has 370 doctors, nurses and support staff.
It serves a population of 400,000 and also treats patients from neighboring countries.
Eastern DR Congo has been wracked by more than two decades of conflict, with numerous armed groups battling for control of the region’s rich deposits of gold and other precious minerals.
Many different militias have been accused of carrying out the indiscriminate rape of the region’s women.
“The conflict in DR Congo is not between groups of religious fanatics. Nor is it a conflict between states. This is a conflict caused by economic interests – and it is being waged by destroying Congolese women,” Dr Mukwege told the BBC.
In 2010, a top UN official labeled the country “the rape capital of the world”.
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