reallives2

Sexual Violence in the DRC
“My name is Safi*. I come from Uvira, South Kivu Province, DRC, near the Burundi
border. I am 17 years old.”
“It was April 2002 when they came to our house. It was about 6 p.m. They knocked
on the door of our home and we opened it up because we thought it must be the
neighbors stopping by to say hello. But it wasn’t the neighbors. It was six armed
men. They pushed their way into our home with their guns. We were all there. My
mother, my father, my older brother and my four younger brothers and sisters.
The men started yelling for my father to give them all his money, but he didn’t
have any. So, they started pushing him around and got frustrated looking for
money. But there wasn’t any money in the house. Then they got mad.”
“The men pointed their guns at us and we were very scared. They told my father,
‘You, papa. You must have sex with your daughter in front of us. Now!’ They
pushed me to the center of the room. My father pleaded with them that he could
not do that, that it was wrong and that I was just a child. The men laughed at him.
Then, they shot him dead in front of all of us.”
“Right after that, they pushed my mother and my older brother to the center of
the room and they said to my brother, ‘You. You must have sex with your mother
in front of us. Now!’ My little brothers and sisters were crying but I could not cry,
because I was so scared. My brother said no, he could not do that. My mother
didn’t say a word. One man pointed his gun at her head and shot my mother and
she died on the floor beside my father.”
“The men then grabbed my older brother and I by the arms and forced us out of
the house. They made us walk a long way until we got to a crossroads. I was so
shocked that I felt I was not inside my own body. And then the men split up. Three
of them took my brother to the right and I have never seen him again. The other
three took me to the left. We walked a little way and then they pushed me into the
forest. They forced me to have sex with them many times. I felt like I was watching
from the outside. Like I was watching a bad film. Then I don’t remember anything.”
“For the next three months I was held like their prisoner at their military camp.
During that whole time, I felt I was going crazy. I was like a person unconscious. I
was alive but not living. It wasn’t until after 3 months that I was able to
understand and accept that my parents were really dead, that my brother was
gone and that no one was with my little brothers and sisters. Everyday they raped
me. Before going out to steal or kill they would rape me – sometimes one,
sometimes all three. Then they would come back from killing and robbing in
villages and rape me again. It was only when I realized that this was all really
happening, that I was alive and it was really happening to me, that I tried to
escape. I didn’t get far before they caught me. They beat me everywhere on my
body for a long time until I went unconscious.”
“After that, I thought that there was no use to try to run away from them again
because I thought the next time they would kill me. There were other girls held in
the camp like me. But they only had one man with them and I had three. The 3 men
with me were not the bosses. The other men told them what to do and they didn’t
like that. They kept on raping and beating me. By that time, I felt I was no longer a
human being. I was like garbage. They made me work for them, wash clothes,
prepare food, carry things when they moved camp and do other work. I couldn’t
understand what I had done wrong to deserve this and why I had 3 men hurting
me and not just one.”
“I stayed there for a long time – more than one year. I was like a dead person. One
time, after they beat me, my right breast began to hurt and I was crying. They told
me to be quiet and I tried, but it was hurting too much. Then one of them went off
to look for something to help. He came back and talked with the other men and
then they held me down on the ground and opened my shirt and started to stab at
me all over my breast with a needle. They were laughing at me. After that, my
breast got worse and was all swollen and infected and sore.”
“One day, one of the other girls who had gotten pregnant by the man who had
taken her, started to cry out. She was going to give birth. I was watching but
could not help. The man who had taken her was very angry and she was laying in
the dirt. He called the men who were with me over to her. I thought they were
going to help. Instead, they were all laughing and held her legs apart and one of
the men started to push his hands inside her to pull out her baby. The girl was
screaming and there was so much blood. He pulled the baby out and threw it on
the ground. While it was happening, I was insane in my head because I knew the
baby and the girl were already dying.”
“Something happened to me then, but I can’t explain it very well. I just know I
heard a voice in my head telling me to stand up and run. I didn’t even think – I just
ran and ran and ran. I felt like I was flying through the air. I couldn’t hear anything
and I ran and ran. I only knew I had to run away to save my life because they
would kill me next. By then, I already knew that I was pregnant, too.”
“I don’t know how long and how far I ran, but somewhere, I was running down a
road and a car was coming. I waved for the car to stop and the driver did. He said,
‘Why are you running? Why are you breathing so hard? You must sit down and
rest.’ I was crying and begged him to drive me away. I told him that the fighters
were chasing me and if he didn’t take me they would catch me and kill me. He let
me into his car and drove away fast because by then he was scared, too. He was
driving to Bukavu.”
“When we got to Bukavu, he said that I had to leave because he was scared for
himself. He asked me if I knew anyone in Bukavu and I said no. He asked me if I
wanted to go to Goma and I said yes because I didn’t know where else to go but I
knew it was farther away from those fighters. He was a good man and he left me
near the boat that drives across the lake to Goma and gave me money for the
boat ticket. He also gave me a pair of plastic shoes to wear because my own
shoes had fallen off when I was running away. I don’t know who he is but I will
never forget him.”
“When I got on the boat, I had headaches and I was cold and my breasts were
hurting. I started crying and a woman came to me and asked me what was wrong. I
said that I was lost and had been attacked and thought I was pregnant, and that I
didn’t know anyone in Goma. The woman called a policeman on the boat and he
told me that he could help. When we got to Goma, he took me to a local official. I
told him I was sick and pregnant and he took me to this hospital.”
“When I arrived here at the hospital, I was crying a lot and I wanted to die and to
not have the baby of the men who raped me. I wanted to kill myself and their baby.
But the people here were very nice and the first thing the doctors did was an
incision on my breast to let all the soreness out and they gave me medicine to
treat the infection. I also met with the female counselors who talked with me a lot.
They told me that I had not done anything wrong and that I was important and that
they would help me. If I had not come here, I would have killed myself by now
because I hated that I was pregnant by those men and I felt I had no future.”
“In my mind I could not forgive those men for what they did and I couldn’t love
their baby. But I have talked with the counselors a lot and now I believe that I
must forgive them so that I can free myself and I know that my baby is innocent
and has done nothing wrong and will need me when it is born. My breast is better
now and it doesn’t hurt anymore. I still cry a lot but I feel a bit better and I don’t
want to be sad – it’s not good for my baby. I need to be strong. This is how our life
is.”
“Before this all happened, I was in school and I wanted to become a journalist. My
father told me it was a good job because you can learn lots of things and you can
tell people things that help them. I still want to be a journalist when I am through
all of this. I am 7 months pregnant now and I will be staying here until I give birth
to my baby in 2 months so that the doctors can see that everything is okay. Then I
want to find a way to go back home to Uvira and see if my older brother and my
little brothers and sisters are still alive. If they are alive, they will need my help,
too.”
* The real name of the girl in this article has been changed to ‘Safi’ to protect her
identity.