In the Interview, the Cordinator of the Women Media Association of South Kivu spoke about the
conflict in Congo, which one has claimed over five million lives and been marked by brutal
sexual violence against women. This is sometimes incorrectly assumed to be
rooted in the culture of the region. Sadly, sexual violence is a tactic of
terror in conflicts around the world.
When she started to talk on the radio about the problem of rape in DRC, Chouchou Namegabe Dubuisson said that People were shocked. They said, "How can you talk about sex openly on the radio?" It's a taboo. It wasn't easy.
They started to sensitize people and say, "It's not a problem of sex,
it's a big problem of the community." They didn't even have a word to talk
about rape, so they had to borrow a word from Kiswahili from Tanzania,
and they started talking about ubakaji. It was a new word for
eastern Congolese people. So it was the media that sensitized people and
told them that there's a problem now that is affecting women and they
have to act.
Survivors were rejected first by their families. This happens even
though, when the militias attack the villages, they rape women in front
of their husbands and children, in public. It's a planned strategy, a
way of terrorizing the community.
About awareness rape changing, The Cordinator of Women Media Association of South Kivu says that they have done a lot of
sensitization of communities and have also worked with many NGOs to
empower women. There has been a change. Some survivors have been
reintegrated with their families.
She give an example of a young girl. She was 13 when she was
raped, and she had a baby. She had been taken into the forest with her
mother, but they managed to escape. Chouchou met her after she heard the
testimony of another woman and came to them. There are many women who were
hiding what had happened to them, and after hearing the testimonies on
the radio, they have come to them. They say that telling them their story is
the first step to healing their internal wounds.
