By Rachel A. Cohen, The Washington Post, November 27, 2019
A 16-year-old girl was abducted, raped, beaten and held captive for months in Congo. She became pregnant and gave birth. In an effort to avoid the stigma and shame that this would bring upon her family and because she would not be eligible for any other marriage, her parents joined the perpetrators’ family in trying to force her to marry her abductor. Although she was expected to obey, she refused. The perpetrator’s family took her baby. Remarkably, she managed to escape and make her way to a center where she could access services for girls like her. There she created the story cloth below.
She is one of millions of girls and women around the world who suffer brutal forms of sexual and gender-based violence. They suffer severe physical injuries. They suffer financially, likely to drop out of school or leave work. The psychological consequences of these atrocities are profound and lasting: depression, numbness, risk of suicide, self-loathing, withdrawal from others, severe stress reactions, immobilizing fears, flashbacks and more. The social stigma and shame that surround victims make them outcasts. At the moment when they most need support, they are frequently rejected by families and communities. Victims tell us that this particular wound is the worst aspect of their suffering.
In regions of armed conflict, sexual violence is a pervasive weapon of war and an effective tool of genocide: devastating individuals and families, terrorizing communities, and contributing to displacement of entire populations. Think about the Rohingya, Yazidi, Bosnian, Syrian, Congolese, Rwandan and Colombian examples. The perpetrators of these mass atrocities are often treated with impunity while victims are silenced and their stories are left out of the public discourse.
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