Living in Shame: Helping Rape Victims Return to Life
Left incontinent after rape or a lack of maternal medical care, thousands of African women are stigmatized and shunned each year. In some places, however, the situation is improving. A report from Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
By Andrea Jeska (Text) and Fabian Weiss (Photos)
Nov. 23, 2017
For Janet K., 2001, 2004 and 2009 were all fateful years. They mark the times when the rebels came not only to her village, but also into her home. Every woman in eastern Congo knows what it means when militias come into their homes: If they're fortunate, it means violence and theft. If they're less fortunate, it means rape or death.
In 2001, Janet K. was one of the lucky ones. The rebels were only hungry and wanted to eat. In 2004, government soldiers came. "They were angry but we didn't know why," she says. They pulled one man after another out of the house and asked them questions. They beat the soles of the men's feet raw and then put them in saltwater.
Before leaving, they raped the women. "From the front and the back," she says. She doesn't lower her eyes as she speaks. She has learned from talking with other victims that it isn't she who should feel shame, but those who sexually assaulted her.
Janet K. is 52 years old today. She lives in one of the villages scattered across the hills and at the edges of forests in eastern Congo. The villages are often made up of just a dozen huts surrounded by corn fields and banana groves, the earth trampled by daily human and livestock traffic. With arduous labor and the daily presence of violence, people tend to age quickly in these villages.
Janet is a tall woman, with posture so straight she seems to be trying to show that she is unbroken. But her features are those of an elderly woman, with a mouth and eyes full of sorrow. She has raised eight children and has been a widow for the last four years. She makes a living by sewing and draws her strength, she says, from God. She wears a white rosary around her neck and ends each day with a prayer of thanks.
After she was raped, Janet K. became incontinent. At first, she thought it was just a temporary condition. "I always wore several pairs of trousers on top of one another and I placed plastic bags inside." When it didn't get better, she went to the provincial capital of Bukavu.
"Someone told me there was a clinic for incontinent women," she says. "Before that I didn't know that anyone could help me." The doctors explained to her that she had a fistula. She was operated on and stitched up. After that, her incontinence was gone.