Aid worker's diary: Esther's story – Entry 1
Last week was Esther’s* birthday. She turned 16 at a displacement camp in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Her mind has been less on birthday celebrations than on the baby she is expecting in a few weeks time. She is pregnant after being raped by armed militiamen last year.
The first time I met Esther she was surrounded by cheering, clapping children as she played an animated role in a drama production. As she acted in celebration of the International Day for the Rights of the Child, her round belly was clearly showing under her loose costume.
Sometimes you meet someone and your first impression sticks with you and you realize more and more that it was spot on. It was like that with Esther. Her face is so open and confident; I felt I knew her straight away.
She told me her story as we sat on a table, legs dangling, in the office at World Vision’s child-friendly space – a safe place for children to play and learn while they’re displaced from home.
She arrived at the camp alone after she was separated from her grandmother in the chaos of displacement. She lived with a woman for a while, until she went to collect firewood with friends not far from the camp. The girls bumped into four armed soldiers as they entered the bush. Her friends ran, but Esther fell and was taken by the men.
Each took their turn and one is the father of her child.
“I was too ashamed to tell anyone but my closest friends what had happened,” she explained boldly. “Then about a month later I knew I was pregnant. I was at a discussion group for girls at the child-friendly space and they were explaining how you must always report sexual violence to staff at the centre. That day I told my story.”
World Vision helped Esther get medical and psychosocial support. That month 25 girls reported rape to World Vision staff in the same camp.
As her pregnancy became visible, the woman she was living with threw Esther out of her hut, claiming she could not take care of a newborn baby. With support from aid agencies, she found a new home with another young mother.
“People often make songs up about me,” Esther said when I visited her last week. “People are always backbiting and making you feel ashamed. They say my baby is a result of prostitution…And I say, God forgive them,” she added smiling.
Esther has no family, except for the 27-year-old woman she lives with, who she now calls Mother. She has no income and depends mostly on the assistance of aid agencies. She does not know how she will afford transport to the hospital about 12 kilometres away in Goma and is worried about how she will provide the right food for her newborn baby.
But her spirit, very visible in her eyes, remains strong and courageous. Talking about the baby she carries, she says, “He has done nothing wrong. He is innocent. I have done nothing wrong.”
Her words remind me of words by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan: “Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace.”
The brutal act of rape is so shameful that, tragically, the victim often feels some of that shame. Others sometimes cruelly stigmatize those who have endured such violence. The amazing thing about Esther – and other girls like her, fighting to come to terms with the devastating consequences of war – is her refusal to let it get to her.
As she turns 16 and prepares for the birth of her child, she continues to learn and play and look to the future. Real progress would allow her to build a peaceful, equal future.
*Esther is a pseudonym
Aid worker's diary: Protecting civilians – Entry 2
Armed militia are everywhere you look in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – living in fragile banana leaf huts along main roads, ferried in huge trucks across the region, in villages, in towns and mingling with the population in the provincial capital, Goma.
There has been much coverage of the human rights abuses carried out by all armed groups against the local people here. Time and again the humanitarian community calls all sides to protect the vulnerable civilian population.
And yet on Friday in a mundane meeting room, made interesting only by its cartoon elephant curtains, sat 20 government army officers debating the disconnect between the principles of humanitarian law and the reality, and the challenges of their operations on the ground.
“Our job as FARDC (Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo) soldiers is to denounce violations against civilians and make public international humanitarian law,” said a huge officer with enormous authority.
It was the final day of a three-day training for military in international and local law run by World Vision’s humanitarian protection team.
Groups of senior officers pored over a newspaper article about the forced marriage of a young girl. They were discussing the legal and moral violations of a father selling his young daughter in exchange for cash.
“What is the minimum age for marriage in Congo?” someone asked. Sometimes you have to start with the basics.
“A violation is when power is abused,” said another. “When a father forces his daughter to marry against her will, he is abusing his authority.”
This was followed by a heated debate about the confusion in Congolese law between “traditional” and legally-recognized marriage.
From a distance, it’s easy to get very principled about the actions of armed groups. Here on the ground, you realize you have to balance that with a good measure of pragmatism.
The communities we work with, those made incredibly vulnerable by the ongoing conflict, deserve a better-trained, more-disciplined security sector.
The officers I met this week agreed.
“I have learnt a lot,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Theophile. “I thought I knew the law, until we started getting into the detail, then I realized we didn’t know much.”
“I didn’t know about the laws around sexual violence,” he said.
Some argue that humanitarian organizations risk damaging their principles of impartiality and neutrality through any contact with armed groups. But we risk neglecting the vulnerable people we work with if we fail to take practical steps to improve their protection.
“Despite all the problems our soldiers have, we have no excuses,” said Theophile. “The law is the law. We have learnt a lot today and we shall reflect on it and put it into practice.”
Aid worker's diary: Providing basic care – Entry 3
At the end of last year, in the poorest, most densely-populated slum in Goma, the provincial capital of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), seven poor men and women sat, lay or mingled around a small room in Kahembe Health Centre.
Between them they owed US$500 for medical treatment. They were not imprisoned, as such, because there were neither bars on the window nor a lock on the door, but they had been told they could not leave until they had settled their debt.
“Here, we treat people first and ask questions later,” said Dr. Josias Songya, the director of the health centre, which serves a community of more than 100,000.
The number of people seeking treatment had doubled since the war intensified at the end of October 2008.
With little support from the government, the centre had been funded by the consultation fees paid by patients and the sale of medications. The last official delivery of medicines to the pharmacy was last July, so World Vision has been providing essential supplies to help keep the pharmacy in stock. The World Vision supplies are provided free to patients.
“What will happen to these people?” I asked Josias, very aware that I stood in a community where professional men and women, such as teachers, earn an appalling $30 per month.
“They will run away,” he said under his breath, with a small, knowing smile. “Our accountant has a long list of people who have not paid. Forty per cent of patients cannot and do not pay.”
I went back to Kahembe this week. Since January, World Vision has been covering the running costs of the centre, allowing Josias and his colleagues to provide free care to anyone who walks through the gate.
The walls are still crumbling and patients still wait out in the open on simple plank benches. Now, though, three times as many people are receiving care from doctors and more than four times as many are seeing nurses – for free.
I speak to a woman, Maria, whose five-month-old son is suffering from severe tonsillitis. She tells me how she cannot afford to feed her children properly, let alone the normal consultation fees and medication costs when they get sick.
We chat for a while and I discover she has a three-year-old daughter who has infected burns after falling into a pot of boiling water last October.
“Where is she?” I ask. “Why is she not here?”
Maria explains she had brought her son for treatment and felt she could not bring two children for free treatment.
“Of course you can,” I say. “You must.”
Two days later I meet Maria at the centre and her young daughter Justine is with her. Justine finds it very difficult to walk unaided, since her wounds have damaged the muscles in her hip.
“Doctor, I cannot stand up, look at me,” the young girl says as she clutches on to her mother’s skirt.
In a poor slum like this one, the health centre is often the last place people come when they need medical treatment. They will try everything – the local pharmacy, witchdoctor, prayer groups – before they are forced to pay for the care they need.
When Justine fell into the boiling water almost five months ago, her mother went to get milk to cool the wounds. When that failed, she tried local herbal medicines, then any medication she could afford from the local pharmacy.
Now Justine will spend as long as she needs at the centre, receiving antiseptic gel, water and food to help her infected burns heal. She will sleep in a clean bed to make sure there is no further danger of infection.
“In two weeks time her wounds will be better and she will be walking unaided again,” the nurse tells me.
Seeing Justine’s eyes well up from pain but knowing she will soon be better, I left Kahembe happy in the knowledge that debt or detention would not be an issue for Maria and her daughter.
