16 Days of Activism: a multiple rape victim faces uncertain future

Amid all the statistics of massive population displacement in eastern Congo, the suffering of individuals – especially women like multiple rape victim Mathilde – tends to get glossed over. The current 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence (November 25-December 10) focuses our minds at UNHCR on the human rights abuses against forcibly displaced women in places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Mathilde, whose real name cannot be given for protection reasons, is now living with her three children in the Kigeme refugee camp in Rwanda's Southern province. She was abandoned by her husband after they fled to Rwanda in May to escape the fighting in DRC's North Kivu province between government troops and the rebel M23 movement and not long after she was raped by militiamen.

It was not the first time the 24-year-old woman had been sexually violated in her home province, where rape has become a daily occurrence in some areas as well as a weapon of war. These attacks had affected her health and she was also unable to have normal sexual relations – Mathilde thinks this is why her husband left. Rape is also regarded as a stigma in the region.

Mathilde feels isolated in the camp, where she is surrounded by people from a different ethnic group. She cannot speak the local language, Kinyarwanda, and she relies totally on UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations for general help, food, vital medical treatment and psychiatric counselling.

But at least she is now safer in Rwanda at a time when UNHCR continues to receive appalling reports – linked to the latest fighting – of sexual violence across the border, including the rape of 72 women in the South Kivu town of Minova. Mathilde recently talked to UNHCR's Senior Donor Relations Officer Céline Schmitt about her ordeal.

Mathilde's Story:

I fled from Bihambwe [in North Kivu] in May 2012. My mother was killed in 1993 because of her ethnicity. I was just a child and my father, who was from another ethnic group to my mother, sent me to stay with his friend in Goma [the capital of North Kivu province] and study.

When I was in 6th Grade, I returned to visit my father during the summer holiday. I was with two friends one day and we were walking in the fields when we saw armed men from one of the rebel groups. They captured some of the girls and began raping them. I tried to flee but they shot me in the legs, arms and stomach and I fell down. Two men came and raped me as I lay wounded.

I was treated at the hospital in Masisi town and eventually returned to Goma. I looked for a husband and ended up marrying a man who was an orphan. I did not tell him that I had been raped. My first child is four years old and the others are almost two and one.

My brothers were not happy that I married a man from a different ethnic group and said they would kill him. We fled to Kaniro [in North Kivu's Masisi territory] and felt safe there. But then one of my brothers showed up with friends in the Mai Mai militia. They tied my husband to a chair, gagged him and raped me in front of him and my children. They told my husband to return to Rwanda.

I was taken by the militiamen and they raped me every day for a week. Then I managed to escape and made my way to Bihambo, where I found my husband and asked him to pardon me for having been raped. He did.

Just after the fighting with the M23 started [in Masisi in April], we fled to Rwanda. I explained my problem to UNHCR staff in Nkamira transit camp. I was ashamed and I felt ill.

We were transported to Kigeme and I had terrible pains in my stomach. The doctors said I had an infection. It was very painful. I received drugs but I could not have sexual relations and my husband left. It's my first time in Rwanda and I cannot speak Kinyarwanda – I can't cope, I can't work in the fields.

But I cannot go back to Congo with the kids. If I return they will be killed...

My children don't eat the cornflour that we receive. My oldest daughter, Patricia [aged two], has problems. She has a big belly, there's a problem with her eye... I don't have enough clothes for my children.

There are some psychologists in the camp who help me. UNHCR gave us a tent, sleeping mats, blankets and cooking pans, but it is not enough. I know that there is not much future for me, but it's different for my children. They are small.

When I wake up in the morning, I clean the house, I dress the young ones, I prepare the food and I wash the clothes. And the day finishes like that. I can't sleep because of my problems. I don't know if my husband will return. If he comes back, I will welcome him because he is my husband. My brother called him on his mobile phone after we got here and threatened to kill him. Perhaps that's why he fled.