In war, some wounds are hard to see

1 December 2008 Another trip to new displacement sites in Goma brings more stories and more questions about what people really need in times of conflict. Some needs are evident – shelter, clean water, food, clothes - but others are harder to see and therefore harder to respond to. That is certainly the case when it comes to responding to sexual violence.

In a church in Goma, there are more than 1,000 people gathered, having fled their homes in the past few weeks. Since our last visit, a few hundred more people have arrived. The other sites I have been to in Goma are smaller, with a few families from the same town or village moving together and setting themselves up in the same site. But in this church I find people from all over and from farther away, Masisi and western Rutshuru, and many of them came alone.

One girl who appears to be in her late teens came from Nyanzale, a town that is a six-hour drive away, where CARE is soon to set up operations for a large project providing primary health care, livelihoods activities, and support for survivors of sexual violence.

The girl from Nyanzale left her town eight weeks ago, and spent one month in the forest, trying to find day-work to sustain her until she could make it to Goma. She is alone, and does not know where her family is. She has not met a single person from her home town of Nyanzale since arriving in Goma. The gaps in this story are enormous and I imagine by the few facts I have heard, that what is not being said is devastating. In the DR Congo, a woman alone is a target – for abuse, for exploitation, for rape. How did this young girl survive a month on her own, walking through an area filled with armed groups, alone with no family and friends to protect or help her? What is she doing now in Goma to make ends meet? What does she need, aside from the distributions that we are providing to cope with this situation?

It is these invisible needs that are so hard to respond to but so critical to support the physical and mental well-being of those affected by war. Luckily, in the church that CARE visited, some women were willing to give words to what often remains unsaid. They wanted to speak about the women who have been raped, and the others who have been exploited and abused. One woman asks what we can do and I try to see if they know where to go for medical or psychosocial assistance. No one does. Of course they don’t, they just arrived and have no idea how to navigate the services available to them.

That is why CARE is developing a referral system to make sure that all the survivors of rape know where to go to get help, and are able to access those services by providing transport or assistance. Information in this case is empowering. It gives women who have experienced something that has completely violated all their rights the power to decide how to deal with their situation.

CARE’s role is to make it easier for women to access the information and services they need, and give at least some power back to women who have experienced more horror than one can imagine. It requires us to work together with partners and members of the community in order to provide the rapid response needed to ensure that women have timely options to deal with their medical, psychological, and economic needs. It also requires us to work with communities to raise awareness about gender-based violence and to create a protective environment in which women feel able to come forward to seek help.

Most importantly, it validates once again how desperately women need access to these services and that responding to violence against women is a priority during emergencies – just as important as distributing the blankets that will keep them warm, the food that will sustain them, and the shelter that will protect them from the cold Goma nights. 

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