Congo/Zambia – Congo Refugee Girls & Women in Zambia – Child Brides/Mothers – Sexual Violence +

– by Sally Chiwama in Mporokoso, Zambia — with Lys Anzia of WNN

Kapenda Buyamba was only a small six yr. old child during the
early days of the bloody civil war in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) in
1998. Today, Kapenda is only 16 years old, but she has already been married for
three years.

As if that is not enough, Kapenda is pregnant and expecting her second baby.
Her first child is two and half years old.

A 2007 Population Reference Bureau data reports that the current
average life expectancy in Zambia is 38. Forty-six per cent of the
population in Zambia is now under the age of 15. Thirty-five per cent of all
girls in Zambia give birth before the age of 18.

These are sobering statistics for one of the most vulnerable part of the
refugee population in Zambia – its child-brides.

Today, many refugee child-brides are looking to the future as they sort
through choices that will affect the exact home-base location for them and
their children for years to come. Just children themselves, these young
mothers are facing endless adult decisions. One of them, is where to
spend the rest of their lives.

According to a 2007 report by the UNHCR – the Office of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees, more than 400,000 Congolese refugees are still
living in exile in countries surrounding the DRC. A volunteer repatriation
program by the UNHCR was begun on May 2007 to bring Congolese refugees home
over a three-year period, but conditions inside the Democratic Republic of
Congo may not be safe for women to return.

Kapenda Buyamba, who lives today at the Mwange Refugee Camp in Zambia, is
just taking each day one day at a time. She says she got married at the tender
age of thirteen and a half after being impregnated by a boy who is now her
husband. As a teenage refugee girl from a war-torn nation, Kapenda says that
life in the camp today leaves her “not much to do.” But family responsibilities
fill her daily routine. At the camp there is little food for her family so
Kapenda has had to fend for herself.

The Mwange Refugee Camp, near the northern border of Zambia, was established
in 1999 as a refuge for people who fled the often fierce fighting between
government and rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This
refuge has been especially important to women and their
children. Even as recent as 2007, reports of terrible sex-crime atrocities
against women inside the Democratic Republic of Congo continue.

After being invited by the DRC government to come and observe in 2007,
UN Special Rapporteur on Women and Violence, Dr. Yakin Erturk, reported (in
July) that the actions of rebel factions inside the South Kivu Province areas
“requires immediate action.” In the first six months of 2007 alone, over 4,500
sexual violence cases have been documented by the DRC government, UN and civil
society organizations.

According to Doctors Without Borders, the North Kivu Province of the
Democratic Republic of Congo has been host to intense violence since August
2007. With little security measures in place, Doctors Without Borders has
declared that the Kivu region of the DRC is now under a “permanent state of
emergency.”

“Violence against women seems to be perceived by large sectors of society to
be normal (in the DRC),” said Dr. Erturk in her recent UN report. The extent of
sexual violence against women includes “unimaginable brutality,” said Erturk as
she described sexual crimes perpetrated by DRC rebel factions, Congolese
security/police forces and even former militiamen in the DRC. Specific actions
of violence against women cited by Dr. Erturk include the atrocities of gang
rape, sexual torture before family witnesses and even forced cannibalism.

With cooperation of Zambian Ministry of Home Affairs and a commitment by the
UNHCR to protect and educate refugee girls, the Congolese refugee women in
Zambia are pushing forward in spite of all odds to re-establish and re-heal
their own society. Some girls are wishing to return home while many others
definitely do not.

Kapenda is not ashamed today to say that she is attending first grade at the
Mwange camp. “Nimeowa nilikuwa na myaka kumi na tatu — I got married when I was
13 years old,” she said in Kiswahili, explaining the clear facts of life.

Today, exact figures with the numbers of early marriages in the Mwange camp
are difficult to obtain, as so many camp marriages go unregistered and are
deemed unofficial. Kapenda Buyamba is probably one of the many girls whose
marriage will never be documented anywhere.

In facing the ongoing challenges of Congolese child-brides, sexual and
gender based violence has been an issue for discussion at the Zambian refugee
camps. Namanda Mateele, Project Manager for HODI — a non-governmental Zambian
organization that works to insure food for women at the Mwange Refugee Camp —
says that her work in the camp also focuses on issues of sexual and gender
based violence (SGBV). Thanks to the combined efforts of UNHCR in cooperation
with Zambian officials and society organizations, a 50% reduction in the
occurrence of SGBV in the refugee camps has been observed for the year 2007.

“Our organization also addresses issues such as early marriage, rape and
gender based violence among the refugee community,” said Namanda Mateel. “We
have formed an SGBV youth group with 56 girls and boys after we realized that
there was a lot of sex happening among the adolescents.” Mateel added that
youths attending the youth groups are encouraged to put their education ahead
of anything else at the camp. “One of the most important tasks is to try to
convince the girls that have fallen pregnant to go back to school,” she said.

The tenants of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC) outline clearly that preventing “too early” marriage is part of a
broader approach of building a “protective environment” for children.
This tenant is now being encouraged at the Mwange Refugee Camp. This
policy in discouraging sexual relationships between children too
young also aims to shelter children from further types of exploitation.

From its beginning in 1989, the CRC outlined four basic rights for all refugee
children. They are: the right to survival; the right to develop to the
fullest; the right to be protected from harmful influences, abuse and
exploitation and the right to participate fully in family, cultural and social
life.

Two young girls
who were raped in the DRC. It is not permitted to show the faces of these young
girls.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most comprehensive
international instrument that exists today for the definition and enforcement
of human rights of children in refugee camps. It is the only international
human rights instrument that consistently uses both masculine and feminine
pronouns throughout and makes it explicit that the rights contained therein
apply equally to all female and male children.

In great contrast to life in the camp, many current conditions today in the
DRC are extremely dangerous for women and children. “Nothing (in North Kivu)
has improved for people, who continue to flee the violence. The displaced
persons often stay close to the area where they live because they continue to
hope to return home. They might be two hours walk from home, but are attacked
on the roads and in the fields. Rape victims are often attacked while working
in or returning from the fields,” recently said Romain Gitenet, Head of Doctors
Without Borders, as he worked from an area inside the DRC.

“Nime furahi sana, kurudi kwa shule (Am very happy to come back to school),”
said Mitwelle Mwelu, a 12th grade pupil from Mwange Refugee Camp who is married
with three children and who also decided to go back to school. Mwelu says she
is very happy now writing for her final exams. When she finishes high school
she will also be able to work. She says that her husband encourages her to work
hard on her studies as he is a teacher at her school.

According to the UNHCR, many girls today are caught in the stigmatization of
their society’s inferior views. They rarely have the opportunity to express
their own concerns, let alone have their own views taken into account. Many
girls are also deprived of their inheritance rights, dragged into early or
forced marriages or forced to suffer under many family obligations.

In certain cases, Congolese refugee girls may become targets of sexual
predators. Or they become victims of trafficking as they are
exploited in the sex-trade and labor markets. The dangers of staying in the
camp, though, are small in comparison to the current critical danger of
violence for girls on returning to areas like the Kivu Province.

Zambia is currently hosting approx 113,000 refugees. The UNHCR states that,
“In any refugee population, approximately 50 percent of the uprooted people are
women and girls. Stripped of the protection of their homes, their government
and often their family structure, females are often particularly vulnerable.
They face the rigors of long journeys into exile, official harassment or
indifference and frequent sexual abuse even after reaching an apparent place of
safety. Women must cope with these threats while being nurse, teacher,
breadwinner and physical protector of their families.”

Over the past seven years, refugee women worldwide have escaped from
areas of war in Angola, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of
Congo. Today, close to 18,000 Congolese refugees are living in the Mwange
refugee camp situated 35 kilometers Southwest of Mporokoso District.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is entering a moment of hope
after suffering from one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last half century.
Four million people have died since 1998 and 1.5 million people remain
displaced from their homes today. As refugees return to the DRC from camps in
surrounding areas, they face many difficult situations. 

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Additional sources for this article include IRIN Africa, Doctors Without
Borders, The Post – Zambia, UN Press News, Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights, ReliefWeb, UN Radio, Reuters Alertnet, PRB- Population Reference
Bureau Report 2007, UNFPA – United Nations Population Fund, Center for HIV
Information – University of California, UNHCR – the office of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees and The 2007 DRC Country Report of Special
Rapporteur — Dr. Yakin Erturk.
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