Blog by Bahati Valerie Theophile, co-founder of COFAPRI - Safe World Field Partner in D.R.Congo.

Nyota told us that a majority of women in her area are widows because their husbands were killed during the wars.

This drove them to sell their bodies so that they could support their orphans. Once the husband is killed, the husband’s family members do not support the widow. They leave her alone with her children, and sometimes, she is chased away from the husband’s family; thus, everything the husband gave her: land, animals, clothes, etc. is taken from her.

These women now are suffering a lot, and some were again raped by militants....

When Religious Duty Becomes Slave Labour

The women strongly believe that a priest cannot harm them because he is a man who was chosen by God to serve them and these priests know this, which they use to abuse these DRC illiterate women and girls in remote villages....

So long as only the women are more actively involved in agriculture, while the majority of men roam up and down the village seeking alcohol, the situation will always remain catastrophic...

These men who spend days and days drinking alcohol, once back home (often too late), they abuse their wives, beat, insult, harass them sexually, etc.

Once the harvest is sold, the woman is asked for all the money and it is the man who keeps it...