How could you do this to me?

Updated 13 hr(s) 34 min(s) ago

Deka Hassan Abdi*

The room is chillingly silent. All eyes are fixated on a tiny TV screen. A six-year-old girl is about to undergo the female cut the Somali way. She closes her fear-filled eyes and helplessly tries to pull her legs away from her mother, as the cutter approaches with a razor blade in hand.

All eyes turn away from the screen for a brief moment as the magnitude of the horror that this little girl is about to undergo sinks in.

I rush out as the razor makes its first slash, because I could not stand re-living the terror.

When it was done to me, I was a five-year-old nursery school pupil, part of a group of five little girls.

I can’t remember if it was a school day or a weekend. I just remember my elder sister telling me, "You will be circumcised."

I have died!

She enticed me with two sachets of mabuyu and juice since that is what I loved. I was curious to know what circumcision was about as I had heard other girls brag that they had been circumcised.

I was the third person to go in and when I heard the screams from my cousin who was older than me, I was afraid. She was screaming, "I have died! I have died!"

I wanted to run away but my sister tied my hands to herself. She told me, "You will be a nice girl when you go through this. I have passed through the same. Your older sister has passed through it, your mother…" and she clicked her fingers to mean that it was an eternal chain backwards.

There was only one razor for the five of us. The woman would cut one of us, apply herbs on the wound, then dip the razor in water and proceed to the next. If you did not cry, the women were jubilant. But I cried. My sister tells me that I was screaming, "Have you finished? Have you finished? My heart is coming out!"

Although my wound healed in two weeks, it was only the beginning of the physical pain I am still experiencing. I underwent Type III Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) where the clitoris and both the inner and outer lips (labia minora and majora) are slashed off and the wound sewn almost shut, leaving only a tiny multipurpose opening the size of a matchstick head, for passing urine and the menstrual flow.

It was difficult passing urine as my legs were tied together and I had to lie on my side. Because of the wound, the urine burnt me and I found myself suppressing the urge to urinate.

When my periods began, I underwent unbearable abdominal pain. Since the opening is small, the blood clots trying to pass through make periods extremely painful. They do not come normally. For seven days every month, I do not go to work. Even if I am in a matatu and I feel the first pains, I get out, run to the nearest pharmacy, get painkillers and take them on the spot. Whenever I feel the first pains, I start sweating because I know the next several days I will not be going to work. I think the pain is similar to labour pains. It is the same for most of the girls from North Eastern Province. When we were in high school, the doctor was often unable to handle all the girls writhing and throwing up on the dispensary floor. In most cases, we were taken home.

Every month, I was down for seven days and when my father saw me throw up, he wondered what kind of worms I had that made me sick every month.

The saddest thing is that women and girls undergo this painful mutilation for men, who will never understand the trauma that marks our lives from then henceforth. Even when they know of hard work and pain of the wedding night for both the bride and groom, not many are ready to do something about it or even speak out.

But I don’t blame my parents. I blame ignorance and illiteracy. All the women believe that if you are married, the pain will cease. I saw the woman who cut me up and asked her why she did that to me. She told me to go get married and my problems will be over. It hurts me that she is still doing the same thing even now — stitching girls like a piece of cloth.

Unstitching


I would not consider getting surgically unstitched to save myself from all the pain because I fear the stigma of being opened up. People may not know about it but my husband will. A man would rather take a girl to hospital for unstitching on their wedding night than marry a girl who has been ‘opened’. He fears being stigmatised too.

Marrying a man from a community that does not value FGM is not a solution, because my culture restricts me to marrying a Somali man. So my seven-day horror will continue every month until I am married. Then I will have to grapple with being a wife and mother. I know sex and childbirth will be excruciating, if not life threatening, but I would rather not think about them now. I have enough problems living with FGM, and cannot fathom facing the future with it.

* As told to Brenda Kageni

Comment pourriez-vous faire ceci à moi ?
Automatically translated into French thanks to WorldLingo
Comment pourriez-vous faire ceci à moi ?

Des 13 heures mises à jour il y a 34 minutes

Deka Hassan Abdi*

la salle est froidement silencieuse. Tous les yeux sont fixés sur un écran minuscule de TV. Une six-année-vieille fille est sur le point de subir la femelle a coupé la manière somalienne. Elle la ferme crainte-a rempli yeux et essaye sans ressource de se moquer d'elle loin de sa mère, car le coupeur s'approche avec une lame de rasoir à disposition.

Tous les yeux tournent loin de l'écran pendant un bref moment comme importance de l'horreur que cette petite fille est sur le point de subir les éviers po.

Je me précipite dehors pendant que le rasoir fait sa première estafilade, parce que je ne pourrais pas me tenir re-living la terreur.

Quand il a été fait à moi, j'étais un cinq-année-vieux élève d'école maternelle, une partie d'un groupe de cinq petites filles.

Je ne peux pas me rappeler si c'était un jour d'école ou un week-end. Je me rappelle juste ma soeur plus âgée me dire que, « vous serez circonci.  »

Je suis mort !

Elle m'a attiré avec deux sachets de mabuyu et de jus depuis est qui ce que j'ai aimé. J'étais curieux pour savoir quelle circoncision était environ car j'avais entendu d'autres filles se vanter qu'elles avaient été circoncies.

J'étais la troisième personne à entrer et quand j'ai entendu les cris perçants de mon cousin qui était plus âgé que moi, j'avais peur. Elle criait, « je sont mortes ! Je suis mort ! « 

J'ai voulu courir loin mais ma soeur a attaché mes mains à elle-même. Elle m'a dit que, « vous serez une gentille fille quand vous passez par ceci. J'ai traversé la même chose. Votre soeur plus âgée a traversé lui, votre mère… « et elle a cliqué ses doigts pour vouloir dire que c'était une chaîne éternelle vers l'arrière.

Il y avait seulement un rasoir pour les cinq de nous. La femme couperait l'un de nous, appliquerait des herbes sur la blessure, pour plonger alors le rasoir dans l'eau et procéderait au prochain. Si vous ne pleuriez pas, les femmes étaient radieuses. Mais j'ai pleuré. Ma soeur me dit que que je criais, « avez-vous fini ? Avez-vous fini ? Mon coeur sort ! « 

Bien que ma blessure guérie en deux semaines, il était seulement le commencement de la douleur physique que j'éprouve toujours. J'ai subi le type la mutilation génitale femelle d'III (FGM) où le clitoris et les lèvres intérieures et externes (minora et majora de labia) sont réduits au loin et la blessure cousue a presque fermé, laissant seulement à une ouverture universelle minuscule la taille d'une tête d'allumette, pour passer l'urine et l'écoulement menstruel.

Il était difficile passant l'urine car mes jambes ont été attachées ensemble et je devais me trouver de mon côté. En raison de la blessure, l'urine a brûlé moi et I trouvés supprimant le recommander d'uriner.

Quand mes périodes ont commencé, j'ai subi la douleur abdominale insupportable. Puisque l'ouverture est petite, les caillots de sang essayant de passer rendent à travers des périodes extrêmement douloureuses. Ils ne viennent pas normalement. Pendant sept jours chaque mois, je ne vais pas travailler. Même si je suis dans un matatu et je sens les premières douleurs, je sors, cours à la pharmacie la plus proche, obtiens des calmeurs et les prends sur place. Toutes les fois que je sens les premières douleurs, je commence à suer parce que je sais les plusieurs jours suivants que je n'irai pas travailler. Je pense que la douleur est semblable pour travailler des douleurs. C'est pareil pour la plupart des filles de la province nord-est. Quand nous étions dans le lycée, le docteur ne pouvait pas souvent manipuler toutes filles writhing et jetant vers le haut sur le plancher d'officine. Dans la plupart des cas, nous avons été emmenés à la maison.

Chaque mois, j'étais vers le bas pendant sept jours et quand mon père m'a vu jeter vers le haut, il s'est demandé quel genre de vers j'ai eu qui m'a fait le malade chaque mois.

La chose la plus triste est que les femmes et les filles subissent cette mutilation douloureuse pour les hommes, qui ne comprendront jamais le trauma qui marque nos vies d'puis dorénavant. Même lorsqu'ils savent du travail dur et de la douleur de la nuit de mariage pour la mariée et se toilettent, pas beaucoup sont prêts à faire quelque chose à son sujet ou même à parler dehors.

Mais je ne blâme pas mes parents. Je blâme l'ignorance et l'analphabétisme. Toutes femmes croient que si vous êtes mariée, la douleur cessera. J'ai vu la femme qui m'a coupé et lui a demandé pourquoi elle a fait cela à moi. Elle m'a dit que pour aller mariez-vous et mes problèmes plus de. Il me blesse qu'elle fait toujours la même chose même maintenant - les filles piquantes comme un morceau de tissu.

Unstitching


I ne considérerait pas obtenir chirurgicalement unstitched pour se sauver de toute douleur parce que je crains le stigmate de l'ouverture. Les gens ne peuvent pas savoir à son sujet mais mon mari. Un homme porterait plutôt une fille à l'hôpital pour unstitching leur nuit de mariage qu'épousent une fille qui a été `ouvert'. Il craint d'être stigmatisé aussi.

Épouser un homme d'une communauté qui n'évalue pas FGM n'est pas une solution, parce que ma culture me limite à épouser un homme somalien. Ainsi mon horreur de sept jours continuera chaque mois jusqu'à ce que je sois marié. Alors je devrai m'attaquer à être une épouse et une mère. Je sais que le sexe et l'accouchement seront atroces, sinon représentant un danger pour la vie, mais moi ne penserait pas plutôt à eux maintenant. J'ai assez de problèmes vivant avec FGM, et ne peux pas sonder faire face au futur avec lui.

* Comme dit à Brenda Kageni

¿Cómo podría usted hacer esto a mí?
Automatically translated into Spanish thanks to WorldLingo
¿Cómo podría usted hacer esto a mí?

Las 13 horas actualizadas hace 34 minutos

Deka Hassan Abdi*

el cuarto es chillingly silencioso. Todos los ojos se fijan en una pantalla minúscula de la TV. Una seis-año-vieja muchacha está a punto de experimentar a la hembra cortó la manera somalí. Ella la cierra miedo-llenó ojos e intenta desamparadamente tirar de sus piernas lejos de su madre, pues el cortador se acerca con una hoja de afeitar a disposición.

Todos los ojos dan vuelta lejos de la pantalla por un breve momento como la magnitud del horror que esta pequeña muchacha está a punto de experimentar los fregaderos pulg.

Acometo hacia fuera mientras que la maquinilla de afeitar hace su primera raya vertical, porque no podría estar parado que volvía a vivir el terror.

Cuando fue hecho a mí, era una cinco-año-vieja pupila de la escuela de cuarto de niños, parte de un grupo de cinco pequeñas muchachas.

No puedo recordar si era un día de la escuela o un fin de semana. Apenas recuerdo a mi más vieja hermana decirme que, “usted sea circumcised. ¡”

He muerto!

Ella me tentó con dos bolsitas de mabuyu y del jugo desde entonces que es lo que amé. Era curioso saber que qué circuncisión estaba alrededor pues había oído a otras muchachas jactarse que habían sido circumcised.

Era la tercera persona a entrar y cuando oí los gritos de mi primo que era más viejo que mí, yo estaba asustado. ¡Ella gritaba, “yo ha muerto! ¡He muerto! “

Deseé funcionar lejos pero mi hermana ató mis manos a se. Ella me dijo que, “usted sea una muchacha agradable cuando usted pasa con esto. He pasado con igual. Su más vieja hermana ha pasado con él, su madre… “y ella chascó sus dedos para significar que era una cadena eterna al revés.

Había solamente una maquinilla de afeitar para los cinco de nosotros. La mujer cortaría a uno de nosotros, aplicaría las hierbas en la herida, entonces para sumergir la maquinilla de afeitar en agua y procedería al siguiente. Si usted no gritó, las mujeres eran jubilosas. Pero grité. ¿Mi hermana me dice que que gritara, “usted ha acabado? ¿Usted ha acabado? ¡Mi corazón está saliendo! “

Aunque mi herida curada en dos semanas, él era solamente el principio del dolor físico que todavía estoy experimentando. Experimenté el tipo mutilación genital femenina de III (FGM) donde el clítoris y los labios internos y externos (minora y majora de las labias) se reduce radicalmente apagado y la herida cosida casi cerró, saliendo solamente una abertura multipropósito minúscula del tamaño de una cabeza del matchstick, para pasar la orina y el flujo menstrual.

Era difícil pasando la orina pues mis piernas fueron atadas juntas y tuve que mentir en mi lado. Debido a la herida, la orina se quemó me e I que suprimía el impulso al urinate.

Cuando mis períodos comenzaron, experimenté dolor abdominal unbearable. Puesto que la abertura es pequeña, los coágulos de sangre que intentan pasar a través hacen períodos extremadamente dolorosos. No vienen normalmente. Por siete días cada mes, no voy a trabajar. Aunque estoy en un matatu y siento los primeros dolores, yo salgo, funciono a la farmacia más cercana, consigo los painkillers y los tomo sobre el terreno. Siempre que sienta los primeros dolores, comienzo a sudar porque sé los varios días próximos que no iré a trabajar. Pienso que el dolor es similar trabajar dolores. Es igual para la mayor parte de las muchachas de la provincia nororiental. Cuando estábamos en High School secundaria, el doctor no podía a menudo manejar todas las muchachas writhing y que lanzaban para arriba en el piso del dispensario. En la mayoría de los casos, a casa nos tomaron.

Cada mes, estaba abajo por siete días y cuando mi padre me vio lanzar para arriba, él se preguntaba qué clase de gusanos tenía que me hizo a enfermo cada mes.

La cosa más triste es que las mujeres y las muchachas experimentan esta mutilación dolorosa para los hombres, que nunca entenderán el trauma que marca nuestras vidas de entonces en adelante. Aun cuando saben de trabajo duro y del dolor de la noche de la boda para la novia y preparan, no muchos son listos hacer algo sobre él o aún hablar hacia fuera.

Pero no culpo a mis padres. Culpé ignorancia y analfabetismo. Todas las mujeres creen que si le casan, el dolor cesará. Vi a mujer que me cortó para arriba y le preguntó porqué ella hizo eso a mí. Ella me dijo que ir consiga casado y mis problemas encima. Me lastima que ella todavía incluso ahora está haciendo la misma cosa - las muchachas de costura como un pedazo del paño.

Unstitching


I no consideraría el conseguir quirúrgico unstitched para ahorrarse de todo el dolor porque temo el estigma de ser abierto. La gente no puede saber sobre él pero mi marido. Un hombre llevaría algo a muchacha al hospital para unstitching en su noche de la boda que una muchacha que ha sido `abierto'. Él teme que siendo stigmatised también.

Casar a un hombre de una comunidad que no valore FGM no es una solución, porque mi cultura me restringe a casar a un hombre somalí. Mi horror de siete días continuará tan cada mes hasta que me casan. Entonces tendré que atacar con ser una esposa y una madre. Sé que el sexo y el parto torturarán, si no peligroso para la vida, sino yo ahora no pensaría algo de ellos. Tengo bastantes problemas que vive con FGM, y no puedo penetrar hacer frente al futuro con él.

* Según lo dicho a Brenda Kageni

Come potreste fare questo a me?
Automatically translated into Italian thanks to WorldLingo
Come potreste fare questo a me?

13 ore aggiornate 34 minuti fa

Deka Hassan Abdi*

la stanza è chillingly silenziosa. Tutti gli occhi sono fissati su uno schermo molto piccolo della TV. Una sei-anno-vecchia ragazza sta circa per subire la femmina ha tagliato il senso di somalo. La chiude timore-ha riempito gli occhi e helplessly prova a tirare i suoi piedini via dalla sua madre, poichè la taglierina si avvicina a con una lamierina di rasoio a disposizione.

Tutti gli occhi girano via dallo schermo per un breve momento come la grandezza dell'orrore che questa ragazza piccola sta circa per subire i dispersori poll.

Scorro veloce fuori mentre il rasoio fa il relativo primo taglio, perché non potrei levarmi in piedi re-living il terrore.

Quando è stato fatto a me, ero un cinque-anno-vecchio allievo della scuola materna facente parte un gruppo di cinque ragazze piccole.

Non posso ricordarmi di se fosse un giorno della scuola o una fine settimana. Mi ricordo appena della mia sorella più anziana dirmi che, “siate circumcised. „

Sono morto!

Lo ha attratto da allora con due sacchetti del mabuyu e della spremuta che è che cosa amavo. Ero curioso conoscere che che circumcision era circa poichè avevo sentito altre ragazze vantarmi che erano state circumcised.

Ero la terza persona da andare dentro e quando ho sentito i gridi dal mio cugino che era più vecchio di me, io ero impaurito. Stava gridando, “io è morto! Sono morto! “

Ho desiderato funzionare via ma la mia sorella ha legato le mie mani a sè. Mi ha detto che, “foste una ragazza piacevole quando passate con questo. Ho attraversato lo stesso. La vostra sorella più anziana ha attraversato esso, la vostra madre… “ed ha scattato le sue barrette per significare che era una catena eterna indietro.

Ci era soltanto un rasoio per i cinque di noi. La donna ci taglierebbe uno, applicherebbe le erbe sulla ferita, allora per tuffare il rasoio in acqua e continuerebbe al seguente. Se non gridare, le donne erano jubilant. Ma ho gridato. La mia sorella mi dice che che sterà gridando, “avete rifinito? Avete rifinito? Il mio cuore sta uscendo! “

Anche se la mia ferita curativa in due settimane, esso era soltanto l'inizio del dolore che fisico ancora sto sperimentando. Ho subito il tipo mutilazione genitale femminile di III (FGM) dove il clitoris e sia i labbri interni che esterni (minora e majora dei labia) è ridotto fuori e la ferita cucita quasi ha chiuso, lasciante soltanto ad un'apertura multiuso molto piccola il formato di una testa del matchstick, per passare l'urina ed il flusso mestruale.

Era difficile passando l'urina poichè i miei piedini sono stati legati insieme ed ho dovuto trovarmi dal mio lato. A causa della ferita, l'urina ha bruciato me e la I trovati che sopprime lo stimolo al urinate.

Quando i miei periodi hanno cominciato, ho subito il dolore addominale unbearable. Poiché l'apertura è piccola, i grumi di anima che provano a passare attraverso rendono i periodi estremamente dolorosi. Non vengono normalmente. Per sette giorni ogni mese, non vado lavorare. Anche se sono in un matatu e ritengo i primi dolori, esco, funziono alla farmacia più vicina, ottengo i painkillers e li prendo sul posto. Ogni volta che ritengo i primi dolori, comincio sudare perché conosco i parecchi giorni che prossimi non andrò lavorare. Penso che il dolore sia simile ai dolori di lavoro. È lo stesso per la maggior parte delle ragazze dalla provincia nord-orientale. Quando eravamo in High School, il medico non poteva spesso maneggiare tutte le ragazze che writhing e che gettano in su sul pavimento del dispensario. Nella maggior parte dei casi, siamo stati presi a casa.

Ogni mese, ero giù per sette giorni e quando il mio padre lo ha visto gettare in su, si è domandato che genere di viti senza fine ho avuto che mi ha reso il malato ogni mese.

La cosa più triste è che le donne e le ragazze subiscono questa mutilazione dolorosa per gli uomini, che non capiranno mai il trauma che contrassegni le nostre vite da allora d'ora in poi. Anche quando sanno di lavoro duro e di dolore della notte di nozze per sia il bride che governano, non molti sono aspettano per fargli qualcosa o persino per parlare fuori.

Ma non incolpo dei miei genitori. Incolpo dell'ignoranza e dell'analfabetismo. Tutte le donne credono che se siete sposati, il dolore cessi. Ho visto la donna che lo ha tagliato e gli ha chiesto perchè ha fatto quella a me. Mi ha detto che andare ottenga sposato ed i miei problemi finito. Lo danneggia che ancora persino ora sta facendo la stessa cosa - ragazze di cucitura come una parte del panno.

Unstitching


I non studierebbe la possibilità di ottenere chirurgicamente unstitched per conservarsi da tutto il dolore perché temo lo stigma di apertura. La gente non può sapere a questo proposito ma il mio marito. Un uomo piuttosto prenderebbe una ragazza all'ospedale per unstitching sulla loro notte di nozze di una ragazza che è stata `aperto'. Teme che essendo stigmatised anche.

Sposare un uomo da una Comunità che non stima FGM non è una soluzione, perché la mia coltura lo limita a sposare un uomo di somalo. Così il mio orrore di sette giorni continuerà ogni mese fino a sposarlo io. Allora dovrò affrontare with essere una moglie e una madre. So che il sesso ed il parto saranno excruciating, se non vita - minacciare, ma io piuttosto ora non penserebbe loro. Ho abbastanza problemi che vivo con FGM e non posso fathom l'affronto del futuro con esso.

* Come detto a a Brenda Kageni

Wie konnten Sie dies mich antun?
Automatically translated into German thanks to WorldLingo
Wie konnten Sie dies mich antun?

Vor aktualisierte 13 Stunden 34 Minuten

Deka Hassan Abdi*

ist der Raum unterkühlt leise. Alle Augen werden auf einem kleinen Fernsehapparat Schirm fixiert. Ein sechs-Jahr-altes Mädchen imist Begriff, die Frau durchzumachen schnitt die somalische Weise. Sie schließt sie Furcht-füllte Augen und versucht hilflos, ihre Beine weg von ihrer Mutter zu ziehen, da der Scherblock mit einer Rasierklinge in der Hand sich nähert.

Alle Augen drehen sich weg vom Schirm während eines kurzen Momentes als die Größe der Grausigkeit, daß dieses kleine Mädchen imist Begriff, Wannen inch durchzumachen.

Ich hetze heraus, während das Rasiermesser seinen ersten Schrägstrich bildet, weil ich nicht wieder erlebend den Terror stehen könnte.

Als es mich angetan wurde, war ich eine fünf-Jahr-alte Kindergartenschüler, Teil einer Gruppe von fünf kleinen Mädchen.

Ich kann nicht mich erinnern, an wenn es ein Schuletag oder ein Wochenende war. Ich erinnere gerade mich an meine ältere Schwester, zu erklären mir daß, „Sie circumcised sind. “

Ich bin gestorben!

Sie verleitete mich mit zwei Quetschkissen mabuyu und Saft seit dem, der ist, was ich liebte. Ich war neugierig, zu wissen, daß welcher Circumcision ungefähr war, da ich andere Mädchen gehört hatte zu prahlen, daß waren sie gewesen, circumcised.

Ich war die dritte Person, zum innen zu gehen und als ich die Screams von meinem Vetter hörte, der älter als ich war, ich hatte Angst. Sie schrie, „ich ist gestorben! Ich bin gestorben! „

Ich wollte weg laufen, aber meine Schwester band meine Hände an. Sie erklärte mir daß, „Sie ein nettes Mädchen sind, wenn Sie dieses durchlaufen. Ich habe durch das selbe überschritten. Ihre ältere Schwester hat durch es, Ihre Mutter… „überschritten und sie klickte ihre Finger an, um zu bedeuten, daß es eine ewige Kette rückwärts war.

Es gab nur ein Rasiermesser für die fünf von uns. Die Frau würde eins von uns schneiden, Kräuter auf der Wunde, das anwenden Rasiermesser im Wasser dann einzutauchen und fortfahren zum folgenden. Wenn Sie nicht schrieen, waren die Frauen jubilant. Aber ich schrie. Meine Schwester erklärt mir, daß daß ich, „schrie, haben Sie beendet? Haben Sie beendet? Mein Herz kommt heraus! „

Obgleich meine Wunde, die in zwei Wochen geheilt wurde, es nur der Anfang der körperlichen Schmerz war, die ich noch erfahre. Ich machte Art III die weibliche genitale Verstümmelung (FGM) wo der Clitoris und die inneren und äußeren Lippen (Labia minora und majora) weg und die Wunde zerschnitten werden, die schloß genäht wird fast durch und verließ nur einer kleinen Mehrzwecköffnung die Größe eines Matchstickkopfes, für das Führen des Urins und des Menstruationsflusses.

Es war schwierig, Urin führend, da meine Beine zusammen gebunden wurden und ich auf meiner Seite liegen mußte. Wegen der Wunde brannte der Urin mich und I gefunden das Drängen zum urinate unterdrückend.

Als meine Perioden anfingen, machte ich die unbearable Abdominal- Schmerz durch. Da die öffnung klein ist, bilden die Blutgerinsel, die versuchen zu überschreiten durch, Perioden extrem schmerzlich. Sie kommen nicht normalerweise. Für sieben Tage jeder Monat, gehe ich nicht, zu arbeiten. Selbst wenn ich in einem matatu bin und ich den ersten Schmerz glaube, gehe ich hinaus, laufe zur nächsten Apotheke, erhalte schmerzstillende Mittel und nehme sie auf dem Punkt. Wann immer ich den ersten Schmerz glaube, fange ich an zu schwitzen, weil ich die folgenden einige Tage kenne, die ich nicht gehen werde zu bearbeiten. Ich denke, daß die Schmerz ähnlich sind, die Schmerz zu bearbeiten. Es ist der selbe für die meisten Mädchen von der nordöstlichen Provinz. Als wir in der High School waren, war der Doktor häufig nicht imstande, alle Mädchen anzufassen, die oben auf den Dispensaryfußboden writhing und geworfen worden sein würde. In den meisten Fällen wurden wir nach Hause genommen.

Jeder Monat, war ich unten für sieben Tage und als mein Vater mich sah, oben zu werfen, wunderte sich er, welche Art der Endlosschrauben ich hatte, der mich Kranken jeder Monat bildete.

Die traurigste Sache ist, daß Frauen und Mädchen diese schmerzliche Verstümmelung für Männer durchmachen, die nie das Trauma verstehen, das unsere Leben von dann künftig kennzeichnet. Selbst wenn sie von der harten Arbeit und von den Schmerz der Hochzeit Nacht für die Braut wissen und sich pflegen, sind nicht viele bereit, etwas über es zu tun oder sogar heraus zu sprechen.

Aber ich tadele nicht meine Eltern. Ich tadele Unwissenheit und Analphabetismus. Alle Frauen glauben, daß, wenn Sie verbunden werden, die Schmerz aufhören. Ich sah die Frau, die mich oben schnitt und sie fragte, warum sie die mich antat. Sie erklärte mir, daß um zu gehen heiraten Sie und meine Probleme rüber sein. Es verletzt mich, daß sie noch die gleiche Sache sogar jetzt tut - nähende Mädchen wie ein Stück des Tuches.

Unstitching


I würde nicht erwägen, chirurgisch zu erhalten unstitched, um sich von allen Schmerz zu speichern, weil ich die Schande von erschlossen werden fürchte. Leute können nicht in es auskennen, aber mein Ehemann wird. Ein Mann würde eher ein Mädchen zum Krankenhaus für das Unstitching auf ihrer Hochzeit Nacht als heiraten ein Mädchen nehmen, das das geöffnete `' gewesen ist. Er fürchtet sich, daß seiend auch stigmatised.

Einen Mann von einer Gemeinschaft zu heiraten, die nicht FGM bewertet, ist nicht eine Lösung, weil meine Kultur mich auf das Heiraten eines somalischen Mannes einschränkt. So setzt meine siebentägige Grausigkeit jeden Monat fort, bis ich verbunden bin. Dann muß ich mit Sein mich festhalten eine Frau und eine Mutter. Ich weiß, daß Geschlecht und Geburt unerträglich sind, wenn nicht lebensbedrohend, aber ich eher nicht an sie jetzt denken würde. Ich habe genügende Probleme lebend mit FGM und kann nicht fathom das Gegenüberstellen der Zukunft mit ihm.

* Wie erklärt Brenda Kageni

Como poderia você me fazer este?
Automatically translated into Portuguese thanks to WorldLingo
Como poderia você me fazer este?

13 horas Updated 34 minutos há

Deka Hassan Abdi*

o quarto é chillingly silencioso. Todos os olhos fixated em uma tela minúscula da tevê. Uma menina seis-ano-velha está a ponto de submeter-se à fêmea cortou a maneira Somali. Fecha-a medo-encheu os olhos e tenta-os helplessly puxar seus pés longe de sua mãe, porque o cortador se aproxima com uma lâmina de razor à disposicão.

Todos os olhos giram longe da tela por um momento breve como o valor do horror que esta menina pequena está a ponto de se submeter dentro a dissipadores.

Eu apresso-me para fora enquanto o razor faz seu primeiro slash, porque eu não poderia estar re-living o terror.

Quando me foi feito, eu era um aluno cinco-ano-velho da escola de berçário, parte de um grupo de cinco meninas pequenas.

Eu não posso recordar se for um dia da escola ou um fim de semana. Eu recordo apenas minha irmã mais velha dizer-me que, “você será circumcised. ”

Eu morri!

Seduziu-me com os dois saquinhos do mabuyu e do suco desde que é o que eu amei. Eu era curioso saber que que circumcision estava aproximadamente porque eu tinha ouvido outras meninas brag que tinham sido circumcised.

Eu era a terceira pessoa a ir dentro e quando eu ouvi os gritos de meu primo que era mais velho do que mim, mim estava receoso. Estava gritando, “mim morreu! Eu morri! “

Eu quis funcionar afastado mas minha irmã herselfamarrou- minhas mãos. Disse-me que, “você será uma menina agradável quando você atravessa este. Eu passei com o mesmo. Sua irmã mais velha passou com ele, sua mãe… “e estalou seus dedos para significar que era uma corrente eternal para trás.

Havia somente um razor para os cinco de nós. A mulher cortaria um de nós, aplicaria herbs na ferida, para mergulhar então o razor na água e proseguiria ao seguinte. Se você não gritasse, as mulheres eram jubilant. Mas eu gritei. Minha irmã diz-me que que eu estava gritando, “você terminou? Você terminou? Meu coração está saindo! “

Embora minha ferida healed em duas semanas, ele era somente o começo da dor que física eu estou experimentando ainda. Eu submeti-me ao tipo mutilação Genital fêmea de III (FGM) onde o clitóris e os bordos internos e exteriores (minora e majora dos labia) slashed fora e a ferida sewn fechou quase, saindo somente uma abertura de múltiplos propósitos minúscula do tamanho de uma cabeça do matchstick, para passar o urine e o fluxo menstrual.

Era difícil passando o urine porque meus pés foram amarrados junto e eu tive que se encontrar em meu lado. Por causa da ferida, o urine queimou me e I encontrados myself que suprime o impuso ao urinate.

Quando meus períodos começaram, eu submeti-me à dor abdominal unbearable. Desde que a abertura é pequena, os clots de sangue que tentam passar fazem completamente períodos extremamente dolorosos. Não vêm normalmente. Por sete dias cada mês, eu não vou trabalhar. Mesmo se eu estiver em um matatu e eu sentir as primeiras dores, eu saio, funciono ao pharmacy o mais próximo, começo painkillers e faço exame d no ponto. Sempre que eu sinto as primeiras dores, eu começo suar porque eu sei diversos dias onde seguintes eu não estarei indo trabalhar. Eu penso que a dor é similar trabalhar dores. É o mesmo para a maioria das meninas da província no nordeste. Quando nós estávamos na High School, o doutor era frequentemente incapaz de segurar todas as meninas que writhing e que jogam acima no assoalho do dispensary. Em a maioria de casos, nós fomos feitos exame para casa.

Cada mês, eu era para baixo por sete dias e quando meu pai me viu jogar acima, quis saber que tipo dos sem-fins eu tive que me fêz o doente cada mês.

A coisa a mais saddest é que as mulheres e as meninas se submetem a esta mutilação dolorosa para os homens, que nunca compreenderão o trauma que marca nossas vidas de então henceforth. Mesmo quando sabem do trabalho duro e da dor da noite do casamento para o bride e groom, não muitos estão prontos para fazer algo sobre ele ou para falar mesmo para fora.

Mas eu não responsabilizo meus pais. Eu responsabilizo o ignorance e o illiteracy. Todas as mulheres acreditam que se você for casado, a dor cessará. Eu vi a mulher que me cortou acima e lhe perguntou porque me fêz aquela. Disse-me que para ir comece casado e meus problemas sobre. Fere-me que está fazendo ainda a mesma coisa mesmo agora - meninas stitching como uma parte de pano.

Unstitching


I não consideraria começar cirùrgica unstitched para conservar-se myself de toda a dor porque eu temo o stigma de ser aberto acima. Os povos não podem saber sobre ele mas meu marido. Um homem faria exame rather de uma menina ao hospital para unstitching em sua noite do casamento do que casa uma menina que fosse `aberto'. Teme que sendo stigmatised demasiado.

Casar um homem de uma comunidade que não avalie FGM não é uma solução, porque minha cultura me restringe a casar um homem Somali. Assim meu horror seven-day continuará cada mês até que eu esteja casado. Então eu terei que grapple com ser uma esposa e uma mãe. Eu sei que o sexo e o parto serão excruciating, se não vida - ameaçar, mas eu rather não pensaria sobre ele agora. Eu tenho bastante problemas que vivo com FGM, e não posso fathom enfrentar o futuro com ele.

* Como dito a Brenda Kageni

Hur kunde du göra denna till mig?
Automatically translated into Swedish thanks to WorldLingo
Hur kunde du göra denna till mig?

Uppdaterat 13 timmar 34 minuter sedan

Deka Hassan Abdi*

är rummet chillingly tyst. Allt synar fixateds på en mycket liten TV avskärmer. Engammal flicka ska just att genomgå det kvinnliga snittet det somaliskt långt. Henne slut som hon frukta-fyllde synar, och helplessly försök till handtag hon lägger benen på ryggen i väg från henne fostrar, som skäraren att närma sig med en rakblad räcker in.

Allt synar vänd i väg från avskärma för ett kort ögonblick som storleken av fasan att denna liten flicka ska just att genomgå sjunker in.

Jag rusar ut, som rakkniven gör dess första att hugga, därför att jag inte kunde stå re-living av skräcken.

Då det gjordes till mig, var jag engammal daghemelev, del av en grupp av fem liten flicka.

Jag kan inte minnas, om det var en skoladag eller en tillbringa veckoslutet. Rättvis I minns min träffande flädersyster mig, ”dig ska omskäras. ”

Har jag dött!

Hon lockade mig med två påsar av mabuyu och fruktsaft efter som är vad jag älskade. Jag var nyfiken att veta vilken circumcision var omkring, som jag hade hört annan flickaskryt att de hade omskurits.

Jag var den tredje personen som in går och, när jag hörde skrina från min kusin, som var äldre än mig, mig var rädd. Hon skrek, ”mig har dött! Jag har dött! ”

Önskade jag att köra bort, men min syster band mitt räcker till hon själv. Hon berättade mig att, ”du ska är en trevlig flicka, när du går till och med denna. Jag har passerat till och med samma. Din äldre syster har passerat till och med det, ditt fostra… ”, och hon klickade henne fingrar för att betyda att det var ett evigt kedjar tillbaka.

Det fanns endast en rakkniv för femna av oss. Kvinnan skulle snittet ett av oss, applicerar örtar på såret, doppar därefter rakkniven bevattnar och fortsätter in till det nästa. Om du inte grät, var kvinnorna jubilant. Men jag grät. Min syster berättar mig att att jag skrek, ”, har du avslutat sig? Har du avslutat sig? Min hjärta är kommande ut! ”

Även om mitt sår läkte itu veckor, var det endast början av läkarundersökningen smärtar stilla erfara för I-förmiddag. Jag genomgick den kvinnliga genitala stympningen för typ III (FGM) var klitoris och både de inre och yttre kanterna (den blygdläpparminoraen och majoraen) huggas av och det sydde såret stängde sig som nästan lämnar endast en mycket liten öppning som kan användas till mycket storleksanpassa av ett matchstickhuvud, för övergående urine och det menstrual flödet.

Det var svår övergående urine, som mitt lägger benen på ryggen bands tillsammans, och jag måste att ligga på min sida. På grund av såret brände urinen mig, och I grundar jag själv dämpa driften att urinera.

Då min perioder började, genomgick jag outhärdligt buk- smärtar. Sedan öppningen är liten, gör de pröva blodpropparna att passera igenom perioder extremt smärtsamma. De kommer inte normalt. För sju dagar varje månad, går jag inte att fungera. Om kör till det mest nearest apotek, få smärtstillande medel och ta dem på fläcken, även I-förmiddagen i en matatu och I-känselförnimmelse den första plågor, jag får ut. När som helst I-känselförnimmelsen den första plågor, mig startar att svettas, därför att jag vet de nästa flera dagarna, ska jag för att inte gå att fungera. Funderare I smärta är liknande att arbeta plågor. Det är samma för mest av flickorna från nord - östligt landskap. Och kasta upp på apotek däcka, då vi var i högstadium, var manipulera ofta oförmögen att behandla alla flickor som vrida sig. Ofta togs vi hem.

Varje månad var jag besegrar för sju dagar, och, när min fader sågar mig kast upp, undrade han vilken sort av avmaskar mig hade som gjorde mig sjuk varje månad.

Det mest ledsna tinget är att kvinnor och flickor genomgår denna smärtsamma stympning för manar, som ska förstår aldrig trauman, som markerar våra liv från därefter fortsättningsvis. Även om de vet av hårt arbete och smärtar av bröllopnatten för både bruden och brudgum, inte är många ordnar till för att göra något om den eller även för att tala ut.

Men jag klandrar inte min föräldrar. Jag klandrar okunnighet och analfabetism. Alla kvinnor tror att, om du att gifta sig, smärta ska upphörning. Jag sågar kvinnan som klippte upp mig och frågat henne varför hon gjorde det till mig. Hon berättade mig att för att gå få gift och min ska problem var över. Det görar ond mig, att hon är stillbilden som även nu gör det samma tinget - sy flickanågot liknande en lappa av torkduken.

Unstitching


I som skulle för att inte betrakta att få surgically, unstitched till räddningen jag själv från alla smärtar, därför att jag fruktar stigmaen av att öppnas upp. Folket kan inte veta om ska det utan min maka. En man skulle den snarlika taken en flicka till sjukhuset för unstitching på deras bröllopnatt än att gifta sig en flicka som har varit öppnad `'. Han fruktar att vara stigmatised för.

Att att gifta sig en man från en gemenskap, som inte värderar FGM, är inte en lösning, därför att min kultur begränsar mig till att att gifta sig en somalisk man. Så fortsätter min ska seven-day fasa varje månad till den att gifta sig I-förmiddagen. Därefter ska jag måste brottningen med att vara en fru och att fostra. Jag vet könsbestämmer, och den ska barnsbörden är excruciating, om inte liv - att hota, men jag skulle ganska inte funderare om dem nu. Jag har nog problem som bor med FGM och kan inte famnen som vänder mot framtiden med den.

* Som berättat till Brenda Kageni

Как смогли вы сделать это к мне?
Automatically translated into Russian thanks to WorldLingo
Как смогли вы сделать это к мне?

Updated 13 часа 34 минуты тому назад

Deka Hassan Abdi*

комната закаляясь молчком. Все глаза fixated на малюсеньком экране TV. 6-год-старая девушка должна около пройти женщину отрезала сомалийскую дорогу. Она закрывает ее страх-заполнила глаза и беспомощно пытается вытянуть ее ноги далеко от ее мати, по мере того как резец причаливает с бритвой in hand.

Все глаза поворачивают далеко от экрана на кратко момент как величина ужаса что эта маленькая девушка должна около пройти раковины cIn.

Я спешю вне по мере того как бритва делает свой первый слеш, потому что я не смог стоять re-living террор.

Когда оно было сделано к мне, я был 5-год-старым зрачком школы питомника, частью группы в составе 5 маленьких девушок.

Я не могу вспомнить если было днем школы или викэндом. Я как раз вспоминаю, что моя более старая сестра говорит мне, «вы будете circumcised. »

Я умирал!

Она поманила меня с 2 sachets mabuyu и сока с тех пор я полюбил. Я был любознательон для того чтобы знать что circumcision был около по мере того как я услышал, что другие девушки похвастали что они были circumcised.

Я был третей персоной, котор нужно пойти внутри и когда я услышал клекоты от моего кузена был старе чем меня, я был испуган. Она screaming, «я умирала! Я умирал! «

Я хотел побежать прочь но моя сестра связала мои руки к себе. Она сказала мне, «вы будете славной девушкой когда вы пойдете через это. Я проходил через эти же. Ваша более старая сестра проходила через его, вашу мать… «и она щелкнула ее перстами для того чтобы намереваться что это было вечной цепью ОН назад.

Была только одна бритва для 5 из нас. Женщина отрезала бы одно из нас, приложила бы herbs на ране, после этого для того чтобы окунуть бритву в воде и продолжила бы к следующему. Если вы не заплакали, то женщины были jubilant. Но я заплакал. Моя сестра говорит мне что я screaming, «вы заканчивали? Вы заканчивали? Мое сердце приходит вне! «

Хотя моя рана излеченная в 2 неделях, оно была только началом физической боли, котор я все еще испытываю. Я прошел увечье типа CIII женское генитальное (FGM) где клитор и и внутренние и наружные губы (minora и majora labia) и зашитая рана почти закрыл, выходя только малюсенькому универсальному отверстию размер головки matchstick, для проходить мочу и менструальную подачу.

Было трудно проходящ мочу по мере того как мои ноги были связаны совместно и я должен лежать на моей стороне. Из-за раны, моча сгорела меня и I считаемыми подавляя позыв к urinate.

Когда мои периоды начали, я прошел unbearable подбрюшную боль. В виду того что отверстие мало, кровь свертывается пытающся для того чтобы пройти до конца делает периоды весьма тягостно. Они не приходят нормальн. На 7 дней каждый месяц, я не иду работать. Even if я нахожусь в matatu и я чувствую первые боли, я get out, бегу к самой близкой фармации, получаю painkillers и принимаю их на пятне. Когда я чувствую первые боли, я начинаю вспотеть потому что я знаю следующие несколько дней, котор я не буду идти работать. Я думаю боль подобна для того чтобы трудиться боли. Оно этим же для большой части из девушок от севера - восточной провинции. Когда мы находились в старших клаччах средней школы, доктор был часто неспособен отрегулировать всех девушок writhing и бросая вверх на пол профилактория. In most cases, мы были приняты домой.

Каждый месяц, я был вниз на 7 дней и когда мой отец увидел, что я бросил вверх, он интересовал вроде глисты я имели что после того как они сделаны мной больноя каждый месяц.

Самая унылая вещь что женщины и девушки проходят это тягостное увечье для людей, которые никогда не будут понимать trauma который маркирует наши жизни от после этого henceforth. Even when они знают напряженной работы и боли ночи венчания и для невесты и холят, не много готовы сделать что-то о ем or even поговорить вне.

Но я не обвиняю моих родителей. Я обвинил незнание и неграмотность. Все женщины верят что если вы поженены, то боль перестанет. Я увидел женщину отрезала меня вверх и спросила ей почему она сделала то к мне. Она сказала мне пойти получите, что поженено и мои проблемы быть сверх. Оно ушибает меня что она все еще делает такую же вещь даже теперь - стежк девушки как часть ткани.

Unstitching


iий не рассматривало бы получить хирургически unstitched для того чтобы сохранить от полностью боли потому что я опасаюсь stigma быть open up. Люди не могут знать о ем но мой супруг будет. Человек довольно принял бы девушку к стационару для unstitching на их ноче венчания чем женится девушка была раскрынным `'. Он опасается был stigmatised слишком.

Жениться человек от общины не оценивает FGM не будет разрешением, потому что моя культура ограничивает меня к жениться сомалийский человек. Так мой семисуточный ужас будет продолжать каждый месяц до тех пор пока я не пожениться. После этого я grapple с быть супругой и матью. Я знаю секс и роды будет excruciating, if not жизнеопасно, а он довольно не подумал о их теперь. Я имею достаточные проблемы живя с FGM, и не могу fathom смотреть на будущее с им.

* Как сказано к Бренда Kageni

Hoe kon u dit aan me doen?
Automatically translated into Dutch thanks to WorldLingo
Hoe kon u dit aan me doen?

Bijgewerkt 13 u 34 min geleden

Deka Hassan Abdi*

is de ruimte chillingly stil. Alle ogen worden vastgezet op het uiterst klein scherm van TV. Een zes-jaar-oud meisje staat het wijfje te ondergaan op het punt sneed de Somalische manier. Zij sluit haar vrees-gevulde ogen en probeert helplessly om haar benen vanaf haar moeder, als snijdersbenaderingen met een scheermesblad ter beschikking te trekken.

Alle ogen draaien vanaf het scherm voor een kort ogenblik als omvang van de verschrikking dat dit kleine meisje op het punt staat gootstenen binnen te ondergaan.

Ik storm buiten aangezien het scheermes zijn eerste schuine streep maakt, omdat ik me niet re-leeft de verschrikking kon bevinden.

Toen het aan me werd gedaan, was ik een vijf-jaar-oude peuterklasleerling, een deel van een groep van vijf kleine meisjes.

Ik kan niet me herinneren als het een schooldag of een weekend was. Ik herinner enkel mijn oudere zuster die me vertelt, „u zal worden gereinigd. “

Ik ben gestorven!

Zij verleidde me met twee sachets mabuyu en sap aangezien dat is van wat ik hield. Ik was nieuwsgierig om te weten welke circumcision ongeveer was aangezien ik had gehoord andere meisjes opscheppen dat zij waren gereinigd.

Ik was de derde persoon om binnen te gaan en toen ik de schreeuwen van mijn neef die ouder was dan me hoorde, was ik bang. Zij gilde, „ik ben gestorven! Ik ben gestorven! „

Ik wilde weglopen maar mijn zuster bond mijn handen aan zich. Zij vertelde me, „u zult een aardig meisje zijn wanneer u door dit gaat. Ik heb door het zelfde overgegaan. Uw oudere zuster heeft door het, uw moeder… „overgegaan en zij klikte haar vingers om te bedoelen dat het achteruit een eeuwige ketting was.

Er was slechts één scheermes voor vijf van ons. De vrouw zou één van ons snijden, zou kruiden op de wond, dan onderdompeling het scheermes in water en te werk gaat aan volgende toepassen. Als u niet schreeuwde, waren de vrouwen jubilant. Maar ik schreeuwde. Mijn zuster vertel me dat ik gilde, „u heb geëindigdg? Hebt u geëindigd? Mijn hart komt uit! „

Hoewel mijn wond die in twee weken wordt geheeld, het slechts het begin van de fysieke pijn was nog ervaar ik. Ik onderging Type III Vrouwelijke Genitale Verminking (FGM) waar de clitoris en zowel de binnen als buitenlippen (labiaminora en majora) weg en de genaaide wond bijna gesloten wordt gesneden, verlatend slechts uiterst kleine multifunctioneel openend de grootte van een matchstickhoofd, voor het overgaan van urine en de menstrual stroom.

Het was moeilijk overgaand urine aangezien mijn benen samengebonden waren en ik moest aan mijn kant liggen. Wegens de wond, brandde de urine me en ik vond me onderdrukkend de drang te urineren.

Toen mijn periodes begonnen, onderging ik unbearable buikpijn. Aangezien openen klein is, maken de bloedstolsels die proberen over te gaan door periodes uiterst pijnlijk. Zij komen niet normaal. zeven dagen elke maand, ga ik niet werken. Zelfs als ik in een matatu ben en ik de eerste pijnen voel, ga ik weg, loop aan de meest dichtbijgelegen apotheek, krijg pijnstillers en neem ter plekke hen. Wanneer ik de eerste pijnen voel, begin ik te zweten omdat ik daarna de verscheidene dagen ken ik niet zal gaan werken. Ik denk de pijn aan arbeidspijnen gelijkaardig is. Het is het zelfde voor de meeste meisjes van het Noorden - oostelijke Provincie. Toen wij in hoge school waren, kon de arts vaak niet alle meisjes behandelen die en omhoog op de apotheekvloer writhing werpen. In de meeste gevallen, werden wij naar huis genomen.

Elke maand, was ik neer zeven dagen en toen mijn vader me zag omhoog werpen, was hij welk soort benieuwd wormen ik dat gemaakt tot me zieken elke maand had.

Het droevigste ding is dat de vrouwen en de meisjes deze pijnlijke verminking voor mannen ondergaan, die nooit het trauma zullen begrijpen dat dan ons leven van voortaan merkt. Zelfs wanneer zij van het harde werk en pijn van de huwelijksnacht voor zowel de bruid als bruidegom kennen, niet zijn velen klaar om iets over het te doen of zelfs uit te spreken.

Maar ik beschuldig mijn ouders niet. Ik beschuldig onwetendheid en analfabetisme. Alle vrouwen geloven dat als u gehuwd bent, de pijn zal ophouden. Ik zag de vrouw die me omhoog sneed en vroeg haar waarom zij dat aan me deed. Zij vertelde me om te gaan wordt gehuwd en mijn problemen zullen over zijn. Het kwetst me dat zij het zelfde zelfs nu nog ding - stikkende meisjes zoals een stuk van doek doet.

Unstitching


die ik niet het worden chirurgisch unstitched om van al pijn zou nadenken te redden omdat ik vrees stigma van wordt opengesteld. De mensen kunnen niet van het op de hoogte zijn maar mijn echtgenoot zal. Een mens zou eerder een meisje aan het ziekenhuis voor het unstitching op hun huwelijksnacht dan huwt een meisje nemen dat geopende `' is geweest. Hij vreest ook brandmerkend.

Het huwen van een mens van een gemeenschap die geen FGM taxeert is geen oplossing, omdat mijn cultuur me beperkt tot het huwen van een Somalische mens. Zo zal mijn zevendaagse verschrikking elke maand voortzetten tot ik word gehuwd. Dan zal ik met het zijn moeten vastgrijpen een vrouw en een moeder. Ik ken geslacht en de bevalling zal martelend zijn, als niet levensgevaarlijk, maar ik zou eerder niet over hen nu denken. Ik heb genoeg problemen levend met FGM, en kan fathom die de toekomst met het onder ogen ziet niet.

* Zoals verteld aan Brenda Kageni

كيف استطاع أنت أتمّت هذا إلى ي?
Automatically translated into Arabic thanks to WorldLingo
كيف استطاع أنت أتمّت هذا إلى ي?

محيّن 13 [هر] 34 [مين] [أغو]

[دكا] حسّان [أبدي]

الغرفة [شلّينغلي] يسكت. [فيإكستد] كلّ أعين على بالغ الصّغر تلفزيون شاشة. بنت [سإكس-ر-ولد] حوالي أن يتحمّل الأنثى قطع الطريق صوماليّة. هو يغلقه [فر-فيلّد] أعين و [هلبلسّلي] يحاول أن يسحب سيقانه بعيدا من أمه, بما أنّ الزورق يقارب مع [رزور بلد] [إين هند].

يلتفت كلّ أعين بعيدا من الشاشة لعزم موجزة كالأهمية من الرعب أنّ هذا بنت صغيرة حوالي أن يتحمّل بواليع [إين.].

أنا أستعجل خارجا بما أنّ الموسى الحلاقة يجعل شقّه أولى, لأنّ أنا استطاع لم يقف [ر-ليفينغ] الذعر.

عندما أتمّت هو كان إلى ي, أنا كنت [فيف-ر-ولد] [نورسري سكهوول] تلميذة, جزء من مجموعة من خمسة بنات صغيرة.

أنا يستطيع لا يتذكّر إن هو كان مدرسة يوم أو نهاية أسبوع. أنا فقط أتذكّر أختي قديمة يقولني, "سيكون أنت [سركمسز]. "

قد مات أنا!

هو استهوىني مع اثنان كييسات من [مبوو] وعصير منذ ذلك الحين أنّ يكون ماذا أنا أحبّت. أنا كنت فضوليّة أن يعرف ما ختان كان حوالي بما أنّ أنا كنت قد سمعت أخرى بنات تبجّحت أنّ كان هم قد كانوا [سركمسز].

أنا كنت الشخص ثالثة أن يذهب داخل وعندما سمع أنا الصراخات من ابن عمّي الذي كان قديمة من ي, أنا كان يخشى. هو كان صرخ, "أنا يموت! أنا قد متت! "

أراد أنا أن يركض بعيدا غير أنّ أختي قيّد أياديي إلى بنفسي. هو قالني, "سيكون أنت بنت لطيفة عندما أنت تذهب من خلال هذا. أنا قد مررت من خلال ال نفس. قد مرّ أختك قديمة من خلال هو, أمك… "وهو طقطق أصابعه أن يعني أنّ هو كان سلسلة دائمة إلى الخلف.

هناك كان فقط واحدة موسى الحلاقة لالخمسة من نا. قطع الإمرأة واحدة من نا, طبّق أعشاب على الجرح, بعد ذلك انخفضت الموسى الحلاقة في ماء وباشر إلى التالية. إن أنت لم تصرخ, كان النساء شديد الإبتهاج. غير أنّ صرخ أنا. يقولني أختي أنّ أنا كان صرخت, "يتلقّى أنت تنهي? يتلقّى أنت تنهي? يأتي قلبي خارجا! "

رغم أنّ جرحي يشفى في اثنان أسابيع, هو كان فقط البداية من الألم طبيعيّة أنا أكون بعد أختبر. أنا تحمّلت نوع [إييي] تشويه أنثويّة تناسليّة ([فغم]) حيث البظر وعلى حدّ سواء الداخليّة وشفات خارجيّة ([لبيوم] [مينورا] و [مجورا]) يكون شققت باتّجاه آخر والجرح يخاط تقريبا أغلق, يترك فقط فتحة بالغ الصّغر متعدّد أغراض الحجم من [متشستيك] رأس, ل يمرّ بول والدفق شهريّة.

هو كان يصعب يمرّ بول بما أنّ سيقاني كان قيّدت معا وأنا اضطرّ كذبت على جانبي. بسبب الجرح, [بورنت] البول ي وأنا [فووند مسلف] يوقف الدافع إلى [أورينت].

عندما بدأ فتراتي, أنا تحمّلت ألم طاق بطنيّة. بما أنّ الفتحة يكون صغيرة, يجعل ال [بلوود كلوت] يحاول أن يمرّ كلّيّا فترات جدّا مؤلمة. هم لا يأتون عادة. لسبعة أيام كلّ شهر, لا يذهب أنا أن يعمل. [إفن يف] أنا أكون في [متتث] وأنا أشعر الآلام أولى, يطلع أنا, يركض إلى الصيدليّة قريبة, يحصل [بينكيلّر] ويأخذهم على البقعة. كلّما يشعر أنا الآلام أولى, أنا أبدأ يعرق لأنّ أنا أعرف التالية عدّة أيام أنا لن يكون سأذهب أن يعمل. أنا أفكّر الألم مماثلة أن يكدّ آلام. هو ال نفس ل أكثر من البنات من محافظة [نورث-سترن]. عندما كان نحن في مدرسة ثانويّة, الدكتورة كان غالبا يعجز أن يعالج [ألّ ث] بنات يطوي ويرمي فوق على المستوصف أرضية. [إين موست كسس], أخذت نحن كان إلى البيت.

كلّ شهر, كان أنا إلى أسفل لسبعة أيام وعندما أبي رأىني رميت فوق, هو تساءل ما نوع الديدان أنا تلقّيت أنّ جعلني مريضة كلّ شهر.

الشيء حزينة أنّ يتحمّل نساء وبنات هذا تشويه مؤلمة لرجال, الذي أبدا سيفهم الجرح أنّ يعلم حيواتنا من بعد ذلك من الآن فصاعدا. [إفن وهن] يعرف هم من يستعصي عمل وألم من العرس ليلة ل على حدّ سواء العروسة ويهيّئ, لا كثير يتأهّب أن يتمّ شيء حول هو [أر فن] تكلّمت خارجا.

غير أنّ لا يلوم أنا والدي. أنا ألوم حالة جهل وأمية. يصدق [ألّ ث] نساء أنّ إن أنت يكون زوّجت, الألم سيوقف. أنا رأيت الإمرأة الذي قطعني فوق وسأله لما هو أتمّ أنّ إلى ي. حصلت هو قالني أن يذهب يزوّج ومشاكلي [ب] على. هو آذىني أنّ يتمّ هو بعد ال نفسه شيء حتّى الآن - يخيط بنات مثل قطعة القماش.

لم يعتبر [أونستيتشنغ]


[إي] يحصل جراحيّا [أونستيتشد] أن ينقذبنفسي من [ألّ ث] ألم لأنّ أنا أخشى ال [ستيغما] من يكون [أبن وب]. الناس يمكن لا يعرف حول هو غير أنّ يريد زوجي. أخذ رجل بالأحرى بنت إلى مستشفى ل [أونستيتشنغ] على هم عرس ليلة من يزوّج بنت الذي قد كان `يفتح'. وصم هو يخشى يكون أيضا.

ليس يزوّج رجل من جماعة أنّ لا يقدّم [فغم] حل, لأنّ ثقافتي يقيّدني إلى يزوّج رجل صوماليّة. هكذا سيستمرّ رعبي سبع أيام كلّ شهر إلى أن أنا زوّجت. بعد ذلك سيضطرّ أنا اشتبكت مع يكون زوجة وأم. أنا أعرف سيكون جنس وولادة شديد الألم, [إيف نوت] مهدد للحياة, غير أنّ أنا بالأحرى لم يفكّر حول هم الآن. أنا أتلقّى بما فيه الكفاية مشاكل يعيش مع [فغم], ويستطيع لا يسبر يواجه المستقبل مع هو.

* بما أنّ يقال إلى [برندا] [كجني]

Congo's tragedy: the war the world has forgotten

Friday, 31 October 2008

In a country the size of Western Europe, a war rages that has lasted eight years and cost four million lives. Rival militias inflict appalling suffering on the civilian population, and what passes for political leadership is powerless to stop it. This is Congo, and the reason for the conflict - control of minerals essential to the electronic gadgetry on which the developed world depends - is what makes our blindness to the horror doubly shaming. Johann Hari reports from the killing fields of central Africa

This is the story of the deadliest war since Adolf Hitler's armies marched across Europe - a war that has not ended. But is also the story of a trail of blood that leads directly to you: to your remote control, to your mobile phone, to your laptop and to your diamond necklace. In the TV series Lost, a group of plane crash survivors believe they are stranded alone on a desert island, until one day they discover a dense metal cable leading out into the ocean and the world beyond. The Democratic Republic of Congo is full of those cables, mysterious connections that show how a seemingly isolated tribal war is in reality something very different.

This war has been dismissed as an internal African implosion. In reality it is a battle for coltan, diamonds, cassiterite and gold, destined for sale in London, New York and Paris. It is a battle for the metals that make our technological society vibrate and ring and bling, and it has already claimed four million lives in five years and broken a population the size of Britain's. No, this is not only a story about them. This - the tale of a short journey into the long Congolese war we in the West have fostered, fuelled and funded - is a story about you.

I Rapes Within Rapes

It starts with a ward full of women who have been gang-raped and then shot in the vagina. I am standing in a makeshift ward in the Panzi hospital in Bukavu, the only hospital that is trying to deal with the bushfire of sexual violence in eastern Congo. Most have wrapped themselves deep in their blankets so I can only see their eyes staring blankly at me. Dr Denis Mukwege is speaking. "Around 10 per cent of the gang-rape victims have had this happen to them," he says softly, his big hands tucked into his white coat. "We are trying to reconstruct their vaginas, their anuses, their intestines. It is a long process."

We walk out into the courtyard and he begins to explain - in the national language, French - the secret history of this hospital. "We started with a catastrophe we just couldn't understand," he says softly. One day early in the war, the Unicef medical van he was using was looted. Coincidentally, a few days later, a woman was carried here on her grandmother's back after an eight-hour trek. "I had never seen anything like it. She had been gang-raped and then her legs had been shot to pieces. I operated on her on a table with no equipment, no medicine."

She was only the first. "We suddenly had so many women coming in with post-rape lesions and injuries I could never have imagined. Our minds just couldn't take in what these women had suffered." The competing armies had discovered that rape was an efficient weapon in this war. Even in this small province, South Kivu, the UN estimates that 45,000 women were raped last year alone. "It destroys the morale of the men to rape their women. Crippling their women cripples their society," he explains, shaking his head gently. There were so many militias around that Dr Mukwege had to keep his treatments secret - the women were terrified of being kidnapped again and killed. He became an Oskar Schindler of the Congolese mass rapes.

As we walk down to watch 200 rape victims being taught to sew under a large, dark bridge, he tells me what they can expect now. "When the rapes begin, the husbands and fathers often just scarper and never come back. The women never hear anything from them again. Other times, the men blame the women and shun them. It's very hard for us to persuade the women to leave the hospital, because where are they going to go?"

He introduces me to Aileen, who is 18 but looks much younger. She holds her hands tightly in her lap. Her story is stark, the details sparse. Her village was raided by a militia on 10 October, and "they beheaded people in the central square". Her voice is high-pitched; she is almost squeaking. She was seized and taken back out into the forest by the militia where they kept her for six months. "I was raped every night. The first night my body really ached and hurt because I was a virgin," she says. She would be passed on from one man to the next. It is only as she speaks that I notice the large protruding bump sagging into her lap. The baby is going to be born next month. She says she has spoken to her family, but Dr Mukwege tells me later this is a fantasy. "What," she asks me with wide eyes as we leave, "do you think I should do? Where can I go?"

It is coldly appropriate to start here. The rape of Aileen and the rape of the thousands of women who stagger into the Panzi hospital are, I soon discover, merely part of a larger rape - the rape of Congo.

II The Last of the Belgian Colonialists

Bukavu is a cratered, shattered shack-city in eastern Congo that lies on the edge of Lake Kivu. In the street markets, people trade scraps of food for Congolese notes worth a few pence. In the houses, they stagger along without water or electricity. Wandering through this cacophony, I find a lone white woman, a lingering remnant of the origins of this war. She can reveal how all this began.

As we sit over lunch, Tina Van Malderen says, skimming the menu: "I don't drink water - only wine." Her hair is greying but her smile is warm. "I came to Bukavu as a little girl in 1951 when my father came to work for the Belgian administration," she explains. "It was paradise. There were only Europeans then. No Africans. Black people lived in the surrounding areas. It wasn't like South Africa, they weren't forced. They didn't want to live with us. They came into the town to work. They had their own market." She speaks of the days of the Belgian empire with a soft-focus sepia longing. "I have four sisters, and we would swim in the lake all day. It was like a non-stop holiday."

Her family owned a chain of shops, and the only castle in Congo. She is incredulous when I ask if there was any cruelty towards black people back then. "Absolutely not. We loved our blacks. When they had children, we gave them gifts." Perhaps sensing my scepticism, she adds: "Maybe on the plantations they were a little bit rude to them." The Belgians unified Congo in the first great holocaust of the 20th century, a programme of slavery and tyranny that killed 13 million people. King Leopold II - bragging about his humanitarian goals, of course - seized Congo and turned it into a slave colony geared to extracting rubber, the coltan and cassiterite of its day. The "natives" who failed to gather enough rubber would have their hands chopped off, with the Belgian administrators receiving and carefully counting hundreds of baskets of hands a day.

This system of forced cultivation continued until the Belgians withdrew in 1960, when Patrice Lumumba became the first and only elected leader of Congo. "He was a stupid man," Tina says swiftly. "On the first day of independence, he said we had beaten and humiliated the blacks. He signed his death warrant by doing that."

She's right - he did. Lumumba claimed to be a democratic socialist who wanted to overcome Congo's ethnic divisions. We will never know if he could have fulfilled this dream, because the CIA decided he was a "mad dog" who had to be put down. Before long, one of its agents was driving around Kinshasa with the elected leader's tortured corpse in the boot, and the CIA's man - Mobutu Sese Seko - was in power and in the money. Tina's family sold their castle to the dictator as he renamed the country Zaire. "People always ask if he paid. Of course he paid!" she laughs. Mobutu became another Leopold, using the state to rob and murder the Congolese people.

Tina's family started to worry in the 1970s when he announced a programme of "Zaireanisation" - a Mugabe-style transfer of the resources of foreigners to his cronies. "My mother arrived at work one day and there was a black man come to take possession of everything, including her car. She had to walk home," Tina says, glugging red wine.

"Everything began to fail after that. The food became disgusting. Even our dog didn't want to eat it." This is Tina's first visit home - she still calls it that - since they fled. "I saw the house we lived in. From outside it still looked nice but when I went inside..." she shakes her head. "The black people cannot live properly. If I had to compare Congo, I must say it hasn't changed at all. They are not naked any more, but they are still savages." Tina's countrymen established the nation-state in the Congo, and they designed it to be a vampire-state. The only change over the decades has been the resource snatched for Western consumption - rubber under the Belgians, diamonds under Mobutu, coltan and cassiterite today. "Cheers," Tina says, downing her wine.

III The War for Games Consoles

If you want to glimpse what all this death has been for, you have cross Lake Kivu and drive for four hours, on pocked and broken roller-coaster roads, until you reach a place called Kalehe. Scarring the lush green hills are what seem to be large red scabs that glisten in the sun. The term for these open wounds in the earth is "artisinal mines", but this dry terminology conjures up images of technical digs with machines and lights and helmets. In reality, they are immense holes in the ground, in which men, women and children - lots of children - pick desperately with makeshift hammers or their bare hands at the red earth, hoping to find some coltan or cassiterite to set on the long conveyor belt to your house, or mine. Coltan is a metal that conducts heat unusually brilliantly. It is contained in your mobile, your lap-top, your son's PlayStation - and 80 per cent of the world's supplies sit beneath the Democratic Republic of Congo.

As I crawl down into the mine - its cool, damp darkness is a strange contrast to the raging Congolese sun - the miners laugh. The idea of a muzungu - a white man - in their mine seems to them impossibly comic. But they soon get back to picking away at a roof that looks like it could collapse at any moment. Ingo Mbale, 51, explains how the West's hunger for coltan is fed. "We were enslaved three years ago," he says. "An RCD captain [from one of the militias] arrived and forced us to mine for them at gunpoint. They gave us no money, it was slave labour. There is nothing left in many of these shafts now, they exhausted them. They killed many people. Our gold and coltan and cassiterite went out to the world via Rwanda."

Watching these men, the shape of Congo's recent history becomes clear. There is an official story about the war in Congo, and then there is the reality, uncovered by a trilogy of bomb-blast reports from the UN Panel of Experts on the DRC. The official story is convoluted and hard to follow, because it does not ultimately make sense. But its first chapter is true enough, and goes something like this. In 1996, a Maoist with an eye for money called Laurent-Désiré Kabila grew tired of simply running his little fiefdom in eastern Zaire, where he peddled ivory and gold with a nice sideline in kidnapping Westerners. Kabila decided to depose Mobutu, the omnipresent and omni-incompetent tyrant, and seize power for himself. He cobbled together a ragtag army of child soldiers known as the Kadogo and, with the support of neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda, the edifice of Mobutuism collapsed even before their tinny, tiny advance. Kabila installed himself as another Leopold-alike, banning political parties and bathing in corruption.

But then in 1998 Kabila asked the Rwandans and Ugandans to withdraw their troops from Congo - so long, and thanks for the armies - and the official story begins to drift away from reality. The Rwandans pulled back for a fortnight, but then mounted a massive invasion of Congo, seizing a third of the country. The public reason for this assault sounds reasonable. After the 1994 genocide in Rwanda - a slaughter that made even Auschwitz look slow-paced - tens of thousands of the Hutu Power machete-wielders fled across the border to Congo and set up long-term bases. How could any country rest with its murderers armed and crazed on its borders? "We must prevent the génocidaires from regrouping," said Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president, with the supportive Ugandan military following in tow.

From his palace in Kinshasa, Kabila appealed to his friends for help resisting this Rwandan-Ugandan attack. Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola obligingly sent armies marching into Congo to fight back, and Africa's First World War began. The armies and militias marauding across Congo then became rebels without a cause, fighting each other because they were there and because pulling out would be a humiliating concession of defeat. In this version, the war in Congo is a mess, started with the best of intentions - the Rwandans' desire to track down génocidaires - only to spiral out of control. It presents the mass slaughter as a giant cock-up, a cosmic mistake. This is strangely reassuring. It is also a lie.

Once the Congo was drenched in death, the UN commissioned a panel of international statesmen to travel the country and uncover the reasons behind the war. They found that the Rwandan government's story hid a much darker truth. The Rwandans had a clear intention, right from the beginning: to seize Congo's massive mineral wealth, to grab the coltan mine I am standing in now and thousands like it, and to sell it on to us, the waiting world, as we quickly flicked the channel away from the news of this war with our coltan-filled remote control. The other countries came in not because they believed in repelling aggression, but because they wanted a piece of the Congolese cake. The country was ravaged by "armies of business", commanded by men who "carefully planned the redrawing of the regional map to redistribute wealth," the UN declared.

The UN experts knew this because the Rwandan troops did not head for the areas where the génocidaires were hiding out. They headed straight for the mines like this one in Kalehe, and they swiftly enslaved the populations to dig for them. They did not clear out the génocidaires - they teamed up with them to rape Congo. Jean-Pierre Ondekane, the chief of the Rwandan forces in Goma, urged his units to maintain good relations "with our Interhamwe [génocidaires] brothers." They set up a Congo Desk that whisked billions out of the country and into Rwandan bank accounts - and they fought to stay and pillage some more. The UN found that a Who's Who of British, American and Belgian companies were involved in the illegal exploitation of Congolese resources. The ones they recommended for further investigation included Anglo-American PLC, Barclays Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and De Beers. The British Government - while boasting of its humanitarian goals in Africa - barely followed up the report, publicly acquitting a few corporations like Anglo-American whose subisidary AngloGold Ashanti has been shown by Human Rights Watch to have developed links with a murderous armed group in the region, and leaving others like De Beers in an "unresolved" category.

Oh, and the reason why this invasion was so profitable? Global demand for coltan was soaring throughout the war because of the massive popularity of coltan-filled Sony PlayStations. While Sony itself does not use Congolese coltan, its sudden need for vast amounts of the metal drove up the price - which intensified the war. As Oona King, one of the few British politicians to notice Congo, explains as we travel together for a few days: "Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms."

As I climb back out into the hard sunshine, the miners turn to me. "Could you send us a hammer? We really need one. The militias took all our equipment."

IV The Tyrant's Jeer

On the long journey in an armoured UN vehicle, the questions seem so obvious, so trite. How could a government led by genocide victims suddenly commit its own epic crime against humanity, for nothing more than money? The answer lies across the border, through the rainforest, towards Kigali. I meet Charles Muligande, the Rwandan foreign minister, on the top floor of the Hotel Des Milles Collines, the real Hotel Rwanda. This is where hundreds of Tutsis hid out the holocaust while their brothers and sons were hacked to pieces on the streets outside.

Muligande has a strange combination of a youthful, unlined face and graying hair (with matching moustache), and he carries with him the unimpeachable moral stature of the victim. The sadness around the eyes, the haltingly recounted story of being driven across the border to Burundi as a child refugee, the relatives slaughtered in the genocide - they are all cruelly present. How can I challenge him? He speaks softly about the trauma counselling that is happening in Rwanda, and the fragile attempts at reconciliation. And then it comes - the chuckle.

I ask him about Congo's future, and he lets out a strange, hard-to-place laugh. "The DRC is a country that for the last 45 years has had pockets outside the control of central government," he says. "Even on the eve of the election, there will by places that are beyond the control of central government. This shouldn't be a cause for concern." And again with the chuckle.

What about the people who pay the price of the instability he waves away so casually? How does he sleep at night, knowing Rwanda has inflicted on its neighbours suffering akin to the horrors he and his family endured? He chuckles harder now, almost coughing. "This is rubbish. If we do a balance sheet, we incurred a lot of losses in fighting that war."

He says it with such airy conviction I have to grope in my mind for the right response. Why then does the UN's report say that Rwanda's pillage was "systematic" and "deliberate"? "That is an invention," he snaps. By the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch? "Yes. It doesn't become true just because it is repeated. If you have such a blind faith in Amnesty International," - he spits the words - "and the UN and Human Rights Watch, there is nothing I can tell you. It is like you are asking me to believe Jesus Christ is not my saviour come to change my soul. It is a faith-based position." No amount of probing will shift him. When he talks about the genocide, he is compassionate, honest, brave. When he talks about his own country's crimes against Congo, he sneers. Their trauma, it seems, is worth nothing. As he speaks, I wonder - does he believe this, or does he, in midnight sweats, think about the children driven from their homes just like a baby Muligande was all those years ago?

The more I probe, the more his face contorts into the tyrant's jeer. I have seen this before, in Iraq and in Israel/Palestine - the furrowed brow and the rote claim that the evil UN and Amnesty have it in for us. Blood? What blood?

V Thomas Hobbes was Right

The victims of the war - of that laugh - are scattered everywhere in eastern Congo. By the roadside the next morning, I find the living remnants of Ramba village, a home to 15,000. They make up a clump of 400 starving people building a makeshift camp by the roadside. Maneno Mutagemba Justin, their chief - a young man with sore, reddish eyes - explains what happened. "The Interahamwe came into our village. They killed and they raped our women. Now they have stolen our houses and told us never to come back." People fled in all directions, losing their husbands or children. Nobody is quite sure how many relatives they have lost forever. "We have no food here, and we left everything behind. We have no pots, no pans, no water." These people live a long drawn-out postscript to Thomas Hobbes, the 17th-century philosopher who warned that in the absence of a state, life will be: "Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Yet the most piercing image of pain I see in Congo is not in places like this. It is not in the pygmy village where children with sweet distended bellies sleep with their families in the tea-bushes because they are terrified of being beheaded by the militias. It is not even in the eyes of the man Oona King and I see being casually beaten to death by a mob on the road one moody afternoon, another unrecorded Congolese write-off that we swiftly speed away from. No, it is the women carrying more than their own bodyweight in wood or coal or sand, all day, every day. By every Congolese roadside, there are women with ropes tearing into their foreheads as they bind a massive load on to their backs. With so few horses, so few cars and so few roads, starving women are used here as pack-horses, transporting anything that needs to be moved on their backs for 50p a day. They are given the quaint title of "porters".

Francine Chacopawa is 30 but she looks much older, her faced lined and cratered in a complex topography of pain. Her spine is curved, her skin is rough and broken, her hands calloused. When she laboriously puts down the wood she is carrying, she has a red canyon in her forehead where the rope was, rimmed with sores that weep from the rubbing. "This is the rope that keeps my household alive," she says. It is the war that has reduced her to this state. "Since the war started, you can't farm in peace, and the children are starving, so I prefer to die in this work... My husband cannot get a job, so this is what I have to do. I leave at five o'clock in the morning and get back at seven o'clock at night. I am worried my children are running away to look for food, because we only get to eat once a day. When I get home, my husband gets angry and asks why I have been away so long. We have suffered so much. The children we bring into the world are forced to be porters as well. We are the most unhappy people in the world."

She tells me the pack she is carrying weighs 200lb, and I write this off as understandable hyperbole. Then my translator and the UN driver load her pack on to my back (with great difficulty). I immediately fall to my knees. I stagger up and manage to stumble a few feet before falling over again. I am almost crying in pain; my back aches for weeks. This is Francine's life. She does not even stop on Sundays. "How can I? We must eat," she says. Portering has made her miscarry twice, and Francine says she has seen women die by the side of the road, buckled under their loads. I ask her when she will stop portering. She shrugs, and says nothing. Her eyes say: "When I die." The wood is heaved back on to her back, and she staggers away, the rope rubbing against her sores.

VI The Head of State Without a State

Joseph Kabila is surrounded by crocodiles. We are standing by the back wall of the White House, the slimline presidential palace in Kinshasa, and the rippling, reptile-infested Congo river rings around us. His house looks like a well-kept municipal library in an American town, a world away from the psycho-kitsch of the Mobutu era. The President's eyes have narrowed. "How long have you been here, to think you can write about Congo?" he asks, unsmiling. I say I have been here a fortnight. He nods slightly. "Then that's OK."

Kabila does not like talking to journalists. Indeed, he does not like talking to anyone - he has conspicuously failed to turn up at his own election rallies over the past few months. I have been smuggled in at the end of his meeting with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region, a collection of decent British politicians who have come to try to erode the worst humanitarian crisis in the world by inches. "I want to see some quick wins [for the Congolese people] from the presidential election," he says, assuming he will win the looming polls - the first in Congo since 1960. He then rattles off a list of improvements he hopes to implement to prove that democracy works - better water supplies, better schooling.

He offers up these platitudes in absent English, his handsome face covered with a light sprinkling of stubble that seems to be greying in the sun. He became President at the age of 29 when his father was pinned down and executed in a failed coup in 2001. At that moment the reluctant son of the Big Man was thrust from a life of army drills and watching martial arts movies to being in a charge of the world's biggest war zone. Neckless and nervous, he says his two minutes' worth of stump speech now and then closes up. He signals to his Versace-suited security guards that it is time for him to leave. My five minutes of questions - more than any other journalist gets - have been greeted with a polite stonewall of banality.

The White House has a feel of unreality. It is a hologram of power, the simulacrum of a functioning country. Kabila is in the surreal position of being head of state without a state, President of the Democratic Vacuum of Congo. He has no levers of power to pull. As I discovered later in my journey, he has no army worthy of the name, he has no police force, he cannot guard his own borders or build his own schools. From the sealed calm of the palace, I look over a wall and see the real Congo walking past - people slumped against walls or busy doing nothing or frantically fending off hunger any way they can. The fantasy of a functioning country dies outside his own brickwork.

Since his father died, Kabila has been trying to glue together a nation from the shattered fragments. In 2002, he negotiated the Lusaka Accords, in which the invading countries promised to remove their armies. The global price of coltan had collapsed, so Rwanda's interest was waning. Besides, the withdrawing countries realised they could suck the mineral marrow from Congo without the costly business of occupation, simply by setting up Congolese militias as their proxies on their way out the door. Kabila tried to out-bribe powerful militia leaders by offering them a place at the heart of government. That's why, of his four vice presidents, three have their own private armies. To watch over this "peace process", the UN sent in 17,000 peacekeepers for a country the size of Western Europe.

At the core of Kabila's project to make Congo into one nation with one government is brassage - the integration of the militias. At squalid camps across the country, the militiamen who have been raping and murdering are invited to hand in their weapons and join the new national army. I head for Camp Saio, a camp outside Bukavu where men with Samuel L Jackson sunglasses and cheekbones that could cut butter are milling and mulling as they wait for "reintegration". Places like this are the key to Congo's future. The country's success stands or falls on whether the militiamen can be coaxed to come here and slowly build a state. Dr Adolphe Tumba, the head of the camp, takes me trudging through the mud on a tour.

In the first room I see, there are nine stinking beds. Men are sitting, rotting plaster covering their wounds. In the corner is a soldier shivering in his bed, his face covered with the lesions that come with the final stages of Aids. He opens his eyes - they recoil, wounded by the light. They close again as he curls wearily into a tight ball. I ask the men what life was like on the front line. "We ate. We had food there," they snap back. I ask again, assuming they misunderstood. "We had food at the front line. It was better. Why did you come here without something for us to eat?" They last ate two days ago. They have not received their $5-a-month wages for 40 days. They are starving.

A UN source warned me: "The people in that camp are going out and rampaging into the nearby villages. They do it for survival. They steal to get by. Yesterday they killed a man, the day before they killed a woman and some kids. It's all done by men in uniform coming out of that camp." Joseph, a 22-year-old, tells me he joined up when he was a teenager because his village was attacked by the Rwandans. "They killed my father, my grandfather and my little sister. So I decided to join Mai-Mai [a Congolese militia]. I can't count how many people I killed. I did it for six years."

His friends gather round, and some of them are more eager to brag about their kill rates. They remind me of kids on some estates I have visited, bragging about their Asbos. Are they telling the truth, or is this teenage display? As they become more and more animated describing their killing sprees, as their eyes become wider and their stories more vivid, our UN escort begins to panic and tells us we must leave. "Quickly!" he calls.

As we drive away, I realise it is not enough that our greed for resources started this war - it is vandalising any chance of bringing it to an end. While these state-building camps can offer only starvation and a sometimes-never $5 wage, Unicef says the militias are offering the same men $60 a month to carry on seizing and raping and killing. They can afford it because they still control most of the coltan, gold and diamond mines, and Western and Chinese companies are still snapping up the sparklers they offer. So long as the militias can continue to use our money to outbid the national government, there will never be a unified state in Congo, and life will continue to be a live-action replay of Thomas Hobbes' bleakest descriptions.

And yet, even the best case scenario - effective brassage, a unified army, a coherent state - carries with it blood-drenched risks. What if once Kabila gets control of the country, he morphs into a Mobutu or a Mugabe? Then all this nation-building will turn out to have been an exercise in capacity-building for a murderer. Who is this man with a neckless, nervous gaze? A rogue source at the British Embassy who has high-level dealings with the regime ponders over dinner: "There are essential two theories about Kabila," he says. "The first is that he is a good man surrounded by shits. The second is that he is one of the shits. Let's assume the first is true - what difference does it make? He is surrounded by Rumsfelds and Cheneys, friends of the father who would kill him if he stepped out of line. There is a large group around him whose finances and even their impunity from charges in the Hague depend on him staying in power. Would they allow him to lose power, or even to share it too much? Really?"

At times, it seems Congo is lost in a fog of moral ambiguity. Everybody agrees the state needs to be unified, and there seems to be only one state on offer - Kabila's - given the near-certainty he will win the election. An aid agency head says: "In this country, all you can ask about a politician is - is this person corrupt and self-seeking and doesn't give a damn about Congo, or is this person corrupt and self-seeking but wants what's best for Congo too? Of course Kabila's circle is corrupt. To have power in this country you must be corrupt. It's a corrupt system." The best hope, it seems, is to drag Congo up from being a broken stateless war zone where millions die to a bog-standard corrupt state. To the starving soldiers of Camp Saio, watching open-mouthed and hungry as we drive away, even this sunken ambition seems optimistic.

VII Spiritual Warfare

The coven of witches is dancing and cackling in the water. They have a hose-pipe and they are spraying each other's naked bodies, squealing and laughing. One of them comes up to me, wearing a worn-out Barney the dinosaur T-shirt, and splashes some water at my face. I am in a children's home, Chez Mama Coco, an hour's drive from Kinshasa, and the place is filled with starved witch-children who have been thrown out by their parents for displaying signs of being under the influence of Satan. Some have been burned and slashed, and some mutilated. One of the workers introduces me to a child - they do not know his name because he has not spoken since he arrived, but they call him Fidel - and tugs down his trousers. Where his penis once was, there is nothing but an angry red scab. "His mother cut it off during the exorcism," he says.

This is another consequence of our war. Herve Cheuzeville, the outgoing Head of Mission for Warchild, explains: "The idea of withcraft has always existed in Congo, but it is new to accuse children of it. It never happened before. It is a result of the terrible traumas of the past six years."

The Combat Spirituel church in Bukavu consists of an immense veranda filled with benches, with a neat white building attached. These churches have been pioneers of Congo's 21st-century witch-hunts, and when I arrive at their Sunday service, they greet me with whoops and hallelujahs. The evangelical preacher at the podium has a kind of Christian Pan's People dancing behind him, and he exclaims: "We salute God by dancing!" The congregation contains over 1,000 people, and they look more like the crowd at a football match than at a dreary Church of England ceremony. They blow whistles, jump up and down, and dance wildly. A man with a miraculous story about how he was cured of Aids through the power of prayer takes to the platform. I am told that if I want to talk witchcraft, however, I need to return late on Thursday, when the purgings and exorcisms happen.

I come back, and Papa Enoch Boonga - the "spiritual co-ordinator" - is waiting for me with a 14-year-old witch. I am led into the little house. The lights are switched off, and Papa Enoch produces a lantern that lights his face and casts a long shadow. In his slow, rhythmic French, he begins to tell me how: "Satan is waging war on the Congolese people. He comes to kill and hate. The answer to Satan's campaign against us is spiritual combat." That is his cue to drag out Clarice. She is a small girl wrapped in a big woollen cardigan. In a low, blank rote, her eyes cast down, she says: "I was taught sorcery when I was 12. My grandmother turned me into a witch by giving me a doughnut to eat."

Enoch looks at me triumphantly. "This is how it works! They give evil food!" He takes over from Clarice's halting speech. "Then the grandmother came at night in spiritual form and said, 'I gave you the doughnut to eat, now you must give me your little sister to eat.' She was so frightened she said, 'OK, OK,' and the next day her little sister fell ill and died. Then her grandmother demanded she break the leg of her mother, so when he mother was out gathering wood, she fell and broke her leg. Now the girl started to feel the power of sorcery and began to transform herself into a dog or a cat."

I keep looking at Clarice in disbelief, but then I realise she thinks I am glaring in condemnation and I look away. As Enoch speaks, the chanting behind us from the main service is getting louder and louder - "Out Satan, out!" hundreds of people cry, clawing at invisible demons in the air. He continues, "Her father is an artisinal miner and he stopped being able to find anything because of her sorcery. They fell into poverty."

I have to interrupt. I ask Clarice, softly: "Do you really think it is your fault your little sister died?" "Yes," she says. Her eyes remain fixed on the floor. "It was actually her parents who realised she was a witch," Enoch says. "They were very worried about their lives going bad, and they went to church and prayed and God told them what the problem was." He says they conducted an exorcism of Clarice, and, yes, it was tough. "When you cast Satan out, you almost destroy the person, but they come back with Jesus Christ in their heart."

As I look into Clarice's downcast eyes, I realise it is not only the physical landscape of Congo that lies in ruins. The psychological landscape has been trashed. The war has left girls like her in a society littered with superstition landmines that will not be cleared away for decades. She limps away, back to a life soaked in self-hate.

VIII - Packing Out the Albert Hall

The last time there was a holocaust in Congo, British and American people reacted with a great national revulsion. Books like Arthur Conan Doyle's The Crime of the Congo topped the bestseller lists, millions petitioned parliament to act, and the Royal Albert Hall was packed out with mass meetings detailing the Congo's long nightmare. A century on, the words and analyses of that great campaign still ring true. Joseph Conrad called it "the vilest scramble for loot that has ever disfigured the human conscience" - words that would make a perfect introduction to the reports of the UN Panel of Experts now.

But today, these four million people have died in the dark, unnoticed and unmourned. The generations living in the West today have said nothing while the country has been reduced to near-Leopoldian levels of desperation by the scramble for loot, conducted on our behalf and for our benefit. The average life-expectancy in Congo is 43 and falling. I did not see any elderly people on my journey; they do not exist. In a country where the war is laughably referred to as "winding down", a World Trade Center-full of people is butchered every two days, and in the lost rural areas I could not reach, bubonic plague has made a triumphant come-back. A health minister says in despair: "I have been told by the UN to prepare a plan for avian flu. I had to write back and say I am powerless to deal with the plague, so what am I supposed to do about chickens?"

This war was launched by nations that sensed - rightly - that our desire for coltan and diamonds and gold far outweighed our concern for the lives of black people. They knew that we would keep on buying, long after the UN had told us time and again that people were dying to provide our mobiles and games consoles and a girl's best friend. Today, we still buy, and the British Government - along with the rest of the democratic world - obstructs any attempt to introduce legally enforceable regulations to stop corporations trading in Congolese blood. They ignore the UN's warnings that: "Without the wealth generated by the illegal exploitation of natural resources arms cannot be bought, hence the conflict cannot be perpetuated," and insist that voluntary regulations - asking corporations to be nice to Africans - is "the most effective route".

In Bukavu, a 29-year-old human rights campaigner called Bertrand Bisimwa summarised his country's situation for me with cruel concision. "Since the 19th century, when the world looks at Congo it sees a pile of riches with some black people inconveniently sitting on top of them. They eradicate the Congolese people so they can possess the mines and resources. They destroy us because we are an inconvenience." As he speaks, I picture the raped women with bullets burying through their intestines and try to weigh them against the piles of blood-soaked electronic goods sitting beneath my Christmas tree with their little chunks of Congolese metal whirring inside. Bertrand smiles and says, "Tell me - who are the savages? Us, or you?"

La tragédie du Congo : la guerre que le monde a oubliée
Automatically translated into French thanks to WorldLingo
La tragédie du Congo : la guerre que le monde a oubliée

Le vendredi 31 octobre 2008

dans un pays la taille d'Europe de l'ouest, une guerre fait rage qui a duré huit ans et a coûté quatre millions de vies. Les milices rivales infligent la douleur effroyable sur la population civile, et quels passages pour la conduite politique est impuissant pour l'arrêter. C'est le Congo, et la raison du conflit - commande des minerais essentiels aux accessoires électroniques desquels le monde développé dépend - est ce qui fait notre cécité à l'horreur shaming doublement. Les rapports de Johann Hari des champs de massacre de l'Afrique centrale

ceci est l'histoire de la guerre la plus mortelle depuis Adolf les armées que de Hitler a marché à travers l'Europe - une guerre qui n'a pas fini. Mais est également l'histoire d'une traînée de sang que cela mène directement à toi : à votre télécommande, à votre téléphone portable, à votre ordinateur portable et à votre collier de diamant. De la série de TV perdue, un groupe de survivants d'accident d'avion croient qu'ils seul sont échoués sur une île de désert, jusqu'à ce que pendant un jour ils découvrent un câble dense en métal menant dehors dans l'océan et le monde là-bas. La République démocratique du Congo est pleine de ces câbles, les raccordements mystérieux qui montrent comment une guerre tribale apparemment d'isolement est en réalité quelque chose très différente.

Cette guerre a été écartée comme implosion africaine interne. En réalité c'est une bataille pour coltan, les diamants, le cassiterite et l'or, destinés en vente à Londres, à New York et à Paris. C'est une bataille pour les métaux qui incitent notre société technologique à vibrer et sonner et bling, et elle a déjà réclamé quatre millions de vies en cinq ans et a cassé une population la taille de la Grande-Bretagne. Le non, ceci est non seulement une histoire au sujet de eux. Ce - le conte d'un voyage court dans la longue guerre congolaise que nous dans l'ouest avons stimulée, rempli de combustible et placé - est une histoire au sujet de toi.

I viols dans des viols qu'

il commence par une salle pleine des femmes qui troupe-ont été violées et a puis tiré dans le vagin. Je me tiens dans une salle expédient dans l'hôpital de Panzi dans Bukavu, le seul hôpital qui essaye de traiter le feu de brousse de la violence sexuelle au Congo oriental. Les la plupart se sont enveloppées profondément dans des leurs couvertures ainsi je peux seulement voir leurs yeux regardant fixement blanc moi. DR Denis Mukwege parle. « Autour 10 pour cent de troupe-violent des victimes ont fait arriver ceci à elles, » il dit doucement, ses grandes mains rempliées dans son manteau blanc. « Nous essayons de reconstruire leurs vagins, leurs anuses, leurs intestins. C'est un long processus. « 

Nous marchons dehors dans la cour et il commence à expliquer - dans la langue nationale, Français - l'histoire secrète de cet hôpital. « Nous avons commencé par une catastrophe que nous juste ne pourrions pas comprendre, » il dit doucement. Pendant un jour tôt dans la guerre, le fourgon médical de l'UNICEF qu'il utilisait a été pillé. Par coïncidence, quelques jours plus tard, une femme a été portée ici sur le dos de son grand-mère après un voyage de huit heures. « Je n'avais jamais vu n'importe quoi comme lui. Elle troupe-avait été violée et alors ses jambes avaient été tirées aux morceaux. Je l'ai opérée sur une table sans l'équipement, aucune médecine. « 

Elle était seulement la première. « Nous avons soudainement eu ainsi beaucoup de femmes entrant avec poteau-violent des lésions et des dommages que je pourrais ne jamais avoir imaginés. Nos esprits juste ne pourraient pas rentrer ce que ces femmes avaient souffert. « Les armées de concurrence avaient découvert que le viol était une arme efficace dans cette guerre. Même dans cette petite province, Kivu du sud, l'ONU estime que 45.000 femmes l'année dernière seul ont été violées. « Il détruit le moral des hommes pour violer leurs femmes. Estropier leurs femmes estropie leur société, « il explique, secouant sa tête doucement. Il y avait tant de milices autour de ce DR Mukwege a dû garder son secret de traitements - les femmes ont été terrifiées de l'enlèvement encore et être tué. Il est devenu un Oskar Schindler des viols de masse congolais.

Pendant que nous marchons vers le bas pour observer 200 victimes de viol étant enseignées à coudre sous un grand, foncé pont, il me dit ce qu'elles peuvent compter maintenant. « Quand les viols commencent, le scarper souvent juste de maris et de pères et ne reviennent jamais. Les femmes n'entendent encore jamais n'importe quoi de eux. D'autres fois, les hommes blâment les femmes et les évitent. Il est très difficile que nous persuadent les femmes de partir de l'hôpital, parce qu'où sont elles allant aller ? « 

Il présente moi à Aileen, qui est 18 mais des regards beaucoup plus jeunes. Elle la tient des mains étroitement dans son recouvrement. Son histoire est rigide, les détails clairsemés. Son village a été pillé par une milice le 10 octobre, et « ils ont décapité des personnes dans la place centrale ». Sa voix est aiguë ; elle grince presque. Elle a été saisie et pris soutenez dans la forêt par la milice où ils l'ont gardée pendant six mois. « J'ai été violé chaque nuit. La première nuit mon corps a vraiment fait mal et l'a blessée parce que j'étais un vierge, « dit. Elle serait passée dessus d'un homme au prochain. Il est seulement pendant qu'elle parle que je note la grande bosse saillante fléchir dans son recouvrement. Le bébé va naître le mois prochain. Elle dit elle a parlé à sa famille, mais DR Mukwege m'indique que plus tard c'est une imagination. « Que, » me demande-t-elle qu'avec les yeux larges pendant que nous partons, « me pensez-vous devriez-vous faire ? Où peux-je aller ? « 

Il est froidement approprié de commencer ici. Le viol d'Aileen et le viol des milliers de femmes qui chancellent dans l'hôpital de Panzi sont, je découvrent bientôt, partie simplement d'un plus grand viol - le viol du Congo.

II le bout des colonialistes belges que

Bukavu est a cratered, cabane-ville brisée au Congo oriental qui se trouve sur le bord du lac Kivu. Sur les marchés en plein air, chutes commerciales de personnes de nourriture pour les notes congolaises en valeur quelques penny. Dans les maisons, ils chancellent le long sans eau ou électricité. Errant par cette cacophonie, je trouve une seule femme blanche, un reste prolongé d'origines de cette guerre. Elle peut indiquer comment tout ceci a commencé.

Pendant que nous nous asseyons pendant le déjeuner, Tina Van Malderen dit, écrémant le menu : « Je ne bois pas l'eau - seulement vin. » Ses cheveux greying mais son sourire est chaud. « Je suis venu à Bukavu en tant que petite fille en 1951 quand mon père est venu pour travailler pour l'administration belge, » elle explique. « C'était paradis. Il y avait seulement Européens alors. Aucuns Africains. Les personnes noires ont vécu dans les abords. Il n'était pas comme l'Afrique du Sud, ils n'étaient pas obligatoire. Ils n'ont pas voulu vivre avec nous. Ils ont hérité la ville pour fonctionner. Ils ont eu leur propre marché. « Elle parle des jours de l'empire belge avec un désir ardent de sépia de doux-foyer. « J'ai quatre soeurs, et nous nagerions dans le lac toute la journée. Il avait lieu comme des vacances directes. « 

Sa famille a possédé une chaîne des magasins, et le seul château au Congo. Elle est incrédule quand je demande s'il y avait n'importe quelle cruauté vers les personnes noires arrières alors. « Absolument pas. Nous avons aimé nos noirs. Quand ils ont eu des enfants, nous leur avons donné des cadeaux. « Peut-être sentant mon scepticisme, elle ajoute : « Peut-être sur les plantations ils étaient un peu grossiers à elles. » Les Belges ont unifié le Congo dans le premier grand holocauste du 20ème siècle, d'un programme d'esclavage et de la tyrannie qui ont tué 13 millions de personnes. Le Roi Leopold II - se vantant de ses buts humanitaires, naturellement - le Congo saisi et transformé lui en colonie slave a adapté à extraire le caoutchouc, le coltan et le cassiterite de son jour. Les « i