I wish I could share with you the voices, concerns and hopes of the tens of thousands of women and girls who come forward for help, having been assaulted, tortured, humiliated and disabled simply for having been born female and getting caught in the cross-fire of war.

I started working with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in eastern Congo, where, already back in 2002, women were talking about not the one time they were brutally sexually assaulted, but about the third or fourth time… In the past six years, I have seen firsthand the sexual and physical violence against women and girls in 10 different conflict-affected African countries. We would not be exaggerating to call this violence a global human rights, public health and security crisis. The perpetration of sexual violence is both a tactic of warfare, and an opportunistic consequence of conflict and displacement…

Addressing violence against women in conflict is smart foreign policy and the American people care more about this issue than we may think. When the IRC launched a web-based petition to help garner support for the IVAWA bill, a surprisingly high number of the 50,000 Americans who signed the petition also wrote a personal note, expressing their sincere concern about violence against women and girls in conflict. This unexpected outpouring of concern led us to launch a modest e-advocacy campaign, in which the general public was invited to write words of encouragement to Congolese women and the local activists and organizations working to assist them. Within 10 days of launching the campaign, we had 2,779 people who wrote messages of support in response to the crisis in DRC.

Please permit me to share two examples of what people wrote:

A woman from New York wrote: “There are few words that can express the nature of the horrible wrongs which you face every day. We all have the right to safety and respect. Continue to speak out of the injustices and the violations of your souls. We are listening…”

A man from Virginia wrote: “We are writing our leaders and sending funds to help. I have also included your story in my blog. I hope that we can make a difference. I am remembering you when I vote and write Congress. I hope that the U.S. can become a force to help you in the Congo.”

The full text and audio of Karin’s testimony is available on the Senate Web site. Please urge your Senators to support the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA) by taking action now. You can also send a message to Congolese women who have survived sexual violence.

Part 8 - Kailahun, Sierra Leone  It’s nearly showtime again.  Time for the women and girls to review their photos and pick two—just two apiece—to present to their community at a final exhibition.  Choosing is never easy.  Think about it.  These women rarely if ever get to decide anything.   And they’ve got a lot to choose from.  Altogether 17,792 photos to be exact.  How fast could you do it?  I know they’ll need a lot of patience and support.

The photographers of the Women’s Action Group of Pendembu.  That’s Christiana Gbondo (Chris G.) on the left and Christiana Massaquoi (Auntie Chris) in red on the right. Photo: Ann Jones

Trouble is, I can’t get out of bed.   One by one my African colleagues stick their heads around the doorframe, lift the mosquito net to peer at me, and say: “Malaria.” They’re used to it—this scourge that kills more Africans each year than does that other plague HIV/AIDS.  I’ve seen my colleagues break into a drenching sweat, pop a couple of pills, and carry on working.  Not me.  I’m flattened.  If malaria attacked Americans at home, the US would launch another “war” against it.  But to our shame, we spend our wealth on other wars.
 
Chris G. perches on the bed, notebook in hand, for some quick computer instruction.  Then she and Auntie Chris set off for Pendembu to help the photographers choose their photos and make plans for the show.   IRC’s Dr. Jeff Kambale Mathe, a physician from the Democratic Republic of Congo, drives four hours over rough roads, carrying a plastic bag full of pills, to save my neck.  Thanks to him, I get up again in time to print the chosen photos and hang the shows.

Our eager girl-photographers occupy the front row in the packed assembly hall of the
Girls’ Primary School—ready to begin the show. Photo: Ann Jones

Then, as we saw in Cote d’Ivoire, what happens next depends largely upon the community leadership.  In Pendembu, the progressive chief tells a large crowd gathered in the Court Barrie about the country’s new gender laws that raise the legal status of women.   He goes beyond the new laws, which don’t recognize rape in marriage, to admonish men: “Do not force yourselves upon your wives.  That is rape, even if the law does not say so.”   Then he hands off to his wife, Auntie Lucy, the chairlady of the Women’s Action Group.  She wears a fabulous hat for the occasion. The chief and his wife are the ultimate power couple, bravely hauling their ruined village into a new century.  Aunty Lucy summons the women photographers one by one to present their photographs, and then she holds forth herself, making sure that no one misses the point or the message of gender equality.

Gender Club advisor Mr. Shariff holds the megaphone and listens attentively as 12-year-old Isata Amadu presents a photograph she took of him.  Isata is about to bring down the house. Photo: Ann Jones

Two days later at the exhibition in Kailahun town another chief rises angrily to warn the audience, “You must not speak of female genital mutilation.  It is our tradition.”  The audience applauds.  Even women of the Women’s Action Group applaud.   The Global Crescendo team hasn’t spoken a word about FGM; we leave it to women participants to talk about what they will.  But since the chief has raised the issue, Amie Kandeh, the GBV country manager, and Navanita Bhattacharya, the regional GBV technical advisor, try gently to respond.  A prominent woman leader shouts to drown them out.  The chief stalks out of the meeting.  Later, when Amie and others go to talk with him, he says he knows that FGM is wrong and that it must be stopped—but gradually.  How will he justify to himself, I wonder, the hundreds or thousands of girls who will be mutilated, their lives irreparably wounded, while he lets the practice he knows to be “bad” phase out?  Surely the last girl mutilated, like the last soldier to die in a mistaken war, will be an enduring rebuke.  Yet African “tradition,” here as in Cote d’Ivoire, rests on the courage or backwardness of men like these chiefs.

The photographers of the Women’s Action Group of Kailahun. 
Christiana Massaquoi is on the right in the front row. Photo: Ann Jones

The girls’ show comes last, before a packed house in the assembly hall of the Girls’ Primary School.  Parents attend, all dressed up, and teachers from other schools.  The Pendembu chief sends a representative, as does the District Office of Education, and the Family Services Unit of the police—a uniformed policewoman who delivers a rousing diatribe against rape and sexual exploitation.

Then it is the girls’ turn.  One by one they speak about their photos, displayed on the blackboard, while their Gender Club advisor Mr. Shariff holds the megaphone that carries their reedy voices to the corners of the big room.  They speak of early pregnancy and sexual exploitation.  They speak of the importance of girls’ education.   Then 12-year-old Isata Amadu connects the dots.  Pointing to a photo of Mr. Shariff, she says:  “He gives us information to help us in our lives.   I took his picture because all teachers should follow the example of Mr. Shariff—and they should desist from impregnating schoolgirls.”

Parents gasp.  One mother shrieks.  The room buzzes.  The headmistress puts her head in her hands.  Isata returns to her seat while the other girl photographers cheer and throw her high fives.  Shy little Isata has voiced the unspeakable truth that everybody knows.  She speaks for every girl in the room.  She speaks for every girl who wants to get an education, every girl who wants to contribute to her community, every girl who wants to be all she can be. Isata herself wants to be a teacher.

Girl power: the photographers of the R.C. Girls’ Primary School Gender Club on Exhibition day. 
Christiana Massaquoi is on the left, Christiana Gbondo on the right, and Isata Amadu
is third from the left in the front row. Photo: Ann Jones 

Later all the schoolgirls sit under the trees in the yard, sipping Kool-Aid—provided especially for the occasion.  It’s a Kool-Aid kind of day.  Something has happened.  Something different and special.

That’s what this Global Crescendo project is all about: Women’s Voices from Conflict Zones.  Girls voices too.

Part 7 - Kailahun, Sierra Leone The girls are way cool.  I ask each one in turn to come sit with me at the computer.  Musu is first.  I put her memory card in the card reader, and soon her photos are flashing fast on the computer screen, visible only to Musu and to me. Auntie Chris and Chris G. have been continuing the discussion with the other girls, but now the room is silent.  I look up to find all the girls gazing intently at Musu who is gazing at the screen.  She has shot 330 photos; she and I see every one of them.  There are a lot  of shots of her pals—girls at school making faces at the camera or peeing in the bush—and some interesting ones snapped in the village.  All the while Musu’s face is a perfect mask.  What is she thinking, this pert little girl, seeing pictures of her own making?  I can’t tell.To me this is strange and disappointing.  I’m also working with two groups of women photographers, one here in Pendembu and another in Kailahun town.  There are twelve women in each group, ranging in age from 20 to 55.  I’ve already shown the women in both groups their first photos, and their reactions were completely different from those of this small enigmatic girl, Musu, who now rises, puts her memory card in her pocket, and saunters back to her seat.  Her sister Mattu comes  next with 176 photos, then Bintu with 431, and later Comfort with 542.  It seems to me you have to enjoy snapping to do it 542 times in a single week, but Comfort is just as enigmatic as the rest.

Girls are smart.  They size up their teachers, and they help one another. Mattu Koroma, age 11

The women, on the other hand, had skyrocketed out of control.  At the Pendembu meeting, Habibatu shook her fist and shouted “Yes!” at every photo.  Fatmata grinned and said “Fine!” 310 times.  At the Kailahun meeting, Mamie Sampha put her arm around me as I downloaded her photos, and as each one of her 248 images flashed by, she squeezed me tighter and tighter and tighter.  I knew the Kailahun women were serious and working hard because I live in Kailahun and I often meet them in the street, snapping like mad.  Sometimes Theresa or Mariama or Aminata shows up at the IRC guesthouse, where Auntie Chris and I live, at 7:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, needing a battery change.  But their excitement at seeing their photos is off the charts.  As Sattu’s images flashed by, she shouted “Fine!” to each one, and for emphasis she brought her fist down hard on my left thigh.  Sattu had 310 photos.

So that day in Pendembu, downloading images for the girls’ group, I was a wreck.  My shoulders and ribs ached from being squeezed by substantial women.  My left thigh was black and blue and the muscles ached.  My ears hurt, still reverberating with shouts of “Fine!” and other less intelligible whoops and cries.  But here came these little girls, one by one, apparently as calm and disinterested as could be.

Girls are cool.   Gender Club girls learn about sexual coercion and violence. 
Armed with information and attitude, they have a chance. Photo: Jenifer Manso, age 10

I had to ask Auntie Chris, “Can you tell how they feel?”

“They are happy,” she said.  “Can’t you see?” 

“No,” I said.  “I can’t see how they feel.”  What is it about their lives, I wondered, that makes them have to hide a feeling as simple as joy?

But the older girls had a harder time containing themselves, and Lilian, the last to come forward, broke into a big smile.  “I think my photos are very fine,” she said.

Gratefully I slapped her hand.  “Yes, Lilian,” I said, “Your photos are very fine.”

Girls really are way, way cool.

Part 6 - Kailahun, Sierra Leone The second time we meet the girls’ group, they’re buzzing.  They’re angry with a teacher who found them dancing in a classroom, and said “You’ll all be pregnant before you get to secondary school.”  They told the teacher he was wrong to think they’ll get pregnant just because they have high spirits.  “It’s the quiet girls you should watch,” they told him.  They cite as evidence the unfortunate case of a quiet, introverted classmate impregnated by a man who denies all responsibility.  She’s been taken away to another village to have the baby.

This problem of teenage pregnancy, which effectively ends a girl’s education and her marriage prospects all at once, is the single biggest problem in every community we visit, or so the Women’s Action Groups tell us.  The girl is stigmatized.  Her family is shamed.  Her parents are deprived of the expected return on their investment in the girl’s education—that she will be in a good position to care for them in their old age.
 
Everyone loses, except the man who impregnated the girl.  Abortion is illegal.  It’s also forbidden by Islam and most, if not all, Christian denominations.  Illegal, or “criminal” abortions are performed, but they cost more than any poor village girl could afford.  A pregnant teenager must feel the doors slamming on every option.
 
Now Auntie Chris asks provocatively, “What’s wrong with getting pregnant?”  The girls give her an “Are you crazy?” look and bombard her with answers.  “You cannot continue your education.”   “Even if you could, your attention would be divided between your baby and your school work.  You couldn’t do well.”  “Your body is not developed.  You may have to have surgery.”  “You could even die.”  These medical warnings are no exaggeration for girls who have been subjected to excision (FMG, or female genital mutilation) as these girls almost certainly have been.  Excision greatly increases the incidence of fistula and similar internal injuries during pregnancy and childbirth.

Many girls took photos like this one, showing the fondness they feel for one another,
and the fun of their innocent camaraderie.  Among adult women in the same community, fondness
and fun seem to have been stamped out. Photo: Mary Lansana, age 14

“Your parents will put you out of the home,” says Mattu. “You will face stigmatization,” says Comfort.  “You will have no support for yourself or your child.”

I wait for the next nail in the coffin—that though you have been taught to depend on a husband for support, no man will marry you—but  I don’t hear it.  That may be just too hard to think about.

“And if you do NOT get pregnant as a teenager, what will you do?”  That’s my question, and the girls fire answers at me even before they get a translation.  (In school they’re learning English, the country’s official language.) “We will enjoy our education,” says Lilian.  “We will enjoy encouragement from our parents,” says Lucinda.  “Our parents may even allow us to travel outside of Pendembu,” says adventurous Katumu.  “If we are educated before we have children, we will be able to support them and help our parents too,” says Bintu.  “We will insure that our children also have a good education,” says Lucy.  “We will not hurry to marry,” says 10-year old Jenifer, “and we will plan our families.”

I’m floored.  Who knew that these girls had so much information and such strong opinions?  Did I know about family planning at age 10?  Is this what a Gender Club can do?  Mr. Shariff, their faculty advisor, sits quietly in the back of the room, smiling.

For all their playfulness, girls have serious dreams—to be nurses, lawyers, teachers,
religious sisters, computer specialists, government ministers. The future of the country depends
upon the realization of their dreams.  Their dreams depend upon education. P
hoto: Lucinda Jamiru, age 14

“Can you imagine your future life?” I ask.  “Say, in ten years time.  What would you like to be doing?”    They’re shy about answering this question, maybe reluctant to expose a dream to daylight.  But Lucy, who has been eyeing my computer, says she wants to be a computer specialist.   Musu says she wants to be a nurse to help the people of Pendembu.  Comfort says, “I do too.”  Mary, Lilian, and Katumu want to be nurses as well.  (Becoming a doctor seems beyond imagining.)  Isata wants to be a teacher.  (There are no female teachers in the school.)  Musu’s sister Mattu wants to be a lawyer because Pendembu needs one. (There is only one lawyer, a man, in the whole district.)  Jennifer wants to be a government minister.  Both Lucinda and Ruth say they want to be Catholic sisters.  (Ruth’s brother is already a priest.)   I ask Ruth if she wants to be a teaching sister.  “No,” she says firmly.  “I will be a praying sister.  Pendembu needs prayers.”  Yes, indeed.

Then it’s time to take a look at the girls’ first photos.  I’ve shown you a few already.  There will be more to come.