Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
European Community (Agenzia Fides) – It is early fall. We are in the North. The sky is a continual coming and going of clouds that overshadow and then fade away. There is a constant fluctuation between heat and cold. My appointment is to take place in a building on the outskirts of town. Here, going beyond the limits of their own possibilities, men and women try to prove to one another that there is a still a humanity that knows how to love and knows how to work without pay. Here, men and women don't feel like they are just people, but Persons. Men and women live with the coherence that corresponds to their Catholic faith. Today, I can sense this solidarity , this neighborly love, in the presence of a young African girl. She is beautiful and I can read the fear in her eyes. The terror of the violence she has suffered. The perception that there is nothing certain in her life. In her face, you can see authenticity and honesty. She is tall and slim.
We sit facing each other. All of a sudden, she turns the chair around, with her back facing me. “I feel more free. I know that my persecutors killed my husband. I know that I know nothing more of my daughter and my mother. I know that perhaps they have all been killed. I will say whatever I want. No questions asked. What interests you more than my suffering is whether or not I was raped. Yes, now I am a prostitute slave. Yes. I was raped. They no longer consider us women, but I am still not a prostitute. I am fighting not to become one. I am afraid. “They” are in Europe too. I have agreed to meet with you, so that they know that I will not reveal their names, but they will give me a new life. I should defend those who, I hope, have remained behind. You can only say that I am African.”
She is clearly upset, but from time to time she calms down. “I am terrorized by the idea of being expelled because I am illegal. If I return, they will kill me. If they do not kill me immediately, they will use me as a sexual slave until they are tired of my body.” I observe her shoulders, her long hands. They seem like those of a child and a young woman at the same time. The violence, fear, desperation, increase forms of self-defense, but she is not so filled with self-defensiveness, as the desire to restore her body before the violence. Not only has she been horribly raped, but she has suffered something even more terrible, if that is possible. Under threats, she has betrayed her fidelity to the one she loved, to her daughter. I see despair in her, because she knows she will never be the same person she was before.
An elderly saintly missionary has helped her to escape. The words of her story are filled with pain and worry for herself and for her land. She worries for the millions of African women treated as objects, slaves, a body for working or for sex. When she begins speaking again, her voice has changed. She cries, weeps. She almost seems to be shouting what she says: “I am African. I am a little over 20 years old. I am not a prostitute.” She continues, with more strength and upset: “I am not a prostitute, I was born free. The only things I had were my daughter, my husband, my mother...I am not a prostitute...”
I no longer understand her words...her crying muffles them all. She was born in the late 80s. “When I dropped out of school, I became a hairdresser. A friend of the owner came and if she couldn't make it, I went. She is the mistress of one of the most important men in our country. One Saturday afternoon, the lady's chauffeur picked me up. I got in the car and I realized we weren't going on the normal route. I ask where we are going. “It is a man's home. Your client is there.” When we arrive, he makes me enter into a large hall. I sit down and a man appears: “It was I who came in search of you, not the lady.” Then he told me that every time he sees me where his mistress works, he feels attracted to me and wants to change my life. In our country, he can do whatever he wants. “A house, a car, money, I will give you everything.” He speaks and looks at my body. I say no. I can't. I already have a man and a daughter. “She is four years old, please let me go.”
My words made him more nervous and he decided that I could not refuse. He takes out a pistol and places it on the table and tells me, as he touches me: “Have you understood what I am saying?” I repeat that I just want to go home. That is when he started taking off everything I had on and he raped me. He raped me that day and that night, and then again the next day until he locks me in a room. There, some men throw me something to put on, but before they do, they say: “A word of this, and we will kill your daughter, your husband, and you. I am covered in blood. Terrorized. I remain in the room for a day, until the chauffeur enters with a bag of money from the man. I reject it. I want to go home. Strangely enough, they agree. I tell my mother everything. I am still bleeding. We go to the hospital, and there a doctor takes care of me. He doesn't ask any questions. He only says: “You should remain immobile for some time.” We leave. My mother is scared: “It is better not to say anything. Did you see the doctor? We can't do anything up against this man.”
Three days later, two civilians and two policemen take me back to the house where that man awaits me. I am there three days until one of the policemen asks me if I accept everything that the man will ask of me; if I say no, I will be killed. I shout: “Yes! I accept everything!” I wash myself and enter in the room where I was first raped. I am there for three weeks, with no news from anyone. Isolated. He leaves and the guardian tells me that everything I underwent was unjust.
I see some hope, but after the darkness, because he says he will help me after I do him the same favor as I did for the owner of the house. I want to be free. I am willing to accept everything. I flee with my mother. We pass the border. My husband has disappeared. In the town where I am hiding, they want to be rid of me as I can be a threat. There is an elderly missionary who knows my story. He comes at dawn to save me. I reach Europe. Since then, I have heard nothing more of my husband, my daughter, or my mother. I don't know anything about anybody. I am alone. Alone. I only know one thing: I am not a prostitute.”
My encounter ends here. I walk down the steps with sadness, with a feeling of impotence, that fills my entire being. My coworker and I walk in silence. Just before exiting, a volunteer says: “If she asks for political asylum, she will never be able to return to her country. She will have to renounce the hope of returning to her family, forever. We have taken her in here, but she will not be able to stay much longer. These are the rules. We are trying to find work for her. It is not easy. I don't know what will happen in the future. We will help her and always be near her, but if one of her compatriots finds her, they may not kill her but they will force her to prostitute herself here in Europe.”
After a pause, the volunteer continues: “She knows that and for her, it would be the confirmation that she has died.” The volunteer leaves me, as I get in a taxi. I say that I would still like to ask a few more questions. “I am sorry, but I cannot stay,” he says. “I have to take care of a girl who just gave birth to a child...” I tell the taxi driver to stop in the first Church he sees. It is open. I go in search of the Lord. Outside, the sky is once again cloudy and it is raining. Inside the Church, the voices of tourists muffle the sound of the raindrops. (Luca De Mata writing from the European Community) (15 – to be continued) (Agencia Fides 9/3/2009)
