{"id":3025,"date":"2025-12-23T15:44:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T15:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/badvibes.live\/?p=3025"},"modified":"2025-12-23T15:44:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T15:44:18","slug":"vawg-around-the-globe-i-was-kidnapped-and-forced-into-sex-slavery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/badvibes.live\/?p=3025","title":{"rendered":"VAWG around the globe \u2013 \u2018I was kidnapped and forced into sex slavery\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When Delphine Uwamahoro was growing up in a rural village in\u00a0Rwanda<\/a>, \u2018women didn\u2019t have a voice at all\u2019, she says.<\/p>\n

However, life took an extraordinary turn when, aged 16, an anonymous donor from\u00a0Germany<\/a>\u00a0sponsored her education. It meant Delphine was able to move to her country\u2019s capital,\u00a0Kigali<\/a>, to study at the University of Rwanda, then onto Uganda and finally Germany, where she qualified as a radiology technologist at 22.<\/p>\n

However, when she returned home four years later, Delphine found that most of the girls she\u2019d played with at school hadn\u2019t been as lucky as her. Some had been forced to leave education after becoming pregnant following sexual abuse \u2013 a few as young as 12.<\/p>\n

\u2018I reflected on the difference between us. And really there isn\u2019t one, except I got an opportunity,\u2019 Delphine says starkly.<\/p>\n

It has been over 10 years since the\u00a0World Health Organisation<\/a>\u00a0declared VAWG a worldwide epidemic. This year, it was reported by\u00a0<\/a>United Nations<\/a>\u00a0Women (UNW) that almost one in three women have been subjected to physical or\u00a0sexual violence<\/a>\u00a0at least once in their life.<\/p>\n

Mary Robinson, champion of VAWG charity\u00a0The Circle<\/a>\u00a0has said: \u2018Violence against women is a global emergency. Across every continent, in every society, gender-based violence remains a tragic and persistent reality.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Studies show women in countries classified as \u2018lowest-income, conflict-affected and climate-vulnerable settings\u2019 are disproportionately affected.<\/p>\n

In the\u00a0UN-classified<\/a>\u00a0Least Developed Countries<\/a>\u00a0(LDCs), which includes Rwanda, an estimated 18% of women have experienced intimate partner violence across the past 12 months \u2013 7% higher than the global average.<\/p>\n

More than 30% of Rwanda\u2019s population lives in poverty and in 2020, almost 6% of women aged between 20 and 24 reported they had been married before their 18th birthday.<\/p>\n

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Shaping the future<\/h2>\n

Delphine, now 39, remembers that jobs for women were unpaid when she was younger, as they were \u2018working 24 hours a day but still appearing like we had done nothing\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018When I came back after my studies, I found my childhood peers in really difficult situations.\u00a0They couldn\u2019t afford basic needs,\u2019 she explains.<\/p>\n

\u2018They would knock on my door asking for a dollar for health insurance or food. Giving them one dollar now and again was not a solution. We need long-term solutions.\u2019<\/p>\n

So, in 2019, Delphine bought sewing machines with her savings and made a space for women to tailor \u2013 one of the only acceptable professions for women in her town.<\/p>\n

The project,\u00a0Our Sisters\u2019 Opportunity<\/a>\u00a0(OSO), quickly took off.\u00a0\u2018The women were making between \u00a375 and \u00a3200 a month, the salary of a doctor in our village,\u2019 remembers Delphine.<\/p>\n

However, the founder quickly realised earning a wage didn\u2019t mean\u00a0liberation<\/a>\u00a0for all women as their husbands would often decide how the money was spent.<\/p>\n

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Delphine set up Our Sisters\u2019 Opportunity to empower local women and girls (Picture: Francis Brodrick)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To combat it, Delphine started another programme, and brought a UK charity called The Circle as a partner, focusing on creating a space where conversations can be had between women, girls and decision-makers on how to combat\u00a0gender-based violence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018We help women and girls understand power within, power around, power over. That amplified everything,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n

\u2018Now girls realise when someone is exercising power over them they can sense it, intervene, run or call the police. They can seek support.\u2019<\/p>\n

Forced into sex slavery and shunned at home<\/h2>\n

Kenya<\/a>\u00a0is another country where VAWG is prevalent.<\/p>\n

In 2022,\u00a0Kenya\u2019s Bureau of National Statistics<\/a>\u00a0showed that 45% of women between 15 and 49 have experienced physical violence in their lifetime, with the majority of perpetrators being husbands or intimate partners.<\/p>\n

Alice Atieno was born into the Awer community, an indigenous ethnic group living near the Somali border in Lamu County, coastal Kenya.<\/p>\n

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Alice is a survivor of kidnapping by the terrorist group Al-Shabaab (Picture: Sarah Waiswa)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They have been a frequent target of attacks, particularly against women and girls, by the terrorist group\u00a0al-Shabaab<\/a>, who \u2018come into the country, take our women, and use them sexually, and force them into labour\u2019.<\/p>\n

Alice, 35, is a survivor of this violence. She was kidnapped and trafficked to Somalia in 2014 at the age of 24, and was held at a camp for around nine months, forced into sex slavery and hard labour.<\/p>\n

\u2018Some [women] die there. You can be one woman, but you can service 10 men sexually,\u2019 she explains. \u2018When you\u2019re found trying to sneak out, that probably would be the end of you. I\u2019m one of those lucky ladies who managed to escape.\u2019<\/p>\n

When Alice returned home, however, she was shut out from her community due to the stigma around women and girls who have experienced violence.<\/p>\n

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Alice works with survivors of such violence to integrate them back into Kenyan society (Picture: Sarah Waiswa)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Surviving Boko Haram<\/h2>\n

It was the same for 15-year-old Simona*, who was captured in\u00a0Nigeria<\/a>\u00a0by militant group Boko Haram, and sexually tortured for three years. After escaping with her two children, who were born from rape, she found her way home.<\/p>\n

\u2018People would run away if we reached the water pump, or chase us,\u2019 says Simona. \u2018They would tell people \u201cdon\u2019t work with these women, don\u2019t give them a job\u201d or \u201cdon\u2019t allow your children to play with their children\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

In 2019, the Global Survivors Fund was established to support victims of conflict-related sexual violence, and the charity has since provided Simona with the tools she needed to rebuild her life outside of this isolation.<\/p>\n

Reintegrating survivors<\/h2>\n

Alice set up\u00a0Awer Empowerment<\/a>\u00a0with support from The Circle in 2018, in a bid to support trafficked women. She knew survivors were less likely to be able to get a stable income, and that poverty means a higher chance of further abuse.<\/p>\n

\u2018We bring the survivors back, and do post-trauma counselling,\u2019 explains Alice. \u2018When you are displaced, you can\u2019t trace your background, and you have to find somebody to hold your hand so that you can start over again.\u2019<\/p>\n

Alice co-founded Awer with fellow survivor, 37-year-old Evelyn. She remembers that one woman the pair worked with \u2018was forced to marry an older, abusive man who would rape and beat her\u2019.<\/p>\n

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Alice leading AWER at the women\u2019s march in Kibaoni (Credits: Sarah Waiswa)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018We did not tell the lady to walk out of the marriage, but we empowered her so that she could be self-dependent,\u2019 explains Alice. \u2018The moment she realised that she could do it on her own, she left, and now she\u2019s very peaceful.\u2019<\/p>\n

Alice also works with government to prevent the same violence from happening in the future.<\/p>\n

\u2018We involve the opinion leaders, we involve other stakeholders,\u2019 Alice says, adding that more \u2018eyes are now open\u2019 to what women can face in\u00a0Kenya<\/a>, and how to combat it.<\/p>\n

\u2018No one would listen to me\u2019<\/h2>\n
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Chamathi experiences abuse both at home and in her workplace (Picture: Hazel Thompson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chamathi* was born into poverty in Sri Lanka. She has spent most of her working life giving her wages to her unemployed, violent husband.<\/p>\n

\u2018He was spending all the money on alcohol,\u2019 she remembers. \u2018He was beating me with steel bars, once while I was feeding our baby because I had spoken to friends about the issue.\u2019<\/p>\n

One of the garment factories Chamathi worked at, saw employees work extremely long hours. \u2018We do not even have a break to go to the washroom,\u2019 she explains. \u2018I don\u2019t have time to breathe as we have to complete 100 targets in an hour.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Being forced to repeatedly change job roles has caused financial instability for Chimathi (Picture: Hazel Thompson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While experiencing exploitation at work, the abuse worsened at home. \u2018I had to get up early in the morning, do all of the household things, get the children to nursery. Then, I go to work, come back and get beaten by my husband at night.<\/p>\n

\u2018Because of fear, I did not report,\u2019says Chimathi. \u2018I have never been for treatment, for the wounds and the blood. Being a\u00a0woman<\/a>, if we go to make a complaint with the police, a doctor or a nurse, they\u00a0do not listen<\/a>\u00a0to us.\u2019<\/p>\n

Even when she and her sister did tell the police about the violence, she was told to stay with him as he is the father of her children.<\/p>\n

It meant that Chimathi found herself trapped living in a boarding house \u2013 a type of accommodation rented as part of her factory job \u2013 with her two sons, aged 14 and two, and her husband.<\/p>\n

A global support network<\/h2>\n

Eventually,Chimathi sought support of the\u00a0Sri Lanka Women\u2019s Centre<\/a>, which is supported by The Circle.<\/p>\n

She stayed in their safe house for three weeks and with the support of staff, she reported the domestic violence to the police again \u2013 but they accepted a bribe from her husband to ignore the case.<\/p>\n

Because of this, Chimathi is still with her husband and enduring his violence. But that doesn\u2019t mean she has given up.<\/p>\n

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The women\u2019s centre provided a place for Chamathi away from the abuse (Picture: Hazel Thompson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018Almost all women have faced some violence. Not only the domestic but on transport and in workplaces,\u2019 she says. \u2018Because of the Women\u2019s Centre, I now know my rights, rules and laws. At the factory, I have been nominated to the worker\u2019s council, as I have the knowledge.\u2019<\/p>\n

Now in her forties, Chimathi attends protests and is part of discussions on how to improve protections for women and girls of the future.<\/p>\n

Gayami Gomes, Project Manager at the Women\u2019s Centre, adds: \u2018We know in the fight for justice, it is always important to have feminist voices across the globe, so we \u2013 struggling together \u2013 can form a broader solidarity network across borders.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  When Delphine Uwamahoro was growing up in a rural village in\u00a0Rwanda, \u2018women didn\u2019t have a voice at all\u2019, she says. However, life took an extraordinary turn when, aged 16, an anonymous donor from\u00a0Germany\u00a0sponsored her education. It meant Delphine was able to move to her country\u2019s capital,\u00a0Kigali, to study at the University of Rwanda, then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t