In this article, we explore the transformative power of owning one's story, how it can help break the cycle of violence, and the catastrophic consequences of leaving trauma unresolved and unspoken. I experienced first-hand the power of owning one’s story whilst working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Bukavu, where rape is used as a weapon of war and surgical repair is often required. While listening to one girl’s story, a young woman with a baby on her back ran into the room and knelt on the floor in front of me, sweat- drenched and out of breath “I will not leave today until I have found my freedom,” she said through the translator. “Last night I saw my friend in the market, but I could hardly recognise her for the freedom in her face.” She began to weep silently as she continued to speak. “When I asked her why she looked so free she said she had come here, to a woman like a mother, who was praying for girls and holding their pain. I will not leave today until I know that freedom.” She had run 15 kilometres with a child on her back in pursuit of her freedom.
When we think about GBV, we are inclined to view it in terms of the associated crimes such as femicide, rape, sexual assault, sexual molestation, domestic violence, and intimate partner violence. In reality, GBV is defined in the NSP on GBVF as “The general term used to capture violence that occurs as a result of the normative role expectations associated with the gender associated with the sex assigned to a person at birth, as well as the unequal power relations between the genders, within the context of a specific society. GBV includes physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse or threats of such acts or abuse, coercion, and economic or educational deprivation, whether occurring in public or private life,in peacetime and during armed or other forms of conflict, and may cause physical, sexual, psychological, emotional or economic harm.”
As Oprah Winfrey in her book with Dr Bruce D Perry What Happened to You? says, “Very often, ‘what happened’ takes years to reveal itself. It takes courage to confront our actions, peel back the layers of trauma in our lives, and expose the raw truth of our past. But this is where healing begins.”
I reached out and held her as she recounted, for the first time in six years, indescribable gender- based violence at the hands of Interahamwe soldiers, perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide.
Rape is used as a weapon of war and surgical repair is often required
“I could never speak of this,” she said afterwards, “but my fear scattered when you held me. The pain that kept sticking to my heart is gone. I am so light”. There is power in owning your own story, whatever that story might be. It signifies a willingness to break free from the chains of victimhood, asserting control over your life again, and reclaiming the power that was stolen from you by your perpetrators, just like the woman in Bukavu.
Owning courageous vulnerability but it is powerful. Healing is painful but transformative and catalytic. It not only impacts you as an individual but has the potential to break patterns of abuse and inspire change while giving hope to those still trapped in a cycle of abuse. your story takes
Why don’t we own our stories and what is the cost then of silence?
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November 2023 | Collective Action Magazine
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