The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege for their work to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of armed conflict and I couldn’t be more elated. Nadia Murad and Dr. Denis Mukwege have “both put their own personal security at risk by courageously combatting war crimes and securing justice for victims”.
Nadia Murad is a Yazidi woman who was abducted from her home in 2014 and held as a sex slave by ISIS until her escape. She has campaigned tirelessly to get justice for Yazidi people and is today a UN Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking. In courageously speaking out against the sexual violence and brutality she both witnessed and personally suffered she takes away power from ISIS, her abusers.
Dr. Mukwege, meanwhile, is a Congolese gynaecologist who has long treated women and girls affected by sexual violence including rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo, considered by the United Nations the rape capital of the world. He established the Panzi Hospital which not only treats survivors but also provides pyschosocial and legal services all without charge for those who cannot afford the care. If you haven’t seen the film City of Joy, I implore you to do so right away.
I was a senior in high school in the autumn of 1995 when the then First Lady of the United States, Hillary Clinton gave a powerful “human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights” speech at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. My father, a Ghanaian diplomat at the United Nations at the time, had accompanied First Lady Agyeman-Rawlings of Ghana and her delegation to China for this conference. In preparing for the assignment he had relevant literature, news articles, and UN briefs at home and the prolific reader that I was soon became enamoured by the remarkable conference that was championing women’s empowerment and equality as a condition of human rights.
The conference left an indelible mark on me. The plight of the girl child, the right of women to make their own decisions about childbearing and sexuality, the right of women to protection against all forms of violence including genital mutilation all took on new meanings.
While sexual violence during armed conflict is not a new phenomenon, the 1990s had brought the topic to the international community as a serious human rights issue. Those were the years of stunning reports of Serbian rape camps, of armed conflict in Rwanda where rape was also a tool of ethnic cleansing, and of Japan officially apologising to the many women and girls forced into military sexual slavery during World War II. No longer were we going to accept sexual violence as an unfortunate but inevitable by-product of armed conflict.
I was accepted to Wellesley College, former Secretary Clinton’s alma mater, with an essay in which I aspired to advocate for the health of women and girl refugees. Later on in medical school I explored how the Somali refugee community in Boston accessed health care services in the area. I realized the high risk of sexually transmitted illnesses including HIV/AIDS accompanied sexual violence in armed conflict. I took a particular interest in the health of HIV infected refugee women. During my infectious disease fellowship, I explored the reproductive health of HIV infected refugee women in Boston. Several were my own clinic patients, and with the mentorship of Dr. Sondra Crosby, at the time director of the Boston Center for Refugee Health & Human Rights, I wrote medical affidavits for those of whom were survivors of sexual violence during armed conflict in their home countries and were seeking asylum in the United States.
I may no longer be directly involved in the medical care of refugees, asylees, and asylum seekers but the testimonies my patients confided in me has left indelible on my mind the horrors of torture, the physical and psychological trauma of sexual violence, and the realization that HIV is weaponized during armed conflict.
I saw how beyond the brutality and inhumanity of sexual violence in itself the stigmatisation, discrimination, and rejection of victims by their families and communities leads to both shame and guilt that then exacerbates their vulnerability. All this, before adding the complex layer of living with HIV/AIDS perhaps as a consequence, itself very stigmatizing and isolating still.
I am left a believer that sexual violence including rape in armed conflict is a war crime and that post-conflict reconstruction and peace-building processes should include the rehabilitation and reparation of victims of sexual violence, particularly where victims are infected with HIV, on the basis of both public health and human rights.
This is why today’s announcement by the Nobel Committee is so momentous. In a time when people in positions of power question the truth of allegations made by sexual violence survivors and when many people around the world in all levels of society are raising awareness about how pervasive sexual violence is through the #MeToo movement and through our own personal testimonies on social media platforms this Nobel Peace Prize shines the spotlight on sexual violence advocacy by honouring both a survivor and a physician advocate.
It is time for the world to stop blaming, stigmatizing, and ostracizing from their communities victims of all forms of sexual violence; time to sit up and listen; and time for policy-makers to seriously address these issues as the human rights issues that they are.
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