Heleen writes about her work...

I have never shared much on this blog about my work with child victims of gender based violence. I am very much aware of the sensitivity of the cases we deal with so it is hard to know how and what to write. But yesterday as I was talking to Jon after a day’s work, he suggested I make an attempt.

Some of the cases are just plain heart-wrenching because of the young age of the girls that are affected. The five-year-old admitted at our hospital with internal damage due to rape. The four-year-old timidly sitting in my office between her father and mother. She was raped by a neighbour in her parent’s bedroom… The ten-year-old who thought she found refuge from her violent uncle at a neigbor’s house, only to be abused by him.

Children in Sierra Leone are not taught to talk about their emotions. If you ask how they are feeling, you usually get a simple: “I feel fine” or “I don’t feel fine”. Some years ago my niece, who is an illustrator, helped me develop some emotion pictures that I have found to be very helpful in counselling. The pictures show a little girl’s face expressing happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and shame, the last being an important emotion in this culture and in the lives of the girls we are dealing with. 

 Once we explain to them the different emotions, I find it amazing how well most young children are able to identify their feelings: I felt sad after it happened, I was angry with the man… Interestingly, but sadly, the fear that many of them express is often not directed towards the perpetrator, but towards their caregivers, their parents, their aunties or uncles: What will they say after they find out what happened? This fear is not ungrounded; we have seen many girls, even very young ones, being held responsible for the violence done to them. It is hard to explain, but where we as outsiders see young, innocent girls, this culture (where until recently child marriage was the norm) often sees a woman in the making, purposefully attracting the attention of men.

Of course this opinion is even stronger when it comes to older girls. Their situations are often more complicated and require a lot of (cultural) wisdom, one reason why it is very good to have the local nurses involved in the work. In this age group we still see girls who are plainly raped and who do not want to have anything to do with the perpetrator. We also see a lot of girls who are brought in by their parents who do not agree with their daughter’s decision to become sexually active with their boyfriend.  Once they find out who the boyfriend is, they take their daughter to the police to file a rape case against the boy. Many of the girls receive a severe beating from their parents before legal action is taken. Some girls have their heads crudely shaven. Although I often share the concern of the parents, especially if the “boyfriend” is many years older, I also feel deeply for the girls who grow up in a very broken culture with many distorted views of gender and sexuality. The pressure on girls to have sexual intercourse is extremely high. Young people are increasingly exposed to media that promote a culture of promiscuity and there is a lot of confusion about what is “normal”. Western organizations come in and promote the use of contraceptives. Although I am aware of the tragic stories of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions (we see the results of that at the hospital too), I am not sure that putting girls on contraceptives in the last year of primary education (which I am told one organization is doing) is the solution. In a culture where girls and women have very little power and are still seen as the property of men this can easily lead to abuse, as there is no risk of pregnancies. The ease with which men use and abuse girls breaks my heart. One 13-year-old girl told me yesterday how she had agreed to have her virginity taken by a young man whose name she didn’t even know. As she was left, bleeding and in pain, she regretted her decision but there was no way back.  

At the Psychosocial Unit we listen to the stories, we encourage and advise the girls, we “beg” the parents. “Bad bush no de fo trowe bad pikin,” I told a mother this week. “There is no bush to throw away a bad child.” Even if your child is severely disappointing you, she is your child, and God entrusted you with the responsibility to guide her towards adulthood. Your daughter needs you, and if you stay this angry, you will only drive her away from the home.

Whether the child and her parents are Christian or Muslim, I often ask if we can pray for them before they go. This is never denied; people appreciate prayers, whatever religious background they have. So we pray. And we ask for God’s mercy. Whether the situation was broken because of violence or because a young girl did not realize how valuable she is, and how she should be respected, not used, loved, not lusted after, we have a God of great redemption.

“O Israel, hope in the LORD!

For with the LORD there is steadfast love,

and with him is plentiful redemption.”

Psalm 130:7

In the midst of brokenness, it is good to rejoice in the beauty around us. Here are some pictures taken by our intern Rebekah Steiner around our house: