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Following widespread protests in Senegal in regards to the rape and homicide of girls, the regulation was modified in 2020 to make rape a critical crime as an alternative of a misdemeanour. The occasions opened up a dialog round sexual assault, disgrace and accountability, headed by a pop star who dared to sing about her personal expertise.
In her dwelling, two hours south of Senegal’s capital, Dakar, pop star Girl Mounass sings me a tune in her native Wolof language:
I haven’t got the energy to struggle
Not even the energy to argue
I misplaced my confidence
You betrayed me
You took what was dearest to me
Please please, consideration for girls
Girl Mounass is understood for her saucy lyrics and signature horny fashion, however this tune could be very completely different. It particulars the emotional trauma she suffered after being raped by two males in 2011.
“It’s extremely tough for me to sing this tune unaccompanied as a result of the phrases are an outline of what truly occurred to me,” she says. “I cry myself to sleep often. On daily basis, I am dwelling with the disgrace hooked up to it.”
Girl Mounass says she went to the police and certainly one of her attackers was arrested, however later launched with out cost. Her household wished her to maintain quiet about her expertise, however throughout an interview on Senegalese tv final 12 months, she inadvertently revealed the reality.
“The presenter saved asking me, ‘You appear to have a selected curiosity on this subject, you appear to be significantly delicate to this subject.’ And so the tears started welling up and I simply could not include it.”
The revelation despatched shock waves via her life. Some critics urged her “provocative” fashion had given males the “flawed impression”, whereas others claimed she’d made the entire thing up as a publicity stunt. “Some folks tried to say that I used to be solely doing it to get consideration – and that actually harm my emotions,” says Girl Mounass. “My circle of relatives stated, ‘That is precisely why we instructed you to not discuss this publicly.'”
Within the weeks that adopted, many individuals contacted Girl Mounass to speak about their very own experiences of sexual assault. There have been harrowing tales – one lady instructed her she had been raped by her grandfather; one other by her father, and that her mom had refused to consider her.
Because the tales got here in, Girl Mounass ended up turning into a spokeswoman in opposition to sexual violence. She joined a authorities marketing campaign, touring the nation to lift consciousness of sexual violence and the authorized help accessible to girls. Her tune grew to become the soundtrack to that marketing campaign.
Girls have historically been closely stigmatised and reluctant to talk out about rape in Senegal, not to mention courageous sufficient to launch a tune about it. Girl Mounass has determined the disgrace is not hers to hold.
However for some girls, turning into a sufferer of sexual violence means rejection by their household and neighborhood. That is what occurred to 2 younger girls I met on the first Senegalese-run refuge for victims of home and sexual violence. We’ve modified their names.
Positioned in a quiet Dakar suburb, the refuge is run by Yacine Diouf, the daughter of a former president. We enter via a heavy picket door, “to maintain out indignant husbands and households”, says Diouf. The refuge is ready to present a house for 25 to 30 girls at a time, in addition to their youngsters. They are going to be provided coaching and abilities to assist them reside independently as soon as they depart.
Deena is nineteen, however appears to be like loads youthful. Wearing a white T-shirt and denims, she scrolls endlessly on her telephone. Deena was raped when she was 15. The rape resulted in a being pregnant and now she is the mom of a three-year-old baby.
“The person who attacked me was detained by the police,” she says. “He gave false testimony. They let him go after a month. Even so, he recognised the kid and accepted paternity. I used that to file a criticism, however he ran off to Guinea.”
Deena struggles to get by on $2 a day. “Life is difficult. I used to be in school however I’ve needed to give it up. I’ve no alternative, I’ve to supply for my baby. It is a tough state of affairs, my mother and father obtained divorced after what occurred.”
Sitting subsequent to Deena is Sarah, additionally 19. Final 12 months Sarah was raped and now she is pregnant. She did not go to the police or inform anybody about what occurred. The rape was solely found when her being pregnant began to indicate – then her household kicked her out. She was dropped at the refuge when she was discovered sleeping on the streets by workers.
“In her tradition, there’s lots of disgrace hooked up to being raped, so each her maternal and paternal household rejected her,” explains a refuge employee who’s taking care of Sarah.
In Senegal, the idea of “sutura” – discretion – can strain victims of sexual violence to remain silent, says Fatou Warkha, who runs a YouTube channel selling girls’s rights. “Sutura implies that girls really feel they’ve to cover this stuff, so this has been an actual impediment in altering the best way that ladies increase the problem of rape when it occurs,” she says.
Warkha is a part of a bunch of feminists who created the Dafadoy Collective, which suggests “sufficient is sufficient”. In 2019, campaigners started utilizing the #Dafadoy hashtag, very similar to the #metoo motion, and organised sit-ins to protest in opposition to sexual violence.
That 12 months, a collection of sexual assaults on girls led to widespread protests. Most distinguished was the case of Bineta Camara, 23, who was strangled after her assassin tried to rape her. Her case triggered anger, not simply amongst feminists, however throughout a big cross-section of society.
El Hadji Elias Ndoye, a younger graduate, was one of many 3,000 individuals who joined the protests in Place de la Nation in Dakar. “Because of the patriarchal nature of the society right here, males’s presence in these demonstrations is crucial,” says Ndoye.
“Some folks accuse me of being underneath a lady’s thumb, however in truth, it is time for girls’s voices to be heard. The silent majority of males are with us as a result of it is their daughters, their sisters, their members of the family who’re susceptible.”
Additionally protesting was Mamadou Maktar Gaye, the top of Jamra – one of the influential Islamic organisations within the nation. He and Jamra stood alongside their “sisters” in opposition to what Gaye refers to as “the scourge of rape”.
“It is about males having to alter their behaviour,” he says.
The protests pressured a change within the regulation that activists like Warkha had lengthy been campaigning for.
After a unanimous vote in parliament, President Macky Sall formally made rape a criminal offense on 10 January 2020. Rape circumstances at the moment are heard in felony court docket with a sentence of 10 years to life, when beforehand they might have been tried in a magistrates court docket with a most sentence of 10 years.
Rape first grew to become punishable by regulation in Senegal in 1999, when it was classed as a misdemeanour. 20 years later, in 2019, there have been 1,026 official studies of sexual violence, of which half have been believed to contain rape. However correct numbers are onerous to come back by.
A consultant from the Ministry of Girls, Household and Susceptible Individuals instructed the BBC they didn’t have figures regarding what number of girls have been actually affected – and that in any case, reported statistics on rape notoriously underestimate the dimensions of the issue.
Steps at the moment are being taken to make girls really feel extra snug when reporting sexual assault to the police. Police stations are being redesigned so that ladies are met at reception and brought to a separate room, the place they will converse to a feminine officer.
These modifications are a part of a challenge funded by the EU and led by a senior police officer, Commissaire Binetou Guisse, whose job it’s to watch gender-related violence across the nation.
The police additionally work intently with girls from the local people who act as essential intermediaries. They’re generally known as “badianu goch” – a time period that means paternal aunt, an essential determine in Senegalese households. The federal government now trains badianu goch to assist defend susceptible girls and kids.
“These girls are those who are likely to know what is going on on and they’re going to convey the problem to the eye of the police,” says Guisse.
Guisse says the modifications appear to be having a constructive impact, with extra folks coming ahead to report home and sexual violence.
Free authorized recommendation can be being offered in clinics across the nation by the Affiliation of Senegalese Jurists (AJS), who’ve been on the entrance line of girls’s rights in Senegal for many years. They are saying they recorded greater than 3,000 circumstances of sexual violence in 2021 alone, however level out that they do not have clinics within the majority of the nation’s 42 departments.
And workers at one AJS bureau instructed us that as a result of the brand new regulation is extra advanced, it is leading to an extended authorized course of.
“There are lots of males at present being prosecuted however to this point, not a single man has been convicted – partly as a result of the brand new process is a prolonged one and requires an intensive investigation,” says Aby Diallo, AJS president and a former senior police officer.
So may this longer authorized course of truly be counter-productive?
Diallo does not suppose so. “It is a good regulation, but it surely wants higher utility, it wants extra magistrates and it wants extra consciousness in the local people about how the brand new regulation operates.”
She explains that underneath the previous regulation, many rapists have been popping out of jail after just some months, and this was having a vastly detrimental affect on the victims. “In the end, it’s robust sentences that are more likely to drive dwelling the severity of those actions,” says Diallo.
However with a single conviction but to be made, it is clear that many victims of sexual violence are nonetheless ready for justice.
Girl Mounass hopes the tune she has written about her ordeal will assist different girls to talk out. “I’ve a platform as a singer and I really feel a way of duty. I felt that I needed to say one thing about this,” she says.
“I am calling on males specifically to cease the tradition round rape and to cease making it one thing that ladies really feel they should preserve quiet about.”
Hearken to Project: When rape turns into a criminal offense on BBC World Service.
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