Mozambique's northern province of Cabo Delgado has become the epicenter of a conflict that, up to the present, has resulted in nearly 4,000 fatalities and displaced hundreds of thousands of people internally. Alongside the toll on civilians, the region has witnessed sexual and gender-based violence as a weapon to instill fear among the local inhabitants.
An unspecified number of women have been abducted and coerced into aligning with the insurgency or witnessing the execution of their families. Making such a decision has been painful.
Ahead of the International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to Victims of Terrorism on 21 August, under the assurance of anonymity, one such woman bravely shared her account with Mr. Mame Bougouma Diene of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Regional Office for Mozambique.
Twice a Survivor: Her story
“I am a wife and a mother. I am vulnerable because I have children, and I would do anything to protect them.
“The al-Shabaab extremist group came to me and threatened to kill my children, if I did not come with them. At that point, I accepted to go with them and leave my children under the protection of the Lord who created heaven and earth.
“It was difficult to make that decision, but I thought it was the better option, for the sake of my family. My uncle had been killed and left behind six children. My cousins were raped.
“Other women joined them out of desperation, seeing their relatives and husbands beheaded and having to feed their children alone.
“Like me, my aunts were also abducted; we had to walk to [location undisclosed]. I stayed as a spouse during my two years in captivity.
“A few times I contemplated escape, but I decided it was not worth it because of the risk involved.
“Another painful part of our story is that some community inhabitants consider us traitors, extremists for joining the group. They don’t think about what we went through, they don’t put themselves in our shoes; they judge and discriminate against us.
“Such discrimination affects my daily life. When they call my children ‘extremists’ or ‘children of al-Shabaab,’ that affects me deeply. My children did not choose this; I feel guilty for my decision to join al-Shabaab, but I had no choice.
“Sometimes I think it would have been better if they killed me, rather than to live and carry the blame for everything that happens in the conflict.
“If you don’t have support or psychological help, you may even die. Because you keep imagining your reasons for joining the group and all the suffering you saw and felt in captivity. It hurts.
“I haven't talked about other things yet because I don't feel comfortable talking about them. The members of the al-Shabaab group were very unfair to women.”
The woman is currently working with a humanitarian organization in Southern Africa.
Responding appropriately in complex scenarios
Amid increased terrorist and extremist attacks in Southern Africa and other African subregions, many complex scenarios, compounded by imprecise definitions of terms like “victim of terrorism” or “terrorist,” pose significant difficulties for governments in their counter-terrorism efforts.
However, UNODC publications such as the Handbook on Gender Dimensions of Criminal Justice Responses to Terrorism and Model Legislative Provisions offer valuable guidance on safeguarding the rights of victims of terrorism.
Note: the UNODC works with Member States to strengthen their capacity to understand and respond to the rights and needs of women and girls who are victims of abduction and exploitation by terrorist groups as well as sexual and gender-based violence.
