First published in the Catholic Voice
If the youngest among Lulu Mitshabu’s six girls complain about doing it tough, she barely needs to open her mouth, since her oldest daughter usually gets in before her.
“She says to them, ‘You have no idea’ because she is the most affected of all of them. She remembers us running,” she said.
Ms Mitshabu had two young children when she fled the Democratic Republic of Congo nearly 25 years ago. Her husband, Jeff, had been arrested because of his association with the human rights organisation they both worked for.
Knowing she would be next, she did as they had planned and ran with her children for Zambia with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. She could not even tell her family. It would be seven years before she could let them know she was alive without putting them at risk.
Holed up in a refugee camp, having dodged bullets to cross the border, she expected not to see her husband again. He later turned up at the camp hospital, having been beaten nearly to death and handed back to his organisation only because they pleaded to allow him to “to die in peace”.
The joy of their reunion was overshadowed by the cloud of imminent deportation back to the DRC. Tapping into their strong faith, the couple sought out a Catholic church.
It turned out to be Anglican but it was a fortunate mistake. They found themselves sitting next to the Australian high commissioner to Zambia, who listened to their story and smoothed their way to Australia.
“It really was a miracle,” said Ms Mitshabu, who has since made it her life’s goal to help the women of the DRC. “God answered my prayer. I made a promise to Him. I said, ‘God, if you take us out of here and keep my children safe, I will do everything I can to help these women.’”
She learnt English, completed studies in international development and found her avenue as a program coordinator for Caritas. Now working with the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference in Canberra, she also continues her work with Caritas, focusing for the moment on the DRC.
She speaks eloquently and emotively to audiences of all ages about the horrifying conditions faced by DRC women, thousands of whom are victims of the sexual violence that is routinely wielded as a weapon of war.
Although the brutal Mobutu regime she left behind has ended, Ms Mitshabu was galled to see, when she returned on Caritas visits, that things seemed to have worsened for women.
Growing up in the DRC, she was aware that women were downtrodden. One of two girls among six siblings, “everything was expected of me but I was not given as much as the boys. My dad worked in the department of education. He tried his best to give me the opportunity to study but my brothers had to come first.”
She was also given an early taste of the punishments women faced for breaching stifling laws, when she was arrested, at the age of 12, for wearing jeans. She was released after four hours, but not before her father paid for her freedom.
But she has since encountered cruelty and violence she could only have imagined back then.
Rebel forces intent on forcefully acquiring mineral-rich lands for powerful mining companies, use sexual violence to drive families away from their homes. Victims of rape are banished in shame by their husbands, who also inevitably leave because of the humiliation of it all.
“Because rape is taboo, these things weren’t getting reported. I was thinking, ‘Why is this happening and nobody is talking about it?’” Ms Mitshabu said.
Through Caritas, she is working to help the women of the Congo speak up. The idea is to break the silence and thus neutralise the power of rape as a weapon. “Slowly, we can see some men are becoming more involved,” she said. “They are learning now that it is not women ‘asking for it’, but it is the fault of the perpetrators … some women we have been able, with mediation, to get back with their families.”
She said Caritas was helping girls to learn skills which they can use to make a contribution to society. “It’s so good to see even little changes happening and know you are making a difference,” she said.
Meanwhile, Ms Mitshabu continues to drum up awareness of and support for her work in the only way she knows how – with passion and commitment. “I talk with people, not to people,” she said. “It’s not artificial, it’s real. My life has not been very easy, and I know how it feels to be the most vulnerable in society, and I use that experience when I speak. Sometimes words can mean nothing, but I try to make mine mean something.”