The exceptional story of a courageous doctor serving victims of horrendous violence in what is known as the most dangerous country for women.
“It was in 1999 that our first rape victim was brought into the hospital. After being raped, bullets had been fired into her genitals and thighs. I thought that was a barbaric act of war, but the real shock came three months later. Forty-five women came to us with the same story. Other women came to us with burns. They said that after they had been raped, chemicals had been poured on their genitals. I started to ask myself what was going on. These weren’t just violent acts of war, but part of a strategy. You had situations where multiple people were raped at the same time, publicly—a whole village might be raped during the night.”
These are words spoken by Dr Denis Mukwege, one of the two who were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018. A gynecologist and Pentecostal pastor, Denis Mukwege was born on 1 March 1955 in a country that is said to be the most dangerous country in the world for women – Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). His father was a Pentecostal minister and he studied medicine because, he said, he wanted to heal the sick people for whom his father prayed.
After he got his medical degree from the University of Burundi in 1983, Mukwege worked as a pediatrician in a village hospital. In order to help women patients, he studied gynecology and obstetrics at the University of Angers, France, completed his medical residency in 1989 and returned to the village hospital in Limera, DRC. Describing what happened when a civil war broke out, he said, “Thirty-five patients in my hospital in Lemera in eastern DRC were killed in their beds. I fled to Bukavu, 100 kilometres to the north, and started a hospital made from tents. In 1998, everything was destroyed again. So, I started all over again in 1999.” Helped by Swedish aid agencies, he founded the Panzi Hospital that year.
Mukwege evolved a system of caring for these helpless women, most of whom came with nothing—not even clothes. So, after the surgery or treatment, his team helps them develop their skills, find a job and find a school for their children. His team includes lawyers who help the rape victims file cases against their assailants.
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Fr M A Joe Antony SJ
