IMOW - Esperance

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Esperance
Zainab Salbi

Iraq

GALLERY

CONVERSATION

“I refused to look at him,” she says. “He started beating me. I started crying. He said to me, ‘Why are you...

He took his bandana and wrapped it around her head, staking his claim to her, and left to join the others. Esperance, 17, removed the bandana, but when the soldier came back, he recognized her anyway. He ordered her to carry his heavy equipment, and they set off down the road. Her mother, left behind, could only watch.

They walked for hours. Esperance tried to run off, but the soldier caught her again. Finally, some six miles farther, they reached a military encampment in the forest, where he escorted her to his small hut and raped her. The next morning, she found that 19 other young women had also been taken there. They were assembled at dawn, as if in a class, and were instructed in the ways their lives would change.

Several months later, pregnant and critically ill, she was sent away to die by the soldiers. Some villagers found her and took her to Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, where she received proper medical care. Somewhat restored, she gave birth to a baby boy and named him Daniel. Like many rape victims, she loves the child she knows is an innocent victim. Yet his face is a constant reminder of the soldier who enslaved her.
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