Gambian Toufah Jallow tells of surviving rape by dictator

2 years ago 166

DAKAR – Toufah Jallow’s sanction resonates profoundly successful Gambia arsenic 1 of the fewer women who has taken a nationalist basal against intersexual battle successful the tiny West African state.

She gained fame astatine the property of 18 erstwhile she won a assemblage assistance successful a nationalist endowment contention for young women. But successful 2015 she fled Gambia, fearing for her life, aft dictator Yahya Jammeh allegedly drugged and raped her, aggravated that she had turned down his matrimony proposal.

She lived softly successful Canada, disquieted that Jammeh would persecute household members successful Gambia. After Jammeh fell from powerfulness she aboriginal recovered the spot to spell nationalist with her story, contempt Gambia's civilization of soundlessness implicit intersexual assault, she told The Associated Press.

The federation was riveted erstwhile she held a property league to stock her relationship via societal media and successful a quality rights study successful June 2019. She besides testified months aboriginal to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Now, Jallow is telling her communicative successful item successful a recently released memoir: “Toufah: The Woman Who Inspired an African #MeToo Movement.”

“In June 2015, Yahya Jammeh, past the president of The Gambia, raped me. He has ne'er been charged. Never convicted ... He thought helium would get distant with it, tried to erase me. I thought I would ne'er talk of it, that I would stay invisible. We were some wrong, due to the fact that I americium here, shining similar the sunrise of the melanated coast," she writes. "I americium Toufah Jallow. This is my story.”

In the book, co-written with writer Kim Pattaway, Jallow describes her travel from the girl and granddaughter of women who successful their ain mode pushed against the country’s patriarchy to the evening of her alleged rape and her tense flight and the resulting traumas and challenges.

Jallow said she wants to beryllium a relation exemplary for others who person experienced intersexual battle and to assistance them woody with it.

“I wanted to marque my beingness arsenic relatable to young girls arsenic imaginable truthful (they see) that what I did is achievable (and) is not seen arsenic a miracle,” she said. “It takes an mean miss who grew up successful a colony determination successful The Gambia with a parent and with 20 siblings successful a polygamous home.”

Coming from a humble background, Jallow was swept into a high-profile relation due to the fact that of her scholarship, attending galore nationalist events with then-president Jammeh. After receiving gifts from Jammeh, who was already married, and rejecting his connection to go 1 of his wives, Jallow was lured to the president's backstage quarters, wherever she says helium drugged and raped her.

Jammeh hasn’t reacted, but his enactment has denied everything.

Jallow didn’t archer a psyche successful Gambia, fearing the worst for herself and her family. She knew determination were hundreds of radical who had been arrested for daring to question Jammeh.

Terrified, Jallow fled Gambia. She hid her individuality by wearing a niqab (head-to-toe veil) truthful that authorities agents wouldn’t admit her. She went to Senegal and with the assistance of trusted allies made it to Canada wherever she present lives.

For years, nary 1 successful Gambia knew what had happened to Jallow. She lived arsenic a exile successful Canada, moving unusual jobs to enactment her classes.

“For the longest clip ... I would ever shove it aside," she said of her trauma. But seeing statistic for intersexual battle with truthful fewer being held accountable bothered her. “I person ne'er felt much invisible," she said of that period.

Speaking astir enactment and sexuality, “it’s conscionable not done,” successful Gambia, she said. There is not adjacent a connection for rape successful her autochthonal Fula language, she explained to AP. Instead radical usage phrases similar “Somebody fell connected me.”

Jammeh mislaid elections and fled the state successful 2017. Gambia past opened a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to analyse the reports of abuses and killings during his 22-year rule.

When Jallow came guardant successful 2019 astir her assault, it unleashed a movement. More than 50,000 radical were glued to societal media erstwhile she archetypal spoke. Women past marched holding banners saying “#IAmToufah” and determination was an outpouring of others' stories of rape.

Jallow speaking retired was a “wind of change” successful Gambia, said Marion Volkmann-Brandau, a women’s rights activistic who helped usher Jallow and led the quality rights probe into intersexual battle successful Gambia that saw her travel forward.

“There was this infinitesimal of enactment ... women coming retired mostly astir rape and having a communicative to stock showed they weren’t invisible anymore,” she said. “Gambians realized excessively however wide the contented was.”

That hope, however, has unluckily dwindled, Volkmann-Brandau said, arsenic the ineligible strategy indispensable beryllium reformed successful bid to instrumentality intersexual battle seriously.

But the groundwork has been laid and Jallow has started the Toufah Foundation, acceptable up to assistance enactment of survivors of intersexual battle successful Gambia. Her extremity is to person Gambia’s archetypal afloat functioning women’s shelter.

Her sanction is present utilized to sermon rape successful communities erstwhile incapable to speech astir it.

She travels to Gambia often, portion studying successful Canada to beryllium a counsellor for women and children victims, and is besides moving connected a documentary that follows survivors of intersexual violence.

And if Jammeh returns to Gambia, Jallow says she volition alert determination to face him.

“I consciousness similar I americium excessively disposable to beryllium invisible anymore,” she said. “I person faced the worst fearfulness ... I person survived him physically.”

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