Unsung Hero: Anny

My name is Anny Tenga Modi. I’m 37 and I have an 18-year old daughter. I became an orphan when I was 13. I run an organisation called AFIA MAMA. I’m a feminist activist campaigning for women and children’s rights, particularly regarding issues of leadership and participation. I’ve been living in Kinshasa for four years now. I came back to DRC from South Africa where I spent over 10 years as a refugee. I was my father’s princess. He was in politics. He died when I turned 13. It was one year before the genocide and two before the first so-called war of liberation. As an orphan, I was displaced to a town in east DRC called Goma. Goma is famous not only for the number of wars it has been through, but also for the sexual and gender-based violence women and girls have been victims of for many years. My community rejected me because of my physical appearance. I look as if I belong to a different ethnic group, but I actually don’t. During the war, when I was 17, I became a mother; a teenage mum. I went to Kinshasa, but the stigma was just as bad. It was a lot of psychological pressure and a lot of pain for a teenager. At the same time, I had to be a mother to my daughter while I was still a child myself. I went back to school in Kinshasa to get my high school diploma. But even there my appearance didn’t allow me to live freely, so my uncle decided to send me to South Africa where I spent over 10 years as a refugee. Imagine the psychological and moral suffering I had ...
Source: Doctors of the World News - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Uncategorised Source Type: news