KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter
January 21, 2019
By Mary Lilly Driciru
Sexual abuse is a widely discussed topic today. It has cut across families (often in the form of domestic violence), spreads even to religious institutions, and is often used as a weapon in conflict situations. Many have experienced this humiliating trauma, and felt its stigma. We are overwhelmed and concerned about it as if it were a cancer! Few could be aware of its magnitude unless they are close to its reality.
In the Great Lakes Region of Africa, consecrated women and men who have been exposed to the realities of sexual abuse were urged to address its horror through a wakeup call at two formation workshops about “Compassionate Response to Victims of Sexual Abuse in Conflict Situations,” held in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kampala, Uganda, in 2017 and 2018 respectively. They were dynamic workshops that drove concepts home with group discussions, presentations, role plays and the like.
I was invited to attend the workshop in Kampala as the Association of Religious in Uganda (ARU) Justice and Peace Executive Committee Secretary, and a member of the hosting team. We felt this was important to chart our way forward to enhance our justice, peace and integrity of creation activities.
The workshops were held in partnership with the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Commission (JPIC) of the Union of International Superior Generals (UISG) in Rome, at the request of the British government, represented by the United Kingdom Embassy of the Holy See.
The first workshop was organized and hosted in 2017 in Goma, where sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war. As woman activist Lina Zedriga Waru says, “the body of woman is the battle field for the perpetrators.”
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