Treatment of victims of sexual violence is specialism
partner
Stichting Vluchteling (Netherlands Foundation for Refugees)
Worldwide, there are over 50 million people fleeing from war, violence and oppression. Stichting Vluchteling, as emergency aid agency, offers help to refugees and uprooted people all over the world. In critical situations, Stichting Vluchteling sees to direct aid, such as shelter, medical care, relief goods, food, clean drinking water and sanitary provisions.
Doctor Denis Mukwege is a gynaecologist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and founder of the Panzi hospital in Bukavu. He is a specialist in the treatment of victims of sexual violence, a specialism for which he is regarded as an expert worldwide.
Violent rapes are used daily in the DRC as a weapon of war. In the past 15 years, tens of thousands of women have been treated in the Panzi hospital for the aftermath of sexual violence.
Help for victims of sexual violence
Stichting Vluchteling (Netherlands Foundation for Refugees) has supported the work of Dr. Denis Mukwege since 2010, primarily by financing mobile medical clinics in the DRC province of South Kivu. At the end of 2014 Tineke Ceelen, the director of Stichting Vluchteling, made another visit to Dr. Mukwege. She spoke with victims of sexual violence. “In the past three months, I have had more than thirty children on my operating table,” tells Dr. Mukwege. Tineke goes on in her column to say: “A small child, just two and a half years old, says with a smile that she is better again.”
Attack
In October 2012, an attack was made on the life of Dr. Mukwege. Armed men forced their way into the house of the doctor and held his two teenage daughters and a family friend at gunpoint in anticipation of his arrival home. In the commotion that resulted from his arrival, a guard was killed. Dr. Mukwege was shot at but remained unharmed.
Three months after the attack, Mukwege returned – after a reprieve abroad – to Bukavu to resume his work for victims of sexual violence. “I could not abandon these women and girls”, Mukwege explains his choice to return to his country. Women come to the Panzi hospital daily in the hope of finding help.
Sacharov Prize
Dr. Mukwege has already received many awards for his work. After winning the Van Heuven Goedhart Penning and the Right Livelihood Award, being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and being named African of the year 2011, last year he received the prestigious Sacharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. With this, Mukwege is rewarded for his work as doctor and his struggle for decades against sexual violence in the DRC.
