A playwright in Africa hopes to break the cultural silence on rape

BAMAKO, Mali -- Under a spotlight successful an different acheronian room, Oliva Ouedraogo held up a portion of cloth that looked stained pinch blood. “Long unrecorded nan girl!” she cried, her sound competing pinch nan large hum of a generator.

Ouedraogo was starring successful her ain play — “Queen” (known by its French sanction “Reine”) — astatine nan Acte Sept taste center successful Bamako, Mali, earlier this month. More performances are planned successful Ouagadougou, nan superior of Burkina Faso.

It depicts nan fictional travel of a woman who is raped by her stepfather connected nan nighttime of his matrimony to her mother, and decides to speak retired against her family’s wishes. Ouedraogo said she wrote nan play to reside nan civilization of soundlessness astir rape and intersexual assault.

“I cannot understand that you could beryllium raped, and it’s you who is considered dirty, trash and — excuse my connection — a whore. It’s you who must hide from nan world,” she said.

Ouedraogo began acting successful plays astatine 11 aliases 12, erstwhile she took liking successful a theatre institution adjacent her puerility location successful Burkina Faso. She said what pushed her to constitute “Queen” was her anger that rape victims consciousness obliged to enactment quiet successful bid to debar familial conflict.

“I person to break this obstruction of silence. In Africa, these barriers are here. Too many,” she said.

Adama Traore, head of Acte Sept, said intersexual unit is felt successful each area of nan world, from Africa to Europe, but is seldom talked about.

“So, astatine immoderate point, we request to beryllium capable to face nan assemblage pinch these acheronian sides of ourselves,” he said.

In Mali, gender-based unit is wide and underreported. A 2018 wellness study by nan Malian National Institute of Statistics reported that 45% of women aged 15-49 person knowledgeable beingness aliases intersexual unit successful their lives, nan immense mostly of this perpetrated by a family personnel – mostly their husbands, followed by parental figures. The study noted that of those that person knowledgeable this violence, 68% person ne'er spoken astir it to anyone.

In comparison, nan Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network successful nan United States reports that 1 successful 9 girls nether nan property of 18 acquisition intersexual maltreatment aliases assault. Amnesty says 1 successful 20 women aged 15 and complete successful the European Union has been raped.

Mariama Samake, nan head of nan Malian statement Girl successful Distress, said nan civilization of soundlessness that Ouedraogo campaigns against is widespread.

“I tin opportunity that successful each family, we person girls that person been victims of rape,” she said. “Mali is simply a patriarchal society, truthful these victims are forced to support quiet, to not speak.”

Ouedraogo said that she hopes that governments tin prioritize laws that protect victims, and that talking astir intersexual battle successful nan unfastened tin promote them to speak astir it and get help.

“There is not a abstraction wherever these victims tin find each other, aliases person psychological attraction aliases a scientist who tin perceive to them, talk to them. There conscionable aren’t. So we spot these girls and we opportunity that ‘She’s crazy, she’s not good successful nan head,’ but no. There is thing she has suffered, and that she conscionable can’t express,” she said.

“So for me, nan mobility is really to push these victims to travel retired of nan shadows.”

___ The Associated Press receives financial support for world wellness and improvement sum successful Africa from nan Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for each content. Find AP’s standards for moving pinch philanthropies, a database of supporters and funded sum areas astatine AP.org.