It’s a story of being sold a dream of streets paved with riches and finding instead yourself abandoned in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language, have no access to services and have to resort to desperate survival strategies… This is the story of the women living on Congolese Street.
When the Ugandan army launched operations in Eastern DRC, the opportunistic among them also decided to find a ‘wife’ they could return to Uganda with. Gullible, hopeful or desperate, it would seem literally thousands of Congolese women decided to leave their families and communities behind, take a Ugandan ‘husband’ and follow him back to Uganda.
Why? The soldiers had money; that seems to have been the bottom line. Yet again it raises the issue of the money and sex. Is the money an aphrodisiac; is selecting a relatively affluent partner simply a survival strategy; or is this simply a transaction, prostitution.
The women I talked to also told me of promises that electricity flowed freely in Uganda, everyone's homes were made of brick and concrete, people drove their cars to collect water from boreholes. When I shared this with local staff they were incredulous, how can fellow Africans across the border not know the reality of Uganda. Perhaps they didn’t, perhaps they believed what they wanted to believe, perhaps it was just masking the real reason.
Once in Uganda, they suffered a variety of misfortunes. Some were widowed, losing their husbands to conflict, AIDS or ill-health. Others were abandoned for a newer model. Others abandoned their husbands to free themselves from domestic servitude or domestic violence. A number still remain with their husbands in the army barracks though. Their circumstances are less clear; the barrack’s commander won’t permit anyone to talk with them.
With no money to return and no livelihood assets to make a living here, most of these women concede that they have resorted to "working at the disco". Some are more open than others. "We sell our bodies".
It raises another ethical dilemma. Looking around the room it is clear that ‘working at the disco’ is lucrative. Around the room there are 15 relatively well dressed, superficially healthy women. Equally concerning is the fact there is enough business for these 15 Congolese women and at least as many local women to make a good living from this in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere…
Most of the women have also borne children since arriving in Uganda. Either with their UPDF ‘husband’ or with a client. Most appear to be infants. When I ask about the impact of their circumstances on their children they talk of leaving their children behind unsupervised when they are with clients and dying of HIV before their children have grown up. For now, the children look well. Most are well dressed like their mothers, their skin is clear and they’re podgy with rather than swollen with malnutrition.
Fortunately, ‘working at the disco’ doesn’t bring these women into conflict with the law. Oddly, the police are more intent on arresting consenting teenagers for ‘playing sex’ as an Italian colleague amusing puts it. But ‘working at the disco’ does bring them into conflict with the community. Stigmatisation and marginalisation has become a daily experience. Beyond Congolese Street, the people holler at them, calling them prostitutes; Health centres turn them away as their physical appearance differentiates them as foreigners; The radios and disco play a derogatory song.
The song is entitled ‘Congole’. It’s the work of a local musician and encapsulates a lot of local beliefs and attitudes. The song is a defamatory attack on Congolese women living in Uganda. It describes their provocative skirts as ‘quick ambush’, implying men have no control over how they react when they see these women dressed this way. It describes them as ‘the end of the world’, meaning if you sleep with them you will die from contracting HIV. It warns local people to stay away from them and Congolese Street.
Despite this, or perhaps because of this, the Congolese women I met came across as vibrant, strong women with a real sense of community among themselves. If all goes to plan, in 5 months time they’ll all be home in DRC starting a new chapter in their lives courtesy of IOM.
I asked them what challenges they thought they would encounter returning home. Would their families and communities welcome them back? Would they accept their children, born of Ugandan fathers? Would they leave behind ‘working at the disco’ for a new livelihood? Promisingly they expected no challenges. They were convinced their families and communities would accept them back. Their children would actually facilitate the process of reintegration as they would be regarded as a source of pride and an asset by the family. They would resume their past livelihoods; most were educated and spoke French so they could return to or start teaching, working in offices and running small businesses.
I returned to the office and discuss my afternoon on Congolese Street with the local team. Sadly it revealed more prejudice and discrimination. And bizarre grievances like, “Ahh, they buy the shops whole stock of skin whitener and when I go there is none left”.
When the Ugandan army launched operations in Eastern DRC, the opportunistic among them also decided to find a ‘wife’ they could return to Uganda with. Gullible, hopeful or desperate, it would seem literally thousands of Congolese women decided to leave their families and communities behind, take a Ugandan ‘husband’ and follow him back to Uganda.
Why? The soldiers had money; that seems to have been the bottom line. Yet again it raises the issue of the money and sex. Is the money an aphrodisiac; is selecting a relatively affluent partner simply a survival strategy; or is this simply a transaction, prostitution.
The women I talked to also told me of promises that electricity flowed freely in Uganda, everyone's homes were made of brick and concrete, people drove their cars to collect water from boreholes. When I shared this with local staff they were incredulous, how can fellow Africans across the border not know the reality of Uganda. Perhaps they didn’t, perhaps they believed what they wanted to believe, perhaps it was just masking the real reason.
Once in Uganda, they suffered a variety of misfortunes. Some were widowed, losing their husbands to conflict, AIDS or ill-health. Others were abandoned for a newer model. Others abandoned their husbands to free themselves from domestic servitude or domestic violence. A number still remain with their husbands in the army barracks though. Their circumstances are less clear; the barrack’s commander won’t permit anyone to talk with them.
With no money to return and no livelihood assets to make a living here, most of these women concede that they have resorted to "working at the disco". Some are more open than others. "We sell our bodies".
It raises another ethical dilemma. Looking around the room it is clear that ‘working at the disco’ is lucrative. Around the room there are 15 relatively well dressed, superficially healthy women. Equally concerning is the fact there is enough business for these 15 Congolese women and at least as many local women to make a good living from this in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere…
Most of the women have also borne children since arriving in Uganda. Either with their UPDF ‘husband’ or with a client. Most appear to be infants. When I ask about the impact of their circumstances on their children they talk of leaving their children behind unsupervised when they are with clients and dying of HIV before their children have grown up. For now, the children look well. Most are well dressed like their mothers, their skin is clear and they’re podgy with rather than swollen with malnutrition.
Fortunately, ‘working at the disco’ doesn’t bring these women into conflict with the law. Oddly, the police are more intent on arresting consenting teenagers for ‘playing sex’ as an Italian colleague amusing puts it. But ‘working at the disco’ does bring them into conflict with the community. Stigmatisation and marginalisation has become a daily experience. Beyond Congolese Street, the people holler at them, calling them prostitutes; Health centres turn them away as their physical appearance differentiates them as foreigners; The radios and disco play a derogatory song.
The song is entitled ‘Congole’. It’s the work of a local musician and encapsulates a lot of local beliefs and attitudes. The song is a defamatory attack on Congolese women living in Uganda. It describes their provocative skirts as ‘quick ambush’, implying men have no control over how they react when they see these women dressed this way. It describes them as ‘the end of the world’, meaning if you sleep with them you will die from contracting HIV. It warns local people to stay away from them and Congolese Street.
Despite this, or perhaps because of this, the Congolese women I met came across as vibrant, strong women with a real sense of community among themselves. If all goes to plan, in 5 months time they’ll all be home in DRC starting a new chapter in their lives courtesy of IOM.
I asked them what challenges they thought they would encounter returning home. Would their families and communities welcome them back? Would they accept their children, born of Ugandan fathers? Would they leave behind ‘working at the disco’ for a new livelihood? Promisingly they expected no challenges. They were convinced their families and communities would accept them back. Their children would actually facilitate the process of reintegration as they would be regarded as a source of pride and an asset by the family. They would resume their past livelihoods; most were educated and spoke French so they could return to or start teaching, working in offices and running small businesses.
I returned to the office and discuss my afternoon on Congolese Street with the local team. Sadly it revealed more prejudice and discrimination. And bizarre grievances like, “Ahh, they buy the shops whole stock of skin whitener and when I go there is none left”.
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