An MSF midwife supervisor enters one of the consultation rooms at the Tumaini clinic, which provides medical and psychological support to sexual violence survivors, Turunga Health Centre, Goma, DRC.



She bears witness to the number of patients she has seen in her consultations over several months and years of experience with MSF. “Even though there have always been cases of sexual violence in Goma, today the profiles of the patients who come to see us are different. There is a lot of insecurity in the various neighborhoods, many bandits who operate at night. Before, we treated patients in the displaced persons camps, but now it is in the city”.

“Cases of sexual violence with children are the ones that particularly strike me. One story that struck me recently was the one of an 8-year-old girl. Her parents sent her to get doughnuts, and she got lost along the way. A man abducted her and sexually assaulted her all night. Now she's rejected in her neighborhood because everyone knows she didn't come home that night”.