February 22, 2023: BULENGO — What it costs to be a displaced person

 One would think one is nowhere, in space, in nothingness, in an empty expanse. You could believe you are in amplified denial, a nowhere complete indifference, or in a nonsense world. Well, we are not far from it.

Difficulty breeds character, they say. But here, we notice more than courage, more than self-denial, more than creativity. Unfortunately, it is humanly dramatic, pathetic. Many people cannot line up in front of toilet doors. They find it easier to defecate in the open. But here there is a question of dignity. They can't do it in front of everyone, you need hidden places. However, there are none, they avoid going to uninhabited areas for fear of ending up in gas zones, two people have already been asphyxiated here. So, you have to defecate at night, out of sight. But how do we manage the needs so that they are only felt at night?  That is the question. And the answer to the question is challenging. Women here embody dignity, they are the first to protect their images. Their physical condition also makes them very vulnerable in such situations. But in their rush for survival, they engage in a technique, deeply revealing and questioning, to face this challenge. Most women here tie a rope to the hallux (big toe) all day in order to block the need to go to the toilet.

We are in Bulengo, more or less 15 km from the city of Goma. A camp for displaced persons has been erected here. Like the other camps in the north in the Kibati territory, it also hosts displaced populations fleeing clashes between M23 rebels and the Loyalist Army. Here, they are even more numerous, crammed into their makeshift shelters,  lost on a perimeter where they are forced to cohabit with methane gas. In the inter-agency meetings in which AGIR RDC participates, we are talking about 80,000 people here. Many needs, but especially those fundamentally primary. We have about 50 toilets for almost 100,000 people. A toilet for 2000 people then? Very alarming.

RD, 28 years old, shared with us her belief in this method "I came from KALENGA in the territory of MASISI, arriving here at the camp, I noticed that there were no sanitary facilities protecting dignity, I was then forced to go far into the forest to do my business, so after two days here at the camp that I became aware of the method of ligating the hallux (the big toe) to retain the need to go to the toilet and since it works, I go to the toilet only at night and there, I do not need to go very far  out of fear, because at least the darkness hides my dignity, I do not know if it has consequences on my health and that of my children .. . »

It is unimaginable to see, difficult to accept. Women in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, reduced to techniques that even the Middle Ages would not have tolerated. Techniques to which no medical expertise can give a visa because of the health consequences it can generate. But for these women abandoned to their sad fate, the technique works, and cannot abandon it without being substituted for a decent solution. This reveals the world's indifference to the suffering of vulnerable populations today in camps for displaced people in eastern DRC, it also reveals the strong inequalities in which populations in distress are taken care of according to whether they are from another region of the world, it reveals what the lack of humanity is capable of in a world that today prides itself on international solidarity masked by the inaction of the world. Powerful states and international mechanisms.

All over the world, war comes with its consequences that in turn generate resilience efforts, but these techniques that reduce humans to the age of polished stone cannot be called resilient. These populations, which have been battered for more than 30 years, need at least careful protection when they find themselves in situations of displacement that increase their vulnerability. Humanity should no longer tolerate this, for any population in distress. Equality in the treatment of displaced persons and refugees, from which corner of the world they come, should be a sacrosanct principle imposed on humanitarian actors and donors from all corners of the world.

It is our duty to ensure that, tonight in Bulengo, when these women untie the rope from their hallux, they never put it back on because at least the next day's living conditions will no longer impose it on them. It is our duty to no longer tolerate seeing this image. It is our responsibility, all of us, to remind the world that this is unacceptable and must stop.

A relief latrine in Bulengo camp, media photo AGIR DRC, February 20, 2022

Photo AGIR DRC, February 20, 2023