Erin Morgan: Counselling Couples in the Congo after Rape and War

 

During the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, over five million people were killed.  Rape was used as a weapon so frequently that some referred to the country incongruously as "the world capital of rape". Marriage and Family Therapist Erin Morgan developed an innovative counseling program for couples affected by rape. As the International Programs Clinical Consultant of the Center for Victims of Torture, Morgan originally travelled to Congo to do field work for her dissertation; soon after arriving, she decided to focus on marriage after hearing the war had undone and damaged so many marriages. Morgan and local psycho-social counselors worked with three groups of couples and helped repair some of the relationships that survived. The Center hopes to continue this kind of work, funding permitting.

 

What was the effect of this violence on women and marriages?

Peoples' marriages are destroyed. Many couples have abandoned each other or divorced. Those who are still together are totally changed; some are angry with each other or they're cold and distant.

The effects are really varied. It's different for each individual person who comes with their whole life history, but shame is nearly universal-- between the members of a couple, or the couple and the outside world.

Sometimes wives say, "I can't believe you didn't protect me" or husbands say, "you cheated on me with a soldier".  Or the couple could be supportive inside the relationship, but feel ashamed outside the marriage.

This leads to all things like withdrawal, blame and anger on the men's part.  The men didn't know what to do with that anger-understandable when you're deeply committed and deeply in love with your wife and your culture tells you rape is adultery.

When women come to us, they often say, "I was forced to become an adulterer".  Often, they were given the choice of being raped or being killed and later say, 'I made the wrong choice".  We tell them that isn't really a choice, as human beings, we're built to survive, that they are here for their children and spouse.

In the couples groups, a lot of the men would say eventually, "The soldiers would do this to my wife, but I would have been killed if I had been angry with the soldiers." So people figured out that they weren't really mad with each other, even though they had been acting that way. It wasn't safe to show anger to the soldiers, so they expressed anger at the spouse, even though the spouse wasn't the cause. In therapy, they realized that their partner hadn't deserved their anger.Besides that, many people were suffering from: insomnia; physical pain if they had injuries; a huge drop in sexual desire and openness to being approached; and disconnection from themselves.

What helped couples survive this?

It's not different from what makes all couples' relationships resilient, although I haven't analyzed the data yet. It seemed to me that a deep commitment to each other, the sense that each person felt that the other was precious part of their lives and someone that they really liked, was important.

We worked on was identifying the things that they noticed their partner did for them out of love that they liked, appreciated or valued.

They'd relate things as small as, "My wife washes me when I comes in from the field, and shows me that she loves me".  Or  "My husband bought me a piece of fabric when he noticed my skirt was torn".

Remember, the couples we saw were the ones who were still together.  Some men told us, "My wife went off with someone else when she saw what happened to me".  So we only know half of those stories.

What about the effect on the community at large?

Sometimes rapes were performed publicly as a specific weapon with the intent to intimidate or fill a community with fear or teach them.   It ups the ante a huge degree; it heightens the shame and humiliation when you rape a mother in front of an 11 year old son, or take the whole village to the fields and rape them in front of each other.  When you introduce that kind of shame to a community, it makes it hard to face one another, to be together and have any strength together. In times of difficulty, that's what we need to do, to share our strengths because we know we're stronger together than when we're on our own.

People will say I watched this woman be raped, and I couldn't face her son again. Imagine if one of your neighbors were raped in front of you....

Afterwards, it's like there's a cloud over the community of threat or danger, that this could happen to us at anytime-in the US, we ignore those possibility that we could get hit by a bus--but when that reality is brought right into the centre of your consciousness, it has a huge impact on productivity and people's ability to go with their day-making some people feel what's the point? It reduces their will to live. the will to work, the will to be in life.

Its not shameful, its just part of the history, and we have to move forward--this is a normal reaction to absolutely horrible events.

Couples therapy for rape is not common in the United States so what gave the Center of Victims of Torture the idea to do this?

Couples therapy and group couples therapy is intimidating for a lot of us therapists. It's delicated and challenging work.

The idea for multiple couple therapy came from scholars at Virginia Tech and Kansas State who are doing it with domestic violence. The research shows a real difference in recidivism and improvement in the couples.

The unique thing we've seen in the multi-couple groups, is the way that people gain strength, hope and solidarity from one another.  In almost all cultures it's not common to talk about what's happening inside your relationship, so doing that is a new experience and it's reaffirming to hear that other people are dealing with the same things you are.   I saw a lot of courage that people gained from each other.

Over 10 weeks, we moved through a cycle, from discussing life like before the war, how war changed them, the most difficult moments and finally onto the future.

How did you conduct the counselling?

We had people talk about what happened to them and their own contributions to the relationship's difficulties.  We had them say things like, "What I noticed about how I changed toward my partner because what I exp during the war, was...".

A wife would say something like, "I realized I shut down to my husband".  They were able to come into it more gently, to avoid finger pointing.

We had people tell their story:  what they did to help their families survive the war.  They would say things like, "I know that you saved our children because you carried all three of them across the river".  Or  "I know you saved my life, when you chose rape or we would be killed."  Men were coming to see that their wives had saved their lives. It's a difficult phrase to swallow: it's a reality--they were given the choice between rape and death.

They retold the stories saying, "I see what you did, I saw how hard it was for you".  In those sessions we saw a lot of movement--people softening to each other, instead of there being this big dark thing they don't talk about, knowing that everything's been horrible since then.  They were able to acknowledge each other:  they had fought to survive, it wasn't an accident to survive--many people didn't.

Toward the end, they talked about what they hoped for and what they wanted to work for.  By the 8th or  9th week, people felt so much closer saying, "we have our marriage back and it's so much better. We know how to talk and express things to each other".  Just like everywhere else in the world, they don't have classes on how to talk to your partner.

In Western cultures, we're drowning in our feelings, but there they'd say things like, "You washed our kids clothes today", or  "I noticed you're working hard in the fields today".   "I was cold to you after we had that experience during the war, and you didn't deserve it."

How were the children affected?

Some couples wanted to apply what they learned with their children.  Many decided to have conversations about how they survived as a family and how they're going to be all right.  Some had reported big behavioral changes in kids: play-acting soldiers; challenging authority, or pointing out their parents' weakness. Kids threw out,  "You didn't keep me safe, why should I listen to you?

In these talks, parents would say something like, "That was real, that happened to all of us.  You felt unprotected I wasn't able to fight people with guns, but we're safe and we're moving forward." Apparently, kids who had been agitated calmed down.

Were there any effects on the larger community?

Many couples started talking to their neighbors and wanted to do sensitization workshops. We encouraged them. In particular, the chief of the village, said, "I want other men to understand it wasn't their wives' fault that they were raped."

People can heal and recover from so many things.  As human beings we are remarkably resilient; but about 25% of people develop problems that are difficult to overcome. When most people in a community are affected by trauma, 25% is a big percentage. People need to get the right kinds of help.

interview by Amy-Willard Cross