‘The microcredit was the biggest benefit I received. It gave me dignity and made me respectable. I can even afford to make myself beautiful. Without that, I couldn’t have found a husband. Nobody wants to marry a woman who was raped, but he finds me beautiful because I can take care of myself.’
So reads the statement of a female survivor of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) who had received economic assistance by the Trust Fund for Victims (TFV), an international organization (IO) that helps the victims of the 20 year civil war that raged in Northern Uganda between 1987 and 2008. The TFV’s report claims that SGBV survivors said that this assistance helped them to see themselves as ‘real women’ again.
When I asked a gender specialist what survivors like the woman quoted above mean when they say they feel like ‘real women’ again, she replied: ‘For her, this is the idea that she can be seen in her society as a woman who has value; now for better or worse this means that she can find a good husband. Her value as a woman is determined by her desirability to men. Well that is the same in a lot of cultures including mine [USA]. For her, this made her feel normal again.’
