A REFUGEE’S PLEA FROM CONGO
Pax Lumina asks how we might reimagine gender for peace. I answer: by centering refugee women who have survived structural violence, cultural stigma, and institutional exclusion and who have nonetheless chosen to build peace, one small act at a time.
I am a refugee woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am a mother of seven children. I am the founder and coordinator of Refugee Women Care, registered in Kenya in 2025. I am currently pursuing a Master’s in Peace Studies and International Relations at Hekima University College. I was formerly the Chief of the Division of Gender, Children, and Family in South Kivu province a region ravaged by over thirty years of armed conflict. I fled to Kenya after political corruption
enabled my predecessor to reclaim my position illegally. When I pursued legal recourse, my children’s lives were endangered. I arrived with nothing. I cleaned apartments for 4,000 Kenyan Shillings per month. Today, I am a para-counsellor, a mediator-in-training, and a peacebuilding practitioner.
Related Articles
BEYOND THE RIGIDITY OF IDENTITY
English, in particular, is a language of binary imprisonment. It forces the observer to choose, to categorize, to become either
TRANSGENDER GENETICS FACT OR FANTASY?
As it happened, those who regarded genetic factors as determinative and traits as binary came to prevail in the field.
GENDER DIVERSITY, CONSTITUTIONALISM, AND THE PURSUIT OF PEACE IN LATIN AMERICA
This article argues that sustainable peace cannot beachieved through formal legal recognition alone. In many Latin American contexts, constitutionalism has
