“I’m nothing but a defenseless woman. Raped at the age of 8 by her uncle, misunderstood by her family, invisible, shy, with a suicide attempt in adolescence… I fear for my life. I’m afraid to speak. I am afraid to get angry with those around me as I know the consequences which I call punishment, torture, executions, blackmail” Kameni.
“I want to feel pleasure and above all to fight for what I want in my life. I am ready to fight all difficulties. I don’t care what others may think of me”, Princesse.
“I think about the future, my life after Moria, my life after the trauma I experienced in my country and in Turkey. Who knows if I’ll have enough strength to come back? Will I ever have the strength to trust a man again? Deep inside me I still have this hope” K.
Six women from Cameroon. All residents of Moria, “write” their lives and invite us to listen to them.
“I write to put all this behind me”
“Pousse Pion – Push the pawn” is a text of soul and strength that they wrote in the framework of the Creative Writing Workshop (June-October 2019) of the Diotima Center in Lesbos, which was implemented with the support of UNHCR Greece.
“Writers choose to sign with pseudonyms because of the danger they still face in their countries and their fear of being identified and punished,” says Maria Tzavara, coordinator of the Diotima Center team in Lesvos.
“These women left their country trying to escape from their husbands, partners, and relatives. Like hundreds and even thousands of women who are faced with cruel and insuperable discrimination, with daily violence because of their gender and few rights.
Thousands of women trapped in forced marriages face sexual, physical, and psychological violence, while trying to escape for their lives, they are again raped, threatened, and trafficked during the journey to Europe. Nevertheless, power, their power, surpassed every obstacle, every difficulty, and humiliation. It brought them to us, and brought us to them.”
For 4 months, in the workshop they wrote/erased and rewrote dreams, thoughts, memories, stories and today it’s time for them to take the microphone and for us to listen to them” says Maria. “I write to put all this behind me,” Kameni tells me.
Event, 10/12, 6 pm, Mytilini
On the occasion of the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, the Diotima Center and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees will hold a presentation event on the text “Pousse Pion – Push the pawn”, on Tuesday, December 10, 2019, at the Book and Art bookstore, in Mytilini.
Excerpts from the text in French and Greek will be read at the event.
**The Workshop is part of the empowerment actions implemented by the Diotima team alongside the psychosocial support and advocacy services provided to mainly women but also men – survivors of gender-based violence, with the support of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the co-financing of the European Commission.
