Kabika and Egrin

Kabika Bashige was only 20 when armed rebels raided her village in the middle of the night. Her younger sister was murdered and Kabika and two other girls were taken.

They were forced to walk for nine hours through thick forest before reaching the rebel camp. For seven months, Kabika was kept as a prisoner and raped over and over again.

Then, she and her friends escaped. The other girls were killed as they tried to run away but, Kabika made it home. Soon after, she gave birth to a son – Egrin Ehza Hamoba.

Kabika's family called her baby 'nyoka' the Swahili word for snake and threw her and her baby out of the house.

In the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where rape is used as a weapon of war, many thousands of children like Egrin are born every year. Communities often reject these 'children of the enemy' fearing they will one day grow up to 'bite them'.

Congolese newborns have to be registered within a month of birth to be recognised as legal citizens by the state. Like many rape survivors, Kabika was too traumatised to register her son in time and did not have the money to pursue his case in court. Without an official birth certificate, he had no legal rights and could not get a place at school.

SCIAF works with AJV, a group of local lawyers who are fighting to gain legal recognition for children born as a result of rape. Money donated here in Scotland paid for a lawyer to help Kabika get a birth certificate for her son. Now Egrin Ehza is a registered DRC citizen and can go to school.

With SCIAF’s support, AJV has attained birth certificates for 47 children, and many other cases are proceeding through court. AJV is also campaigning for the law to be changed so that mothers like Kabika can register their children without having to go to court.