Mukwege Foundation: from a local initiative to global impact
- EA2021
- Mar 26, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: May 3, 2021
Dr. Denis Mukwege, a world-renowned gynaecological surgeon, grew up in the hills of Congo where he would comfort the sick and dying as he traveled throughout the community with his father, a pastor. On his travels, Mukwege came across many laboring mothers without a safe place to deliver their babies, an insight that would profoundly impact his life. In 1999, Mukwege founded the Panzi Hospital as a clinic for gynaecological and obstetric care. Soon, however, it became clear that it was not maternal health but conflict-related gynaecological trauma that would shape the future of the Hospital and inspired the emergence of a national and international foundation. In 2018, Mukwege received the Nobel Peace Prize together with Nadia Murad Basee for "their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict".
Panzi Hospital has created a four-pillar holistic healing model that addresses the complete array of needs for sexual violence survivors. “Panzi creates a safe space that supports not only women’s physical healing, but fosters their emotional recovery, helps rebuild their livelihoods, and contributes to the long-term, sustainable restoration of their communities.” The hospital has both specialized in the reconstructive surgeries that help survivors of sexual violence get control back over their bodies, in the psychosocial care that is needed to deal with the psychological trauma (i.e. depression, extreme fear and self-blame) and in the prevalent social exclusion from their communities and loved ones. Psychosocial care is offered both on an individual- and group-level. The individual care aims to support victims through tailor-made therapy along with preventing marginalization through counseling with members of their family, whereas the group care offers additional counseling that engages survivors with others in comparable situations.
The Panzi Hospital has grown into the Panzi Foundation RDC offering several forms of support. An example of this is the Panzi Legal Clinic, which offers legal assistance in order to enhance women’s rights. This part of the organization tries to restore the critical balance and protection for survivors and their communities through forensic evidence and the strengthening of local preventative and monitoring capacities.
While the Panzi Foundation DRC works to support victims of sexual violence specifically in DRC, the Mukwege Foundation has a global focus. The Mukwege Foundation connects survivors worldwide, supports national survivor networks in several countries, promotes holistic care in conflict settings around the world, and advocates for survivor-centred reparations and accountability. The impact of the work of Dr Mukwege and his team at Panzi Hospital in DRC is a source of inspiration for the Mukwege Foundation as it motivates them to scale-up their best practices elsewhere. The Mukwege Foundation now supports survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in over 21 countries and 6 continents. Part of the Mukwege Foundation is SEMA; a global network that represents and advocates for policy and law change worldwide. SEMA is rooted in survivor-led, activist networks at a local level, that mobilize collectively and represent thousands of survivors of wartime sexual violence.
A criticism of this story might be that it inadvertently reinforces dominant discourses of ‘Africa’ as war-torn, as a place where sexual violence is widespread and ‘African’ women need saving. But wartime sexual violence is a global issue - not just an ‘African’ or Congolese issue. The story of the Mukwege Foundation is one that starts in a small hospital in the DRC, growing out to become a global organisation aiming to end conflict-related sexual violence worldwide. It strengthens local initiatives and supports survivors of wartime sexual violence - upholding the agency of such initiatives as well as survivors. This is an impressive story of a small group of people from the DRC who have used their knowledge and experience to build up a global foundation, supporting survivors of conflict-related sexual violence worldwide.
Authors: Fee Verschoor, Luca Nipius, Madelief Broecheler, and Jelle Honing Sources and other relevant links:
"Announcement" (PDF). The Nobel Peace Prize.
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