"Mimi"

Mimi is the community leader for sexual violence in multiple villages in the Karonga area. Her fellow community members trust her judgment and counseling advice. She leads group therapy, goes to people’s homes to check in on them, and connects people with different organizations because she knows that her community and her people need her. She is the true epitome of what it means to overcome and then support, all because she saw a gap in care and response. She also embodies the idea of a community response to sexual violence. Despite the lack of resources, Mimi does all this work in her free time.

We had the honor to sit down with Mimi and ask her about her life and her own story. Mimi’s passion for helping also partly comes from her own experiences of violence. When she was 16 years old, she had some time off from school, and her stepmother requested that she help out in their shop. Mimi agreed and was sent to a farm to collect sugar cane. She got into the car with the driver and immediately started feeling sleepy. She expressed this concern to the driver, who told her he would give her some pills to sustain her energy.

The next thing Mimi knew, she woke up in a hotel room with immense pain in her vagina and uterus. She could not use the toilet; she felt tears and was bleeding. Mimi immediately knew what had happened and called her stepmother. She told Mimi to give the phone to the driver; after Mimi found him, she attempted to provide him with the phone, but sensing what was going on, he swiftly gave Mimi money and the keys to the car and fled.

Mimi knew she had to get to the hospital, as she was having trouble standing up and walking, as the pain had become so intense. When she arrived, they stitched parts of her vagina and also tested her for STDs. She was negative at the time, but they told her to return in a few months to be tested again. When she returned, she was still negative but was found pregnant with twins. She followed through on her prenatal care, and as she went into labor, she tested positive for HIV. I asked her how this made her feel, and she said that while this was upsetting, she had no choice but to move forward and take care of her two children.

In the meantime, Mimi was still living with her stepmother, who grew increasingly impatient and angry. People in the village had found out about Mimi’s experience and ended up blaming the stepmother for it, as she was the one who suggested Mimi go in the car with the driver. These accusations made her extremely angry, and she chased Mimi out of the house.

Mimi got support from a local orphanage until she could secure a place of her own. Currently, she is selling doughnuts on the street to provide her family with some income. She lives in the same village as her stepmother and is doing her best to foster a close relationship, even 20 years after. Even today, her stepmother tells her that she is nothing. She has told Mimi that she is already "dead" because of what happened to her. Being the warrior she is, Mimi says that she does not allow this to affect her and knows that she is doing OK and making a life for herself. It took her some time to reach this place; it was difficult for her, and she even tried to take her own life.

When she is not working, Mimi works at the village victim support units and attempts to counsel people and advise them on ways forward. She knows so many people and is the glue that holds this community together and keeps them strong. Many people feel comforted that they are not the only ones, and Mimi plays a given role in fostering this feeling.