SITTING beside a banner with the words “The truth shall set you free”, Fatou Jallow, known as Toufah, recounted details of her alleged rape by Yahya Jammeh, the Gambia’s former president.
Her family listened in the hearing room of the Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission.
“I know a lot of people will find it difficult to believe what I’ve said, when you live in a culture where you believe that women should be quiet. It’s a culture where you have to keep secrets. That’s the culture that I come from,” Jallow said in her concluding statement late last month.
Jallow (23) is the unexpected catalyst for the Gambia’s “Me Too” moment.
Earlier this year, she became the first woman to publicly accuse Jammeh of rape in an investigation by NGOs Human Rights Watch and Trial International.
She alleges that Jammeh assaulted her during a Ramadan festival at State House as punishment for refusing to accept his marriage proposal – she had caught his eye when she won a beauty pageant in 2014.
Speaking from her adopted home of Toronto, Canada, shortly before returning to the Gambia, Jallow said an “overwhelming” number of women confessed their stories to her after she spoke out.
“It was a learning experience, I thought ‘Oh my god, I knew it’s bad, but I didn’t know it was to this extent’” – REUTERS
