NO SPOILERS!!
Director: Hernán Zin
Year: 2013       
Recommended: Yes!

It is a heart-breaking documentary that every person should watch. A brilliant account of the lives of so many women who suffered atrocities during periods of war. It shows how they were used to install fear in entire communities. The interviewed women are heroines not only for surviving such terrible conditions but also for sharing their stories in front of a camera. Their narrations inform the world what is happening in other parts of the globe.

I had to pause this program many times to cry, pray and process all this information. It is very emotional! The thing is, these women can’t “pause” their lives, they have to continue. It is impressive the resilience that they show. I honestly take my hat off to them because they are really strong and admirable. The program speaks about rape, murder, indignation, torture, surviving, abortion, slavery, beatings… also it talks about, miracles, helping others and self-motivation. Seriously, I highly recommend you watch it.

But how do these women move on? Well, they use what is available. In places where extreme poverty is “normal” and where justice is expensive, things like friendship and self-confidence are of the utmost importance to survive. There are good people over there that use what they have to help others to heal.  They listen to them and teach them a profession. That way, the women feel important again and step by step, they recover the will to live. The key is women need to feel that they hold their destiny in their own hands.

I felt comforted when I saw women that could face their attackers. Women that are not afraid anymore and despite suffering, found their way in life. The documentary astutely highlighted the process in 3 stages: breaking the silence, healing the wounds and ending impunity. It also revealed that approximately half a million women and girls have suffered from extreme violence in countries such as Bosnia, Uganda, Ruanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The attackers? Civilians, soldiers and police officers.

Men’s lives are not easy either. They are recruited at a young age and forced to rape women of small villages. While little kids play and watch tv, these kids are taken from primary schools to murder, rape, mutilate.

Noteworthy quotation from the documentary:

·     Being raped made me lose my baby

·     They manage to destroy what can be destroyed in a woman: her dignity

·     A voice, a smell or whatever is enough to bring a flashback to your mind

·     When I started, my daughter was 11 years old. Through the media, I heard that some of the victims were my daughter’s age. That was enough to motivate me to help these women.

·     These women are ready to talk. But they have no one to talk to. People just don’t listen. The whole society needs to be ready to listen.

·     I think this keeps happening because the world keeps silent. When all women in the world understand that their peers are being destroyed and eliminated for no reason, all women in the world will wake up and say NO to atrocities against women, NO to rape, NO to the torture of women for economic interests. Then, men will bow down.