Denis Mukwege, honorary doctor

On October 9, during the Africa-France summit, the University of Montpellier paid tribute to Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege by making him an honorary doctor during a ceremony held in the anatobia amphitheatre of the Faculty of Medicine's historic building.

" First and foremost, I wanted to draw your attention to the profound suffering of my compatriots [...] The daily lives of the inhabitants of the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, prey to indescribable violence in a shocking, even complicit silence from the international community. " The man who utters these words as he prepares to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Montpellier is a doctor. There's no moralizing, no reproach in the tone of this sixty-year-old, who receives honors to better carry the voice of the tens of thousands of women and children he cares for and accompanies in his hospital.

Rape as a method of warfare

It's impossible to talk about Denis Mukwege without mentioning the recent history of his country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the conflict that has engulfed it. The first Congo war broke out in 1996, plunging this immense country, still known as Zaire, into extreme violence from which it has still not emerged 25 years later: 5 million dead, millions displaced and hundreds of thousands of women and children raped. It was the deadliest conflict since the Second World War, and all that was at stake was taking control of the country's abundant mineral resources.

In 1996, Denis Mukwege became head physician at Lemera Hospital in South Kivu, in the east of the country. After studying medicine in Burundi and specializing in gynecology at the University of Angers in France, the young doctor chose to return to his country seven years earlier. When war broke out, his hospital was brutally destroyed, with many patients, doctors and nurses murdered. After a brief exile in Kenya, he returned to the Congo, where the war was still raging. As a gynecologist, he saw the first victims of what would soon be described as mass rape, committed with unspeakable brutality against hundreds of thousands of Congolese women and children. " Women beaten, gang-raped, shot, mutilated and starved. Rape and sexual violence are increasingly used as a method of warfare," he recounts in his latest book, La force des femmes.

60,000 patients

"It was circumstances that made me a specialist in rape injuries," he continues. And indeed, in view of the number of victims and the seriousness of the injuries, the doctor specialized in cutting-edge reconstructive surgery of the female genitalia and crippling gynecological pathologies. In 1999, he founded the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, his birthplace, entirely dedicated to victims of rape and sexual violence, earning him the nickname " the man who repairs women ". Over a period of 20 years, he treated 60,000 patients. " These rapes indiscriminately affected women, young girls and even babies, the youngest of whom I operated on was 6 months old and the oldest over 80," he says.

At Panzi, Denis Mukwege and his team will go far beyond reconstructive surgery, devising and advocating a holistic model of care for victims of mass rape, including not only the medical dimension, but also the psychosocial, socio-economic and legal ones. " If a woman comes in feeling like a victim, we want her to leave the hospital with the confidence of a survivor. This process is the very essence of our work at Panzi Hospital."

Fighting indifference

The essence of a work that is so disturbing that in 2012, Denis Mukwege was the victim of his first murder attempt. His janitor was shot, his car set on fire, and he himself, tied up, owed his salvation only to the mobilization of local residents. He then went into exile for a while in Belgium, where he wrote a thesis on "the treatment of traumatic urogenital and lower genital-digestive fistulas in Eastern DRC ". Back in Bukavu, he continues his commitment to survivors of sexual violence. To those who question this man's fight for women, he replies: " I defend women because they are my equals - because women's rights are human rights, and because I see with rage the violence inflicted on them. "

For his work at the Panzi hospital, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018. He received this distinction while once again calling on the international community to recognize sexual violence as a prohibited and punishable method of warfare under international humanitarian and criminal law, in the same way as famine or pillaging. In the preface to his book La force des femmes, he reminds us: " As an activist, I am faced with the need to change mentalities, actions and behavior. I'm not fighting against a disease or an anatomical defect, but against far more stubborn adversaries: discrimination, ignorance and indifference. "

Still under threat in his own country, where he lives under surveillance inside his hospital, Denis Mukwege has not given up on raising awareness, extending his fight in the DRC to the fight against all forms of violence against women. In his speech in Montpellier, which deeply moved the audience when he was awarded an honorary doctorate , he recalled: " Conflict-related sexual violence is only the visible expression of violence committed latently in times of peace. This is why we are committed to advocating gender equality and justice.