Some unbelievably good news – Betty and her children to be reunited
Some of you may know Betty A, a regular volunteer at the Centre where Women Against Rape (WAR) is based, who has been fighting for asylum for eight years. Betty is a rape survivor and mother of five. In July 2006, two months after Betty was illegally deported to Uganda with her five children, she was kidnapped and tortured by security agents.
Your help is needed
Peace M also won the right to asylum in November last year after four
long years of fighting even to get her case heard. Her three children
are lost in Burundi and she needs money to find them. She was forced to
leave them when she fled for her life after being imprisoned, raped and
tortured in 2003. Any spare penny that she has had since she has been
in the UK has gone to looking for them. We appealed for money last year
and raised a few hundred pounds to help. But now that Peace has won the
right to stay in the UK we want to renew our efforts.
The last Peace knows of her children's whereabouts is from when she left them with a friend in Burundi in 2003 She heard that this friend was also forced to leave Burundi and that there is a possibility that he left the children in the care of one of his two sisters. They may be in Uganda or Rwanda.
Peace has found a reliable man who has some experience in detective work who is ready to search for her children. If she could raise £1000 it would cover expenses for transport, food and accommodation for a couple of months for him to look firstly in Western & Central Uganda.
We enclose below background information about Peace’s situation. We know that this is an unusual request but as mothers and carers ourselves, we want to help this family in crisis. We can vouch for Peace’s honesty and reliability. She is a key member of the All African Women’s Group and for many years she has dedicated herself to helping others, often putting aside her own suffering and needs to do so. She is a much loved and valued colleague and we are determined to do all we can to ensure that she too is reunited with her children.
BACKGROUND
Ms M was forced to leave Burundi in 2003 after she and her family, who are Hutu, were targeted by Tutsi authorities. Ms M’s husband and eldest son were kidnapped and disappeared; her brother was decapitated in front of her and she was imprisoned and repeatedly raped. She managed to escape with the help of a friend who paid an agent, and fled to the UK. Tragically and against all her instincts she was forced to leave her four children behind (three boys now aged 18, 16 and 11, and a girl aged 14) because she didn’t know where they were and thought that they would be safer if they weren’t associated with her. Ms M arrived in the UK pregnant as a result of the rape she suffered in prison and is now raising a daughter.
With WAR’s help, Betty applied again for asylum but during the two long years we were fighting the case, only her second youngest son who had a British passport, was able to join her from Uganda. The other four, a 16-year-old daughter, and three younger sons including a baby under a year old, were left destitute. They had to fend for themselves until almost a year ago when we were able, through Sister Joan Faber, a nun who volunteers with us, to provide some support through her sister community in Uganda. Together with Sister Joan, we fundraised to pay a sum each month to feed and support the children and for a few months even to send them to school.
All four children have suffered terribly whilst deprived of their mothers’ care and protection. We were all distraught when Betty got a letter after many months of not even knowing where or how her children were living, from her daughter saying she had suffered rape when she tried to earn money to support the younger ones. Her eldest son was injured trying to do a man’s job of carrying stones, the youngest – a baby – has a walking disability and has repeatedly been desperately sick with malaria.
We share Betty’s fury at the unspeakable brutality and injustice that so many women and our loved ones experience as a result of government policies. Nothing can undo this suffering of the children and of their mother.
Suddenly in November last year we got the astonishing news that Betty had won her case. We raised more money to pay for visas for her children and on Wednesday the children arrived in England. We hope that this particular agony for Betty and her children and for all of us who love her is over. We cannot thank enough our many friends, who at each stage, when they saw we were determined to help, but had no money to do so, put their hands in their pockets and gave generously.
Betty said:
When I got deported Women Against Rape didn’t drop me, they stayed in touch with me, calling me in Uganda asking Betty how are you, what is happening to you. When I got back to the UK we had to start from scratch and fight for me to be able to claim asylum.
Sometimes during that time I was so upset and so depressed I couldn’t face anything. I would call the Centre and they would tell me you have to be strong, we are here for you and they would help me work out what I had to do next. When my children come I want to stand them in the middle of this Centre to tell them that it is because of these people you are here. This is the truth from the bottom of my heart.
