{"id":10167,"date":"2022-02-05T19:25:37","date_gmt":"2022-02-05T19:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/uncategorized\/gambian-refugee-toufah-jallow-opens-up-about-assault-by-countrys-ex-dictator"},"modified":"2022-02-05T20:10:13","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T20:10:13","slug":"gambian-refugee-toufah-jallow-opens-up-about-assault-by-countrys-ex-dictator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambian-refugee-toufah-jallow-opens-up-about-assault-by-countrys-ex-dictator","title":{"rendered":"Gambian refugee Toufah Jallow opens up about assault by country\u2019s ex-dictator"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Gambia. <\/strong><\/span>The photograph on the cover of Toufah, by Gambian-Canadian Toufah Jallow, shows the author staring directly into the camera. Her clothes and head wrap bear the words \u201csurviving,\u201d \u201cresist,\u201d \u201credefine\u201d and \u201cjustice,\u201d setting the tone for a memoir about her journey from rape victim to #MeToo activist and determined changemaker in her home country of Gambia and throughout West Africa.<\/p>\n

The sexual assault that changed Jallow\u2019s life in 2015 was even more traumatizing because the perpetrator was Gambia\u2019s dictator\/president, Yahya Jammah. Jallow, then a 19-year-old winner of a competition for the country\u2019s brightest young women, was promised a scholarship to study abroad. Instead, Jammah proposed marriage. When she rejected him, he lured her to his mansion, ostensibly for a Ramadan observance. While religious leaders intoned prayers in his garden nearby, he drugged and sodomized her.She ran for her life, smuggling herself over the border to Senegal, where she lived in hiding from Jammah\u2019s operatives until she was given a path to permanent residence in Canada. With blunt description and mature analysis, she describes her transformation from a teenage student in a comfortable family to a penniless outcast. She was adrift in a foreign environment, fearful for her future and her family\u2019s safety at homeOver the next few years, Jallow focused her energy on scraping by financially in Toronto, with a brief stint in Vancouver. Her struggle took place concurrently with Jammah\u2019s being deposed in 2016 and a pledge by the new president to hold Jammah and his enablers accountable for the imprisonment and murder of political opponents and journalists, the slaughter of students and refugees and the pillaging of the Gambian treasury. It also took place alongside U.S. president Donald Trump\u2019s election and revelations about his aggressions toward women, as well as the #MeToo movement that led to the conviction of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein on sexual assault charges.<\/p>\n

With therapy, Jallow finally gained confidence to speak openly, identifying herself and naming her attacker. The people who helped her escape supported her through the glare of press conferences and testimony at Gambia\u2019s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission in 2019. As the first woman to make this kind of public declaration, she was called a liar, a whore, a gold digger and more by Jammah\u2019s supporters and those defending the patriarchal structure of Gambian society. But negative attacks were mitigated by messages of support and an overwhelming number of women revealing their own assaults, many for the first time. They saw in her someone they could trust with their stories.<\/p>\n

She established the Toufah Foundation to support survivors of sexual assault, and has taken part in United Nations and other human rights initiatives.<\/p>\n

Throughout, Jallow expresses the same frustrations that keep women everywhere from reporting sexual assaults \u2014 that a charge of rape morphs into \u201cshe was allegedly raped,\u201d whereas accusations of robbery, murder, amd other acts are rarely doubted. In Gambia, a sexual assault is seen as a stain on a family\u2019s honour and the victim is often blamed. Because of this, the criminal goes unpunished, while victims suffer in secrecy for life. \u201cI was lucky,\u201d she says. \u201cI had gone to therapy, learned to centre and calm myself, even when my trauma threatened to knock me over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jallow credits Canadian journalist and co-author Kim Pittaway \u201cfor helping me focus my voice\u201d in writing this compelling narrative. Jallow joins others calling for justice and challenges to the culture of misogyny. Asserting her strengths, she continues this work in Gambia and Canada. She is now at school in Toronto, studying to be a counsellor for assaulted women and children.<\/p>\n

Harriet Zaidman is a children\u2019s and freelance writer in Winnipeg. Her latest young adult novel, Second Chances (Red Deer Press), is set in the polio epidemic of the 1950s.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Gambia<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Gambia. The photograph on the cover of Toufah, by Gambian-Canadian Toufah Jallow, shows the author staring directly into the camera. Her clothes and head wrap bear the words \u201csurviving,\u201d \u201cresist,\u201d \u201credefine\u201d and \u201cjustice,\u201d setting the tone for a memoir about her journey from rape victim to #MeToo activist and determined changemaker in her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":10166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,8,9],"tags":[2355,2361,4483,260,4482],"class_list":["post-10167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-miscellaneous","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-gambia","tag-dictator","tag-gambia","tag-refugee"],"yoast_head":"\nGambian refugee Toufah Jallow opens up about assault by country\u2019s ex-dictator - Gambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The photograph on the cover of Toufah, by Gambian-Canadian Toufah Jallow, shows the author staring directly into the cam ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambian-refugee-toufah-jallow-opens-up-about-assault-by-countrys-ex-dictator\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gambian refugee Toufah Jallow opens up about assault by country\u2019s ex-dictator\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The photograph on the cover of Toufah, by Gambian-Canadian Toufah Jallow, shows the author staring directly into the cam ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambian-refugee-toufah-jallow-opens-up-about-assault-by-countrys-ex-dictator\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-02-05T19:25:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-02-05T20:10:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/gambia\/sites\/19\/2022\/02\/img-61fed97438196.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"427\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"641\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambian-refugee-toufah-jallow-opens-up-about-assault-by-countrys-ex-dictator#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambian-refugee-toufah-jallow-opens-up-about-assault-by-countrys-ex-dictator\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Gambian refugee Toufah Jallow opens up about assault by country\u2019s ex-dictator\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-02-05T19:25:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-02-05T20:10:13+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambian-refugee-toufah-jallow-opens-up-about-assault-by-countrys-ex-dictator\"},\"wordCount\":662,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambian-refugee-toufah-jallow-opens-up-about-assault-by-countrys-ex-dictator#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/gambia\/sites\/19\/2022\/02\/img-61fed97438196.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Gambia\",\"dictator\",\"Gambia\",\"refugee\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"head lines\",\"homepage-english\",\"miscellaneous\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambian-refugee-toufah-jallow-opens-up-about-assault-by-countrys-ex-dictator#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambian-refugee-toufah-jallow-opens-up-about-assault-by-countrys-ex-dictator\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/gambian-refugee-toufah-jallow-opens-up-about-assault-by-countrys-ex-dictator\",\"name\":\"Gambian refugee Toufah Jallow opens up about assault by country\u2019s ex-dictator - 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