Man, Côte d’Ivoire

Vendredi 19 septembre 2025

By Marietou BÂ

One evening in 2011 in western Ivory Coast, Juliette Bié was at her sick mother’s bedside while her neighbors fled the clashes of a bloody post-election crisis. When the front door suddenly opened, two men entered and raped her.

Fourteen years after the end of this crisis, which left 3,000 people dead in the country, western Ivory Coast, which was particularly affected at the time, has returned to peace, and preparations for the presidential election on October 25 are proceeding calmly.

But hundreds of women survivors of sexual violence have had to help each other, alone, in an attempt to heal.

Like other victims interviewed by AFP in the region, Juliette Bié did not file a complaint: “We hid because we were ashamed of ourselves,” she confides.

Today, through the support group she has created in Man, she connects and helps dozens of survivors.

“It’s a way to heal. Psychologically, it frees us,” says the woman who lost her mother, a witness to the scene, on the night after she was raped.

In Duékoué, about 60 miles away, Mariam Bakayoko, 35, has also created “a space where, as women, we can express ourselves and share our experiences.” Every week for more than 10 years, they have been meeting over tea to talk.

“A bond of trust has been forged,” she says, “as well as a connection.”
The number of victims of sexual violence is probably underestimated in this region, which was unstable from 2002 to 2011 when a rebellion supporting Alassane Ouattara, the current president in power since 2011, fought forces loyal to the then head of state, Laurent Gbagbo (2000-2011).
The Platform of Organizations for the Reparation of Victims of the Ivorian Crises (POREV-CI), an association, says it has supported more than 950 women victims of sexual violence during the various crises that hit the country between 2002 and 2011.
According to Serge Loua, a local official in Man, “there are bound to be more”: those who were unable or unwilling to speak out.
Fifteen years after the crisis—and two months before the October presidential election—the government organized a forum in Guiglo in mid-August to celebrate and consolidate “peace” in the west, the region most affected by these abuses.
Many women are still searching for this peace.

– Aftermath –

In the Man discussion group, Anne-Marie, whose first name has been changed to preserve her anonymity, like that of other women interviewed by AFP, recounts how her life was turned upside down in 2002.
As she was fleeing the arrival of the rebels, armed men stationed on the road wanted to check her identity. She did not have her papers. “They sent me to their guardhouse. Once there, they threw me to the ground. There were at least four of them,” she says.

One after another, they raped her.
Nine years later, this time in Man, men “came into the house, but there was nothing to steal, so they forced themselves on me again”: another rape.
And the consequences are as psychological as they are physical.
Monique, 50, who was three months pregnant when she was raped in 2002 in Duékoué, lost the child and has never been able to get pregnant again. Agnès, 52, who was raped the same year in Man, has been HIV-positive ever since.
“We can’t talk about peace because we haven’t received the compensation we deserve,” she says indignantly.

– Mutual aid –

All the women interviewed  say they have received no financial or psychological assistance from the state, even though they reported their situation to aid organizations after the crisis.
“They feel forgotten,” says Justine Kpan, mental health counselor at the POREV-CI association, which has been supporting them since 2021.
The Minister of National Cohesion, Solidarity, and the Fight Against Poverty, Belmonde Dogo, assured AFP that “all women who were raped and who registered for the victim assistance program received support from the government.”
These women, some of whom lost their husbands in the violence and others who were rejected by their spouses, particularly “need income-generating activities to be able to rebuild their lives,” explains Justine Kpan.

Humaniterre with AFP