Sahrawi woman Khadijettou Mohamed Mahmoud has recounted how she has been raped by a polisario member when she was 18-year-old and the sufferings she endured since then.
The young woman, who was participating in a conference under the theme “Sexual violence in politics”, held in Düsseldorf, Germany, Thursday March 16, 2023, described the ordeal she went through after having been raped at the age of 18 by Brahim Ghali, then Polisario’s representative in Algiers and current leader of the separatist movement.
In her address before the conference, she also denounced the lack of support from society in general, as well as the guilty silence of the Algerian authorities who covered up this sexual assault.
Khadijatou, who worked as a translator in the Tindouf camps from 2005 to 2010, was raped in 2010 by Ghali, whom she sued at a Spanish court the same year.
In this connection, Khadijettou highlighted her difficult but ongoing struggle to obtain justice in the courts of Spain, where she resides.
She then described how human rights are systematically flouted in the Polisario-controlled Tindouf camps as well as the appalling living conditions of the populations sequestered in these camps live, before denouncing the endemic corruption which prevails among the leadership of the separatist movement as well as the embezzlement of international humanitarian aid by these same leaders.
Khadijettou Mohamed Mahmoud ended her address by calling on German authorities to make more efforts to promote the rights of Sahrawi women and girls in the Tindouf camps.
The other speakers participating in the conference, held in the “Das Gerhart-Hauptmann-Haus” Foundation, included Ms. Sarah Lee Heinrich, President of the Federal Youth Office of the German Greens; Mrs. Franziska Brandmann, President of the Federal Office of German Liberal Youth; Ms Christina Kampmann, Spokesperson for Home Affairs of the SPD Parliamentary Group in the Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia; and Mrs. Tessniem Kadiri, journalist and presenter on German television.