News from Angola – Sexual abuse and depression destroy lives. Growing up without love corrodes from within. Being a woman in a sexist society can kill. There are many causes for Tunisia Sebastião, one of the ten women Diageo paid tribute to on Gordon’s Pink Day, on March 3rd.
At the Muhatu Foundation, the activist embraces all pain, dreams and hopes. With affection, expert help and professional guidance, she helps save lives.
By: Edson dos Santos
Before Gordon’s Pink Day, Tunisia Sebastião had been a well-known face for a long time. The United Nations consultant for the business area is a constant presence in the media. But the gala in which Diageo honored the activist and nine other extraordinary Angolan women, “revealed a side that many people, including family members, did not value”: the intense work ahead of the Muhatu Foundation.
“Tributes like this make us aware that our work is worthwhile”, comments Tunisia Sebastião, who thanks Diageo, the largest alcoholic beverage company in the world, distributed in Angola by Refriango, for the “real and sincere concern to publicize social causes and sensitize society”. “Alone we can’t achieve anything, this has to be a collective work”, he emphasizes.
This “willingness to help others” is not new. In fact, she says, “it’s a feeling that runs through my veins since I was a little girl and that has been awakening little by little”. The “first relevant action” took place when she was “between 13 and 15 years old, during high school”. “Once, my school visited Lar Kuzola, an orphanage for girls here in Luanda. It was a hit of reality that tore my heart apart. Even today, I perfectly remember the face of one of those children when he asked me to adopt him”, he guarantees. After the visit, she mobilized colleagues and teachers, “something had to be done”. “The following weekend, we returned home and distributed snacks that we prepared ourselves”.
Tunisia Sebastião’s dynamism at the head of solidarity initiatives would come to the fore again much later, in 2018, the year he returned from France, where he studied Business Law. With an energy that overflows, he began to organize “women’s conferences” that brought together women “victims of sexual abuse and depression” and others who were “looking for guidance on how to cope with their lives or advice to undertake”. She responded to all of them, directing them to specialized professionals, such as psychologists, or offering mentorships in personal and professional development herself.
The “strength of this movement was unstoppable”, he comments. “At a certain point, we saw that we had to organize ourselves”. With “some friends and women who have been with us since the beginning”, she created the organization Impact Women. It wasn’t a random name. “I believe that everyone has something to impact and that transformations happen when we are impacted”.
Last year, the organization was renamed Muhatu Foundation, which “means Woman”. A potent statement of intent.
Sexual assault: victims and abusers
By acquiring a new identity as Muhatu Foundation, Tunisia Sebastião’s project reflected “several notable episodes” experienced over the years. “We started to receive cases of child victims of sexual abuse and that led me to look for more causes and to have contact with more children, with orphaned girls and to deal with very delicate situations”.
Support for rape victims then became a priority. “The first sexually abused girl who came to us, in 2018, works with us today to support other victims. Better than anyone else, he knows how to help them”, she assures.
To reinforce “society’s awareness of this issue”, this year the Muhatu Foundation will launch an “intensive campaign with families, churches and ministries” to reach out to “girls who suffer sexual assault”. Breaking “the spiral of silence” is one of the objectives. “Most of these abuses are ongoing and take place within the home or in close circles. We have cases of people who have been raped since they were five years old and who end up normalizing these aggressions, they find it natural for a certain individual to abuse their body.” By bringing this reality to light, the Muhatu Foundation wants “girls who are being abused to recognize their reality by watching our video.” “It is essential that they gain self-awareness that they are victims and know that there is a number to call for help to end the cycle of aggression.”
But the Muhatu Foundation wants to go deeper. “We are also going to reach the abusers”, advances Tunisia Sebastião. In the “macho culture we have, many men feel that they are the owners of women’s bodies and that needs to be changed, to say that this is not correct and to warn of the serious consequences of this mentality”. “Many abusers don’t even imagine that their acts are like killing a person slowly” and that, “often, this ends in the worst way”. In 2019, “one of the sexually abused girls that the Foundation was supporting committed suicide. It’s something I still can’t get over.”
Hope and an endless sadness
There are several open fronts at the Muhatu Foundation, “and they are all interconnected”, explains the activist who, this year, along with the issue of sexual violations, defined “depression” as one of the organization’s focuses of action. Tunisia Sebastião explains the urgency: “This is a very serious issue in our society and almost always overlooked. People are dying of depression and action is needed.”
The problem manifests itself in different ways, depending on the origin of the person who asks the Foundation for help. “Lower class women don’t call it depression, but sadness. It is normal for them to ‘be sad’ because life is difficult every day. With these people, we essentially work on raising awareness, we motivate them to take better care of themselves and reinforce their self-esteem”.
On the other hand, “depression as such manifests itself mainly in people of the upper class, who apparently have everything but suffer from major depressive states”. “They are asphyxiated women, due to the cultural factor”, reveals Tunisia Sebastião. “Many suffer abusive, physical and/or emotional behavior from their spouses, but feel that they have no escape, because culturally they have to endure the marriage. At the same time, they live in a cocoon, completely tied to their families, without any opportunity to breathe or to be complete women. And they feel guilty for any thought that makes them think of themselves as individuals.” By “requiring women to carry all the burdens on their shoulders”, he continues, “society does nothing” to change this “very dangerous reality”. “The greatest number of cases of suicide by women in our country is related to these family issues and we have to talk about it openly”, he warns.
“Social tragedies” like this one made Tunisia Sebastião “grow”, he acknowledges. With her, “the Muhatu Foundation also matured”. This year, in addition to campaigns on depression and sexual abuse (“let’s try to make as much noise as possible by all possible means”), the organization that has already supported more than 3,000 women since 2018 will also continue to provide training in entrepreneurship to women who want to create or maximize a business.
However, one of the plans “from the heart” for this year completes a “very important for the Foundation” cycle. “We want to create our own home for orphaned girls, one that has our DNA. Many of these children say that their dream is to have a mother, a father, to have a hug and to be loved. In our home, we want to give you attention that combines the material side, affection and training as people. We would like to welcome the girls we already work with in the orphanages that we support materially, and who are already very used to us”, he advances.