Representa i indica la forma geomètrica que adopten els compostos

Crippling school fees were widely mentioned by women participants as a site of injustice for women and children. Families in DRC face “substantial challenge to educate their children … especially at the post-primary level” (Feda et al. 2015, 63). According to research conducted by the World Bank Group, based on a Household Budget Survey (HBS) and at the primary level of education, families in the poorest quintile pay 42% of their per capita consumption per child educated, compared to only 6% for the richest quintile. The cost of higher education is even more prohibitive for the poorest families, who have to spend 390% of their per capita consumption to educate one child, compared to 55% for wealthier families (Feda et al. 2015, 63). Furthermore, on average, school fees for all levels of education (i.e. preschool through to tertiary) make up 65% of total household spending in DRC; however, this varies slightly by level of education and household wealth (Feda et al. 2015, 64). The average cost of sending a child to school in DRC is estimated at US$44 per year, per student (Brown 2014), with school fees ranging from $US25 to US$35 for primary school students, and $US30 to US$50 for secondary school students (Seay 2010). To put these costs into perspective: in 2006, the poverty headcount ratio in DRC at US$1.25 per day was 88%, and at US$2 per day was 95% (UNESCO 2015). Recent data reveals that the DRC government spends less on education than other Sub-Saharan African countries. International comparison shows that the DRC’s spending on education as a share of GDP (1.8%) is inadequate and lagging, especially compared to the sub-Saharan African average of 4.6% (Feda et al. 2015, 40). Investment in education for children is critical in a transitioning DRC, both in empowering women and for rebuilding healthy communities:

Among the many benefits of education, the two main channels through which education leads to better opportunities and livelihoods are: (i) it increases earnings – an additional year of education is associated with an average increase of 9.1 percent in monthly earnings and each level of education is associated with higher levels of earning (ii), it increases the chances of employment in sectors with high returns, and of gaining contract employment, which offers greater stability. For example, an additional year of education increases the probability of working in wage employment and in household enterprise by 38 percent and 12 percent, respectively, compared to farming activities. Similarly, with agriculture as the base category, an additional year of education increases the likelihood of working in the services and industrial sectors by 20 percent and 16 percent respectively, compared to the agricultural sector. (World Group Bank Education 2015, xiv)

For every year that a girl spends in school, she increases her family income by 20% (CARE 2015).

As mentioned earlier, for many women in DRC who are already living in extreme poverty, the impact of rape and sexual violence is utterly devastating. Almost every woman we spoke with in this research had been abandoned by her husband following rape:

My husband hated me because I was raped from that day. He lost all the value he was giving me and started considering me as a worthless thing.278

My husband asked me to disappear and did not stand by me at all because I was raped ... he considered me as a prostitute because I agreed to have sex with them, I could have refused and accepted to be killed on behalf of the love.279

The abandonment of women by husbands and partners typically extended also to being ostracised and shunned by the broader community:

In the community, our reputation has been lost. Everyone is referring to us as ''those who were raped''. We no longer have value in the eyes of the community.280

I am thought of being HIV positive by people. And, I can now see that some of them no longer care for me although they were friends of mine, they now tell that maybe I have AIDS.281

Consequently, most women raped during the conflict in DRC have been left with sole responsibility for the care of their children and sometimes the children of other deceased family – they have been left to feed, clothe, and educate these children with no support (FIDH 2013, 67). The rate of divorce and separation in DRC increased by “more than 50% in all age groups of women aged 15–49 years, between 1984 and 2007” (Ntoimo and Odimegwu 2014, 1146). Many women in DRC are today the head of their households – many children are born and reared in single mother families (CDF 2005, cited in Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 2005). In many instances, women are caring alone for several school-aged children, including children born of rape:

One of my brothers in law promised to bring me at his place but the day he heard that I was raped, he never come to my place up to now, he did not come to my place two years ago, he does not know in which conditions my children are living because I have 6 children, all of them are girls, so he does not know the way I am living.282

The average household size in DRC is estimated to be 5.5 individuals (ICMC Europe 2014, 50); “[t]he average woman in the DRC will give birth to six children in her lifetime” (World Bank 2014).

It is clear in speaking with women participants in this project that women are strongly committed to caring for their children, but most women described resultant extreme hardship. Women were very distressed by not being able to adequately provide for their children: “And

going mad for this woman is due to the fact that she has become poor. If she had some income, she would not be so traumatized become she would then be able to meet her children’s needs and make them grow well without difficulties.”283

Women are not offered much assistance by family members or the community, because of the hardships that generally prevail in communities; as mentioned previously, there is also the issue of the strong stigma attached to rape and fear of HIV/AIDS:

According to them, I am no longer a woman since I have been raped. They think I wanted it by myself. Poverty as well.284

279 _{Interviewed in Minova, April 19, 2014.}

280 _{Interviewed in Bweremana, September 20, 2014.} 281 _{Interviewed in Bweremana, September 20, 2014.} 282 _{Interviewed in Minova, April 19, 2014.}

283 _{Interviewed during Validation Workshop, June 15, 2015.} 284 _{Interviewed in Bweremana, September 20, 2014.}

There is rejection from the neighbours: “This one will infect us with Aids” they will tell one another.285

This conflict changed my life because before I used to do my business and get my money and I was happy. But now life has changed, I’m not happy since they raped me. And when I’m passing on the road everyone is looking at me, pointing fingers on me, you are neglected so you feel like you are not in this world.286

That is to say that throughout her life, she has no value and this woman undergoes the situation such that if she passes where 5 people are sitting; a group of people, when she sees them, she thinks that she is the matter of the day; they are there talking about her; she has lost her human temper.287

It is clear that, given the high costs of education and the poverty and social isolation faced by women in DRC, women are inevitably struggling to educate their children. It is not surprising that financial constraints are amongst the key reasons for children being out of school at all levels of education, and particularly in rural and remote areas (Feda et al. 2015). As discussed further below, this is a matter of concern, as deprivation in education of children is linked to lifelong adverse impacts (OHCHR 2010, 326).