Desiré Lemoupa
When I look back at how far I’ve come, and all that I’ve been through, I can only just thank God for strength. Because of all we’ve gone through in our country, we find a way to get out hoping to find a solution. But, we still carry most of the things that we thought we were leaving back home with us. They never truly die.
These photos and stories of TASSC International members are selected from Portraits of Resilience, a series by Jonathan Banks. This project began in 2018 as a way to educate the public about the practice of torture and allow survivors to present their stories in an exploratory and creative fashion.
The scars are always somewhere underneath. Sometimes you put up a smile, but the scars of the torture and trials that you went through are part of you. Being a survivor is not a journey’s end or a finish line – it’s an everyday struggle. Despite the fact that you leave your country, you come to this whole new country and face new challenges. With all the scars and baggage you carry with you, it’s a whole journey. It does get easier, but the scars never go away.
Back home you couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. You could see the overwhelming sense of hopelessness. You could not turn to family or the police. With my situation, I could not turn to my government. There was this overwhelming sense of hopelessness and it was like it never seemed to end. But here, despite all the challenges we face, we have the support of the government and groups that have all these resources that we don’t have back home.
I chose this image because you can actually see the military that is supposed to be protecting the nation and its citizens torturing individuals. The military people are paid from the taxpayers’ money and the same taxpayers are being tortured by the military. Instead of the military being used to protect borders and fight terrorists, civilians are being tortured. That image really brings back a lot of sad memoires that I particularly did not witness; but, I watched people who went through all that. One particular individual that I worked with was forced by the military to swim in the mud because he was gay. Looking at this image felt like déjà vu of when that guy told me about his experience of swimming in the mud because he was gay. He could not go to the police; there was nothing he could do, but just live through the torture. When I look at that image, it brings a lot to mind. A lot needs to change in that country.