Toufah: The Woman Who Inspired an African #Metoo Movement

"Toufah is the story of Toufah Jallow, a brilliant and inspiring young woman who, after she was forced to flee to Canada from her home in The Gambia, bravely bucked taboo and named herself as a survivor of a sexual assault by the country's dictator--launching an unprecedented protest movement. In 2015, Toufah Jallow was the eighteen-year-old daughter of the second wife in her Muslim father's polygamous household. Her mother, outwardly conforming, had made sure that her daughter was educated and had ambitions of her own. Dreaming of a scholarship and finances to produce and tour a one-woman play about how to eradicate poverty in The Gambia, Toufah entered a presidential competition--sometimes called a beauty pageant in the media, but, according to the president, Yahya Jammeh, designed to identify the smart young women of each generation and lend them financial support. Toufah won. At first, Jammeh, who had ruled The Gambia all of Toufah's life and styled himself as a pious yet progressive protector of women, behaved in a fatherly fashion toward her, but then he proposed marriage. When Toufah turned him down, he drugged and raped her, with the collusion of his cousin. Toufah could not tell anyone what had happened. Not only because there was no word for rape in her native language, but because if her parents protested on her behalf they would all be in danger. Jammeh sent his people to follow Toufah, hoping to intimidate and control her. When his cousin sent for her again, she knew she couldn't stay in The Gambia. Hidden under a niqab, a garment she never wore, she made her escape, confiding in no one so she could keep them safe. She fled across the river border to Senegal, where she learned that Jammeh had put in a request to authorities to return her as a "runaway teen." Despite mounting pressure from the Gambian government, two Senegalese police officers put her in contact with UNHCR and other human rights organizations and she was issued a visa for Canada. Two years later, President Jammeh was deposed. Eighteen months after that, in July 2019, Toufah Jallow became the first woman in The Gambia to make a public accusation of rape against him. Her testimony sparked marches of support and launched a social media outpouring of shared stories among West African women under #IAmToufah, setting Toufah Jallow on the path to reclaiming the future that Yahya Jammeh had tried to steal from her, a future of advocacy and leadership for survivors of sexual violence in The Gambia and beyond."--