“I don’t want my story to become just a song that I sing over and over,” says Alfonsine, a tiny, soft-spoken 30-year-old who survived an unimaginable rape, and has just been invited to be a spokesperson at the launch of a national campaign against sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Her objection is entirely valid:  although I am meeting her for the first time, I already know that a man abducted Alfonsine in the forest, raped her and fired a bullet into her vagina, destroying her insides. I know that despite several operations to reconstruct her bladder and colon, she will always need a colostomy bag, can never again have intercourse with her husband, will never bear children. I know that during her recovery, she somehow summoned the strength to earn her high school diploma and is now working with rape survivors, here at the Panzi Hospital where we’re meeting, and that she is studying to be a nurse. I also know from my research that the saintly man to my right, Dr. Denis Mukwege, Managing Director of this medical refuge in the Congo’s conflict-ravaged eastern region, has played tour guide and host to countless aid workers and journalists, donors, assessment teams and researchers over the past nine years, and that he has few resources to show for it.

“What good has it done to tell my story?” Alfonsine asks activist/playwright Eve Ensler, whom I’ve accompanied on her second trip to the Congo in six months. Well, in fact, Eve reports, it set off a whole chain of events: Alfonsine’s story was included in a magazine article that Eve published in the US and circulated worldwide; the article sparked new media interest, and Eve was twice invited to speak to the UN Security Council; V-Day – the global anti-violence movement that Eve started ten years ago – has teamed up with local women’s rights activists, UNICEF and the Panzi Hospital to end violence against Congolese women. In a few days’ time, the First Lady will launch a national campaign called “Stop raping our greatest resource: Power to women and girls of DRC”. That’s where Alfonsine’s help is needed; her ordeal was a dreadful one, but her triumph over it is an inspiration.  The young woman nods. “That’s good,” she says.

And best of all, Eve tells her excitedly, we raised enough money to purchase a plot next to Panzi for a “City of Joy” – a transitional housing complex for post-discharge rape victims who’ve been banished by their husbands or communities, or are too psychologically damaged or fearful to return to their villages. “Very good,” Alfonsine says with a small, reserved smile. “I’ll speak with the press.”