Anthroscape report: a case study from the Republic of Congo (2013)

Indigenous Peoples’ Institutions, Values and Practices: Lessons for the Implementation of Indigenous Children’s and Women’s Rights A Case Study from the Republic of Congo

© UNICEF Brazzaville

December 2013 Sophie Borreill and Ingrid Lewis, Luke Freeman, Jerome Lewis, Camille Oloa Biloa

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Š United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 2014 Permission to reproduce any part of this publication is required.

The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or views of UNICEF, UNFPA and UNDP.

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Table of Contents Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................... 10 Executive summary ................................................................................................................................. 11

Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 22 1. General aim and calls for the research ........................................................................................ 22 2. General approach and methodology: a research matrix based on a rights approach 25 3. Fieldwork plan and constraints ..................................................................................................... 26 4. Key facts and terminology about indigenous peoples in the Republic of Congo.......... 26 5. Selection of research areas and villages ..................................................................................... 28

Part 1: An overview of indigenous peoples’ living environment, history, institutions and systems of organisation .................................................................................................................. 32 Chapter 1: The Mbendjele .................................................................................................................... 32 1. Key environmental and historical aspects ........................................................................................... 32 1.1 Environmental aspects .............................................................................................................................. 32 1.2 Historical aspects......................................................................................................................................... 33 2. Mbendjele economic, political, social and ritual systems .............................................................. 34 2.1 An economic system based on immediate returns ........................................................................ 34 2.2 A social system based on demand sharing, ekila, mosambo, moadjo and gender interdepedence .................................................................................................................................................... 34 2.3 Mbendjele rituals and the importance of play ................................................................................. 37 2.4 Myths ................................................................................................................................................................ 38 3. Mbendjele key groups and entities ......................................................................................................... 38 3.1 The family and clan: bandi and ekuli ................................................................................................... 38 3.2 Elders – but no chiefs and leaders ........................................................................................................ 39 3.3 Specialists: elephant hunters, spirit guardians…............................................................................ 39 Chapter 2: The Tswa and Bongo ......................................................................................................... 40 1. Key environmental and historical aspects ........................................................................................... 40 1.1 Environmental aspects .............................................................................................................................. 40 1.1.1 The Plateaux of the Tswa ...................................................................................................................... 40 1.1.2 The Chaillu Mountain of the Bongo .................................................................................................. 40 1.2 Historical aspects......................................................................................................................................... 41 1.2.1 The Tswa ..................................................................................................................................................... 41 1.2.2 The Bongo ................................................................................................................................................... 42 2. Tswa and Bongo institutions ..................................................................................................................... 42 2.1 The nuclear family....................................................................................................................................... 42 2.2 The extended family ................................................................................................................................... 43 2.3 Clan and lineage ........................................................................................................................................... 44 2.4 Chiefs and counsellors ............................................................................................................................... 45 2.5 Traditional healers and nganga............................................................................................................. 46 2.6 Tswa and Bongo system of beliefs: witchcraft, ancestors and church .................................. 47 Part II: Key areas of indigenous social life and human rights: practices, concepts and data ............................................................................................................................................................... 48 Chapter 1. Intra-ethnic relations ....................................................................................................... 48 1. Indigenous notions of equality, equity, fairness, rightness, child and ‘best interests of the child’ ......................................................................................................................................................................... 48 2. The comparative status of women, men, girls and boys ................................................................ 50 3. Gender equality and gender discrimination ....................................................................................... 54 4. Intersecting inequalities including disabilities .................................................................................. 55 5. Children’s identity and registration of births ..................................................................................... 57 Chapter 2: Maternal and child health ............................................................................................... 58 1. Indigenous notions of health ..................................................................................................................... 58

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2. Access to healthcare and treatment of diseases, both traditionally and through medical centres ..................................................................................................................................................................... 58 3. Attitudes towards traditional and non-traditional family planning methods ...................... 62 4. Attitudes towards immunisation and implementation of the immunisation policy .......... 62 5. Attitudes towards abortion ........................................................................................................................ 63 6. Maternal health ............................................................................................................................................... 64 7. Healthcare attendance figures .................................................................................................................. 67 Chapter 3: Access to justice .................................................................................................................. 67 1. The indigenous notion of accountability .............................................................................................. 67 2. Traditional justice systems ........................................................................................................................ 68 3. Protection of abused children and women .......................................................................................... 70 4. Treatment of juvenile offenders by the law ........................................................................................ 71 5. Corporal punishment of children ............................................................................................................ 71 6. Interface between traditional and magistrates’ court systems .................................................. 71 7. Access to magistrates’ courts .................................................................................................................... 72 Chapter 4: Violence ................................................................................................................................. 73 1. Indigenous notions of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation ............................................... 73 2. Physical, domestic and sexual violence ................................................................................................. 73 3. Psychological violence ................................................................................................................................. 74 4. Exploitative and hazardous labour, slavery and trafficking ......................................................... 74 Chapter 5: Access to education ........................................................................................................... 76 1. Indigenous ‘education’ ................................................................................................................................. 76 2. School education............................................................................................................................................. 76 3. Initiatives to facilitate indigenous children’s access to schooling ............................................. 78 4. Literacy and other courses for people who have received no schooling ................................ 79 5. School attendance and evidence of drop-out and completion rates ......................................... 80 Chapter 6: Economic rights .................................................................................................................. 82 1. Indigenous concept of property ............................................................................................................... 82 2. Economic status .............................................................................................................................................. 83 3. The system of land tenure and land access for women .................................................................. 84 4. Inheritance regimes ...................................................................................................................................... 86 Part III: Implications for Programming ........................................................................................... 87 1. National implications and recommendations .......................................................................... 87 1.1 Discrimination .............................................................................................................................................. 87 1.1.1 Anti-discrimination campaigns .......................................................................................................... 87 1.1.2 Protecting land rights and access to resources ........................................................................... 88 1.1.3 Creating an anti-discrimination government department ..................................................... 89 1.1.4 Training and recruiting indigenous civil servants ..................................................................... 89 1.1.5 Basic numeracy and literacy skills for indigenous peoples .................................................... 89 1.2 Social and cultural awareness ................................................................................................................ 91 1.2.1 Freedom and autonomy ........................................................................................................................ 91 1.2.2 Women’s contribution to public meetings and their influence over projects ................ 92 1.2.3 Putting egalitarian principles at the heart of development projects.................................. 93 1.2.4 Limits on the applicability of the notion of accountability ..................................................... 93 1.2.5 Early pregnancy and marriage: a pragmatic life strategy ....................................................... 93 1.3. Access to justice .......................................................................................................................................... 93 1.3.1 Specific training of indigenous representatives and the judiciary ...................................... 93 1.3.2 Training and monitoring of authorities issuing birth certificates ....................................... 94 1.3.3 Trained lawyers paid by the state ..................................................................................................... 94 1.3.4 Language, interpreters and minutes ................................................................................................ 94 1.4. Health .............................................................................................................................................................. 94 1.4.1 Incorporating traditional and Western medical knowledge ................................................. 94 1.4.2 Improving access to healthcare centres ......................................................................................... 95 1.4.3 Alcohol ‘prohibition’ campaign .......................................................................................................... 96

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1.5. Education ....................................................................................................................................................... 96 1.5.1 The central issue: Is formal schooling the key for a better future for indigenous children? ................................................................................................................................................................. 96 1.5.2 Ways of facilitating access to schools and learning ................................................................... 97 1.5.3 Continuing to secondary school and pursuing formal education ........................................ 99 1.5.4 Non-formal education initiatives for numeracy, literacy and crafts skills ..................... 100 2. Implications for the South and Plateaux................................................................................. 100 2.1 Social and cultural awareness .............................................................................................................. 100 2.1.1 Communication....................................................................................................................................... 100 2.1.2 The financial independence of children and young adolescents........................................ 100 2.1.3 Projects to counterbalance gender imbalances......................................................................... 100 2.1.4 Contradictory explanations of financial success ....................................................................... 101 2.1.5 Development programmes based on individuals and households ................................... 101 2.1.6 The question of protection of cultural heritage ........................................................................ 101 2.1.7 Agricultural projects ............................................................................................................................. 101 2.2 Justice ............................................................................................................................................................. 102 2.2.1 Strengths and weaknesses of the Tswa and Bongo ‘traditional justice system’ .......... 102 2.2.2 Functional complementarity of traditional and court justice systems ............................ 102 2.3 Health ............................................................................................................................................................. 103 2.3.1 Food and water projects for the Plateaux.................................................................................... 103 2.3.2 Traditional healers’ knowledge rescue programme for the Plateaux .............................. 103 2.3.3 Special information package on hygiene and maternal and child health in the Plateaux and the South ...................................................................................................................................................... 103 2.3.4 Research on Bongo children employed as house servants ................................................... 103 2.3.5 Agricultural and technical training programmes in urban Bongo settlements ........... 103 3. Implications for the northern region ........................................................................................ 104 3.1 Development projects.............................................................................................................................. 104 3.1.1 Preserving an egalitarian lifestyle .................................................................................................. 104 3.1.2 Projects promoting demand sharing over individual property and consumption ..... 104 3.1.3 The importance of maintaining hunting practices and access to abundant forest resources on their territory .......................................................................................................................... 105 3.1.4 Projects which do not impose leaders or provide preferential treatment .................... 105 3.1.5 Coping with demand sharing and inequalities .......................................................................... 105 3.1.6 Development programmes based on communal cooperation ............................................ 105 3.1.7 Integrating Mbendjele knowledge into conservation policy ............................................... 105 3.2 Justice ............................................................................................................................................................. 106 3.2.1 Strengths and weaknesses of the Mbendjele ‘traditional justice system’ ...................... 106 3.2.2 Dependence on Bantu ‘patrons’ to bring major legal problems to the court ................ 106 3.2.3 Complementarity and friction between the traditional justice system and the judiciary ................................................................................................................................................................ 106 3.3 Health ............................................................................................................................................................. 107 3.3.1 Population density, nomadic lifestyle and geographical access to health...................... 107 3.3.2 Research on diseases associated with sedentarisation.......................................................... 107 3.3.3 Forest pharmacopeia and medical knowledge .......................................................................... 108 3.3.4 Ethno-botany and medical anthropology research project.................................................. 108 3.3.5 Improved access to hospital for pregnant women in poor urban camps ....................... 108 3.4 Education ...................................................................................................................................................... 109 3.4.1 The use of the Mbendjele language in teaching......................................................................... 109 3.4.2 Mobile schooling and use of Radio Biso na Biso for the Mbendjele .................................. 109 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 110 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................... 112

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List of Photos Photo 1: Aerial view of the logging town of Pokola______________________________________________________________ 29 Photo 2: The settlement of Sembola ______________________________________________________________________________ 30 Photo 3: The settlement of Mopepe _______________________________________________________________________________ 30 Photo 4: A bey or clearing in the forest in the north of the Republic of Congo _________________________________ 33 Photo 5: Young BAAKA girl reading his lessons __________________________________________________________________ 51 Photo 6: Mbendjele women dancing at the Ngoku ritual in Indongo ___________________________________________ 52 Photo 7: Tswa girls pounding manioc in the village of Nsah ____________________________________________________ 55 Photo 8: Tswa baby from the village of Oli suffering from malnutrition _______________________________________ 59 Photo 9: Official tariffs for consultation in the Integrated Health Centre (CSI) of Nsah _______________________ 62 Photo 10: Bongo mother and daughter on their way to gather food ___________________________________________ 76 Photo 11: The ‘Integration School’ in Ngo _______________________________________________________________________ 78 Photo 12: The private indigenous school of Foyer Frederik Association Baka (FFAB) ________________________ 79

List of Boxes Box 1: Calls for a culturally sensitive approach to indigenous peoples’ human rights _________________________ 23 Box 2: The emphasis of the ILO convention No. 169 on the respect of indigenous peoples’ institutions ______ 23 Box 3: Cases of disabilities witnessed in the North ______________________________________________________________ 56 Box 4: Case reported on certificate of births _____________________________________________________________________ 58 Box 5: Cases of discrimination observed in the health sector ___________________________________________________ 60 Box 6: Number of Mbendjele children attending the FFAB school in Pokola on April 16 th 2012 ______________ 82 Box 7: Cases of abuse by eco-guards reported by the Mbendjele ________________________________________________ 85 Box 8: Case of discrimination in access to land, resources and justice __________________________________________ 85

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List of Acronyms ACRWC ADIE AU CEDAW CEFDHAC CERD CFA CFSO CIB COMIFAC CRC CSI FIPAC FFAB FPIC FSC GPS GTZ/GIZ HIV/ AIDS ICPD ILO IWGIA Maputo Protocol MDGs NGO OCFSA PRSP RC REDD RENAPAC REPALEAC

TORs UFA ORA SNEPAC UN

African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child Agency for Environmental Information Development (International Agency for the Development of Environmental Information) African Union Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women Conference on Ecosystems of Dense and Humid Forests of Central Africa International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination Central African Franc Compagnie Forestière Sangha-Oubangui (Sangha-Oubangui Forestry Company) Congolaise Industrielle des Bois Central African Forests Commission Convention on the Rights of the Child Centre de Santé Intégré (Integrated Health Centre) International Forum on Indigenous Peoples of Central Africa Foyer Frederik Association Baka (Foyer Frederic Assistance Bayaka) Free, Prior and Informed Consent Forest Stewardship Council Global Positioning System Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit recently renamed Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome International Conference on Population and Development International Labour Organization International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs MP Millennium Development Goals Non-Governmental Organisation Organisation for African Wildlife Preservation (Organisation of the Conservation of African Wildlife of Central African States) Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper Republic of Congo Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Réseau National des Associations des Peuples Autochtones (National Network of Indigenous Peoples of Congo) Réseau des Populations Autochtones et Locales pour la Gestion Durable des Ecosystèmes d’Afrique Centrale (Network of Indigenous and Local Communities for the Sustainable Management of Forest Ecosystems in Central Africa) Terms of Reference Unité Forestière d’Aménagement (Forest Management Unit) Observer, Réfléchir, Agir (Observe, Reflect, Act) Stratégie Nationale d’Education des Peuples Autochtones (National Education Strategy for Indigenous Peoples) United Nations 8

UNDG UNDP UNDRIP UNICEF UNPAF UNPFII USD WCS WHO

United Nations Development Group United Nations Development Programme United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples United Nations Children Fund United Nations Partnership Framework United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues United States Dollar Wildlife Conservation Society World Health Organisation

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Acknowledgments The researchers on this project have lived and worked with indigenous peoples in Africa (particularly the Republic of Congo) for many years, some of them over a period of two decades. Conducting this research has been a wonderful opportunity for us to deepen our knowledge of these unique peoples and to make available to a wider audience some of what we have learned from and about them during those years.

Our deepest gratitude goes to all the indigenous peoples we have encountered on the continent, particularly the Mbendjele, Twa and Bongo who hosted us and collaborated with us on this research as well as Norbert Gami, our regional expert, whose support and knowledge was fundamental to the organisation and conduct of our fieldwork. In particular, we would like to thank our local interpreters Ghislan Independent, Dambo and Epoutangongo, Dongabeka Bellevie, Gislain and Honnest as well as the Congolaise Industrielle des Bois and the community radio station Biso na Biso for facilitating our visit.

We also thank our colleagues from participating UN agencies, Lamin Manneh, Resident Coordinator and Resident Representative on behalf UNDP, David Lawson, Country Representative in the Republic of Congo and Director for Gabon on behalf of the UNFPA, and the UNICEF Country Representative of the Republic of Congo Marianne Flach, her team, Marius Biyekele and Murielle Coiret, and the steering committee (Benoit Libali, Constance Mafoukila, Isidore Dianzinga, Gertrude Ndeko, Roch Euloge Nzobo, Carine Nzimba Zere and Parfait Dihoukamba) who between them gave us the best possible conditions in which to conduct this research. Their ability to communicate to us a sense of the importance of this project for them was invaluable and inspired us to fulfil their hopes and expectations to our utmost ability. Further appreciation goes to Beatrice Duncan and Nicola Brandt of the Gender and Rights Section of UNICEF HQ and Luz Melo, then of the Gender, Human Rights and Culture Branch of UNFPA for their invaluable technical support and insights throughout the process.

Finally, we would like to stress how much all members of the team behind this research are motivated by a deep desire to address the harsh reality of indigenous peoples’ lives. We look forward to seeing an improvement in their situation in the coming years.

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Executive summary This research was commissioned by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) field offices of the Republic of Congo (RC). Informed by international treaties affecting children and women (e.g. the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)), the present report aims to support and guide rights-based interventions for indigenous children and women in the Republic of Congo and Central Africa, and to draw out lessons applicable worldwide. Its objective is to provide recommendations to UN agencies, governments and NGOs involved in the conceptualisation, implementation and monitoring of such interventions. At the core of the study lies the fundamental question of the impact of indigenous and non-indigenous institutions, values and practices upon the well-being and rights of indigenous children and women. The focus is on particular areas that are central to the measurement of children’s and women’s universal rights, such as education, economic rights, violence, justice, gender status, disability, maternal health and child health.

The study was carried out among three indigenous groups in the Republic of Congo (RC).

These groups – the Tswa, the Bongo and the Mbendjele – were selected because they reflect the diversity of situations and environments in which indigenous peoples live today in Central Africa (and to some extent worldwide). The Tswa and the Bongo, who live in the Plateaux region and the South respectively, were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers until they were forcibly sedentarized and slowly induced to convert to Christianity and take up agriculture as a means of subsistence. Their situation is typical of many African indigenous peoples who have been forcefully resettled, such as the Batwa of the Great Lakes region 1.

The Mbendjele, on the other hand, maintain a semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer existence in the dense forest of the western Congo Basin in northern RC, where their traditional lifestyle and spiritual relationship with the forest are under threat from the allocation of their territories to industrial logging companies and national parks. These pressures and the radical social change they provoke, currently affect most of the hunter-gatherer groups inhabiting the north of RC as well as the wider western Congo forest Basin, such as the Baka and Yaka2.

The study of these three groups – the Tswa, Bongo and Mbendjele – reveals a complex and challenging picture regarding the state of indigenous children’s and women’s rights. They show the extent and gravity of violations committed by both indigenous peoples upon their own children and women, and by people and organisations in Congolese society upon indigenous communities as a whole. At the same time, the study reveals elements of indigenous culture that are extremely conducive to the upholding of children’s and women’s rights as well as initiatives from non-indigenous actors designed to protect their rights or those of their people. This mixed picture presents both opportunities and challenges for human rights programming, which are summarised below.

1) Key indigenous values, practices and interests: opportunities and challenges 1

See Lewis, J. 2000. The BaTswa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region. London: Minority Rights Group International and Borreill, S & Freeman, L. 2007. ‘Capacity building of indigenous people’s organizations in the African Great Lakes Region’. London: Baring Foundation Gorilla Organisation.

2 The Yaka represent a wider group with which most of the indigenous groups of northern Congo identify (Lewis 2002, Ibid).

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The Tswa, Bongo and Mbendjele communities visited share the same fundamental values and practices. However, there are notable differences in the scope and the degree of importance attached to them in each group. These values and practices are highlighted below along with proposed recommendations made by indigenous peoples in the areas of health, education and economic development.

1.1 General indigenous values, practices and interests -

Equity: The sharing of food and/or material possessions is an important social function. Sharing is particularly remarkable in its scope in Mbendjele communities as all items are shared spontaneously or on demand within the clan.

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Equality: Differences in status between individuals are minimal or non-existent, and there is a high degree of gender equality, particularly in Mbendjele society.

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Authority and hierarchy: Social systems are non-authoritarian and non-hierarchical.

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Autonomy and freedom: Individuals, including children, enjoy a high level of autonomy and freedom. These freedoms relate to freedom of association, participation, choice of partner, abortion and access of resources (including use of resources). In Mbendjele communities, they extend to freedom of movement, divorce and choice of residence.

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Freedom of expression: Women and children are not expected to express themselves in public meetings, especially in front of strangers. Among the Tswa and Bongo, criticising or objecting to another person’s opinion in public is considered rude. In general, people do not mark out individuals for criticism. Instead, they avoid them or mock them without identifying them as the target of their mockery. The Mbendjele in particular use the latter option, which allows great freedom of critical expression.

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Definition of child and ‘best interests of the child’: Puberty marks the end of childhood, after which point children are treated as adults, in some instances to their detriment. For instance, children marry and start families early, between the age of twelve and fifteen. A few years before, as part of their training to become future parents, they engage in all the activities of their gender group, including alcohol intake.

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Social control and justice: There are few constraining powers other than familial and communal moral pressure over individuals’ behaviour (except in some instances in Mbendjele communities).

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Education: Indigenous education is perceived as primordial. Children are advised rather than instructed, essentially learning though activities and games. Initiation and participation in rituals are also important components of Mbendjele education. Formal schooling for boys and girls generally terminates at the age of puberty.

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Economic rights: Hunting, gathering and eating wild food are at the centre of indigenous modes of living and healing. The concept of custodianship or guardianship – rather than ownership – dominates people’s relations with material objects and the 12

land on which they live. The assertion that the forest can be owned as private property is held to be offensive.

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Health: A holistic view of well-being prevails that includes the bio-physical body, the mind, and the quality of social relationships with other people, ancestors and God. Traditional healers play an important role in curing common diseases and in pre- and post-natal care. However, while traditional healing practices are still common in the North and the South, they are dying out in the Plateaux. Mbendjele practices related to the healthcare and diet of infants, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers are numerous and of a high standard. Among the other two groups, however, there is insufficient knowledge of good childcare practice and there are even some practices harmful to newborn babies. Across all regions, alcohol is consumed in large quantities by a high proportion of indigenous people, including many pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers and children.

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Violence: In some instances, indigenous peoples’ definition of violence differs from that used in international human rights texts. Sexual abuse of women and adolescent girls is largely attributable to high rates of alcoholism in urban indigenous settlements.

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Requests for support from indigenous peoples: All groups expressed an interest in gaining greater knowledge of sexually transmitted infections (including HIV/AIDS), handicrafts and basic numeracy and literacy skills. While the Tswa and Bongo expressed an interest in farming and accessing water, the Mbendjele showed a particular interest in the idea of mobile pharmacies and community radio for the dissemination of information related to health. Women in general manifested a special interest in learning about contraception methods.

Any potential development or intervention projects should take into account the above values, practices and interests, as they are central to indigenous peoples’ lives. The priority is to reinforce those values and practices which do not conflict with the international human rights framework. As detailed below, awareness of these will help programmes to build on indigenous peoples’ existing strengths, maximise community participation, reduce cultural misunderstanding, increase the likelihood of long-term sustainability of projects, and reinforce children’s and women’s rights. However, some indigenous values and/or practices are also a source of abuse or concern and need to be addressed by intervention programmes.

1.2 Indigenous peoples notions of human rights and how they impact on programming 1.2.1 Equity, freedom(s) and equality Indigenous peoples practices related to equity, individuals’ freedom(s) and equality (especially gender equality) are close to those found in the international human rights framework. They represent positive elements which programmes should reinforce and use as foundations during their conception, implementation and monitoring phases. It follows that programmes should also protect indigenous communities from the negative influence of contrary values and practices prevalent in neighbouring societies such as the subjugation of women or social inequality.

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More specifically, the egalitarian nature of indigenous communities means that people are unlikely to claim ownership of top-down or centrally managed projects. This egalitarian ethic creates an opportunity to develop interventions that are truly participative. The risk, however, is that individuals may unilaterally withdraw their support. Likewise, the great autonomy and respect that indigenous communities give to children means that parents are unlikely to force their children to attend school. Rather than making schooling obligatory, the question of attendance should be addressed by adopting learning methods better adapted to indigenous children, their lifestyle and their cultural milieu. The success of the Foyer Frederik Association Baka School in the North – whose programme is taught in the Mbendjele language by Mbendjele teachers using a curriculum adapted to Mbendjele children’s huntergatherer lifestyle – could be used as a starting point for the development of alternative ways of schooling indigenous children.

Another important challenge, which relates to the emphasis put on liberty and free will in indigenous societies, lies in the notion of accountability. No equivalent term exists in the indigenous societies visited, but there are practices which equate to it, albeit limited to very specific contexts. This means that designing interventions around the concept of accountability risks creating misunderstanding. Even if the notion is evoked through concrete examples relevant to indigenous people’s lives, it should not be assumed that they will feel accountable to others in the context of a project.

Indigenous peoples’ egalitarian way of living also means that a negative value is placed on individual’s private property and material accumulation. Amongst the Mbendjele, such accumulation is prevented by assertive demand sharing of excess production and material possessions. Amongst the Tswa and the Bongo, persons or families whose private material wealth exceeds that of other community members are liable to accusations of witchcraft.

Development interventions should encourage the positive aspects of community cohesion that such egalitarian principles and practices foster by avoiding initiatives whose aim or outcome is to increase individual rather than community wealth.

1.2.2 Freedom of expression Indigenous styles of communication in public also create opportunities and pose challenges.

High levels of gender equality mean that women and men contribute equally to decisionmaking. However, women are not expected to contribute in public meetings involving men, especially in front of strangers. Despite this general rule of conduct, different practices exist that allow women to express their opinions during or after such gatherings, generally by means of a spokesperson. Mbendjele women can also express themselves through institutionalised forms of speech called mosambo, which occur twice every day (at dawn and at dusk). Therefore, to improve gender equality in the domain of public speech, it is important to encourage the maintenance of these practices and to give women the opportunity to express themselves in other less public contexts.

It should also be noted that the reluctance of people in general to contradict another person’s point of view directly and publicly makes public meetings a problematic method for gauging opinions.

1.2.3 Health

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If medical interventions are to gain acceptance in indigenous communities and ease their access to healthcare it is imperative that they take into account indigenous conceptions of health and illness, in particular the view that a person’s health is not just a matter of the biophysical body but also the social relations in which they are embedded. The necessity of combining Western and traditional medical knowledge is expressed by both the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Republic of Congo in its national policy on traditional medicine (2006). The greater integration and training of respected indigenous traditional healers could be one means of improving the efficacy of healthcare initiatives for indigenous peoples. It could also help to preserve the traditional medical knowledge that is disappearing among the Tswa.

Such initiatives could also be linked to two other projects requested by the Mbendjele: the use of community radio for the dissemination of healthcare information and the creation of mobile pharmacy units to visit camps and villages. These mobile units, staffed with indigenous healers trained in western medicine, could greatly improve indigenous peoples’ access to non-traditional medical treatment (including immunisation) and health information.

All indigenous groups underline the necessity of providing more information on matters related to contraception, sexually transmitted infections, water borne diseases, alternative sources to meat proteins and the effect of alcohol and tobacco on child and maternal health.

Indigenous access to medical treatment and information is currently very limited due to the distance to healthcare centres and the fear of intimidation from Bantu medical staff.

Based on the rates of infant and maternal illness and death recorded in the three regions, the priority for health programmes is to target urban indigenous settlements in the North and the South and rural ones in the Plateaux. In the Plateaux, the combination of limited access to medical facilities, lack of safe water and low protein diets place children’s health at serious risk. Interventions in water and sanitation access and food security would be a necessary first step towards addressing these issues.

1.2.4 Non-hierarchical social structure with a lack of central authority Free will is embedded in the emphasis on individual autonomy and the absence of central authority in the indigenous communities visited. Our research shows that, among the Tswa and Bongo, the absence of power to constrain people’s behaviour can mean that abusive conduct towards women and children is not systematically dealt with, accentuated by poor access to justice. This issue could be addressed by a closer integration of indigenous and state judicial systems.

This lack of central authority and the emphasis on individual autonomy also make it difficult for indigenous communities to have effective political representation among non-indigenous groups and in particular to organise themselves to resist outsiders encroaching on their land or resources. The Tswa and Bongo have suffered land and resource loss since the 1970s and consequently have been forced to abandon much of their traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

For the Mbendjele, this is a more recent phenomenon linked to the massive expansion of logging in the past two decades in the north of the country where most of the dense forest of RC is located. The situation is extremely problematic as commercially valuable timber is increasingly extracted from Mbendjele territories and their access to resources, especially game, is restricted by conservation areas and parks.

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1.2.5 Economic rights The Tswa, Bongo and Mbendjele do not conceive of land or forest as property. This restricts their ability to claim protection for their territories and therefore their way of living.

Challenges of such views emerge when powerful organisations such as logging companies and/or conservation NGOs choose to establish themselves on indigenous land, as happened in the South to the Bongo and is currently pertaining in the North to the Mbendjele. With no immediate and powerful support, the Mbendjele as a group are at imminent risk of losing their traditional lifestyle and following the path taken by the Bongo. However, two joint initiatives launched by one major forestry company, the software company Helveta and the anthropologist Jerome Lewis have been put in place to protect Mbendjele resources and help them regain some ownership over their land. These initiatives are based on the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and the negotiation of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).

The GPS technology has had two positive impacts for the Mbendjele: it has enabled them to produce maps of their own resources and it has provided logging companies seeking to gain or maintain their Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification with a tool designed to protect those resources. Building on the GPS success with the Mbendjele, a programme could be designed to extend the use of the system to all indigenous groups and link it to different conservation and climate change projects. By producing maps of their own territories and resources, indigenous groups could provide information of use to a range of agents such as conservation NGOs, programmes aimed at the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), carbon trading systems and operators, and the pharmaceutical industry. While the use of GPS technology has been a success for the Mbendjele, the negotiation of their free, prior and informed consent by forestry companies seeking FSC certification is still far from being satisfactory. As FPIC is the ultimate tool for indigenous peoples to regain control over their territories and lives, there is an urgent need to develop a research programme on how to make FPIC compulsory and how to implement it in RC and throughout the world (Lewis, Freeman & Borreill 2007).

Indigenous peoples’ involvement in the management of the forest through tools such as FPIC or GPS mapping is crucial for their survival. Their right to hunt animals, to gather edible and medicinal plants and to practice associated rituals are an essential part of a more encompassing right to live according to their own beliefs and culture and to follow their own path to development. This wider right should be the fundamental guiding principle of all programmes. All other rights pertaining to them should be interpreted in the light of that encompassing principle. Protecting indigenous peoples’ culture and traditions while at the same time tackling the discrimination they face will provide them – and especially children and women – a secure base in terms of identity, food supply, medicine and self-worth on which to make decisions about their future.

1.2.6 Education Upholding the right of indigenous peoples to choose their path to development as a guiding principle for all programmes implies also that other rights need to be formulated and implemented in a way that fosters that choice and does not hinder it. The right to education is one example. This right is actually formulated as a right to formal schooling. However, in its present formulation and application it impinges upon the right of indigenous peoples to live according to their own traditions and to choose their own development, since formal 16

schooling often distances and cuts indigenous children off from their indigenous roots (see point 2, below). As such, education should be adapted to indigenous peoples’ way of living and learning and built around their knowledge, language and values, particularly during early years.

The school run by the Foyer Frederik Association Baka in the North represents an example of an educational initiative that has successfully managed to promote formal schooling among indigenous children by adapting its curriculum to meet their needs. Lessons are taught in the Mbendjele language; the timetable is flexible so as to cater for children’s absence during periods of hunting and gathering; and the school day is designed to allow adolescents both to study and to meet commitments at home. Accommodating indigenous pupils’ lifestyle and culture in this way has succeeded in attracting a large number of Mbendjele children and an unprecedented number of girls. It has also allowed children of both genders to pursue their studies to a higher level than indigenous pupils at state schools.

1.2.7 Violence There is an urgent need for initiatives aimed at preventing the incidents of alcoholism within urban indigenous communities. Such programming is important both for promoting the health of indigenous peoples as well as for protection against sexual violence.

It is also important to note that indigenous definitions of the notion of violence vary regionally and do not necessarily coincide with the definition given in human rights texts.

This could make it difficult to develop projects aimed at changing practices which indigenous peoples themselves do not classify as violent. However, this potential problem can be avoided by focusing on how people perceive their practices rather than how they label them.

For example, while psychological violence is not recognised as a form of violence by the Tswa and Bongo, both groups believe that verbal insults and hateful behaviour are painful and therefore unacceptable. Similarly, although indigenous groups do not classify environmental degradation as an act of violence, they recognise its very negative impact on their lives.3 Another important finding for programming relates to the way the Mbendjele and Bongo perceive some forms of violence between adults as justified. Violence, such as fighting or physical assault, for example, is perceived as an acceptable way to stop an instance of serious abuse such as rape or to prevent its recurrence. This kind of violence is not institutionalised, except in Mbendjele communities, where controlled fighting is used to express serious annoyance. In the context of limited central authority and legal constraining power in all the indigenous groups studied, violence is used by people as a last resort to protect themselves and their family from abuse.

1.2.8 Gender discriminatory practices A number of gender discriminatory practices among all groups. Common to all is the lack of rights that women have to represent their communities particularly as far as non-community

3

Environmental violence against indigenous women has been the subject of a number of research and fora e.g.

International Indigenous Women’s Forum. Mairin Iwanka Raya: Indigenous women stand against violence – a companion report to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Study on Violence Against Women, FIMI/IIWF, New York, 2006.

17

members are concerned. Gender bias in programming can however be addressed by using the system of women’s spokespersons, which is found in all groups.

The following are however more peculiar to the Tswa and Bongo: -

-

-

The existence of sexual division of labour that places the burden of domestic and childcare work upon women. Projects in the South and the Plateaux should, therefore, aim at alleviating women’s workload (by introducing, for example, mills to pound manioc mechanically).

The second practice impinging on the rights of Tswa and Bongo women is the requirement that any woman wishing to separate from her husband must repay the dowry. As this is financially impossible for most women, interventions aimed at addressing this issue could be explored, taking into account the continued influence of the dowry in marriage ceremonies.

As a corollary, the practice of women compulsorily assuming their husband’s names upon marriage and taking up residence in their village could also be said to contravene Bongo and Tswa women’s rights. It should be noted, though, that these customs are tempered by the relatively high degree of gender equality pervading in Tswa and Bongo societies and the general proximity of married women’s villages of origin to their village of residence.

1.2.9 From childhood to adulthood Children are considered adults upon the attainment of puberty, a status which signals their customary right to marry as early as between the ages of 12 and 15. Indigenous peoples definition of child therefore differs from that under and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which defines a child as any person below the age of 18 years unless majority is stipulated earlier under national law. This has several consequences on the rights of children as defined by the CRC: For example, parental duty to provide children with food, education, shelter, health care and leisure time ceases when their children become parents.

Trying to modify this conception of childhood presents a challenge as it is deeply enshrined in fundamental cultural values such as fertility and sexual reproduction, early autonomy, responsibility and freedom(s) including sexual freedom. Children become adults at a young age due to a range of pressures including lack of contraception methods, poverty, short life expectancy and the inability of formal schooling to attract long-term commitment from indigenous pupils. It is these factors rather than the conception of childhood itself that should be addressed as a priority.

More specifically, in Tswa and Bongo communities, children are denied the right to express themselves in public meetings. However, as children are considered to be adults by the age of 12-14, this limitation on their freedom of speech ceases relatively early.

2). External sources of positive and negative impact (including abuse) on indigenous peoples, especially children and women 2.1 General sources of positive and negative impact (including abuse) by the state and non-indigenous peoples -

Discrimination: The general Bantu perception of indigenous people is that they are sub-humans (e.g. ‘chimpanzees that speak’), on which grounds they discriminate against them systematically. This discrimination is the root of most abuses committed 18

by Bantu towards indigenous peoples in RC. It also has a negative impact on indigenous peoples’ access to public services, as these services are staffed exclusively

by Bantu.

-

Violence: Indigenous peoples suffer from psychological violence, exploitation and physical assaults (including murders and attempted murders) perpetrated by the Bantu majority. Most physical assaults seem to occur in towns: from the 20 cases reported by indigenous peoples in the three regions, 15 occurred in towns. In addition, Bongo children in urban settings appear to be at particular risk of becoming the victims of trafficking.

-

Economic rights: Indigenous peoples suffer threats and abuse in relation to access to land and forest resources from their Bantu neighbours, extractive industries and conservation NGOs. These threats and abuse are especially prevalent in the North, where eco-guards are reported to carry out frequent violent attacks on Mbendjele as punishment for hunting permitted bush meat on traditional indigenous territories. The GPS and FPIC initiatives mentioned above are being used to support the economic empowerment of indigenous peoples.

-

Healthcare facilities and immunisation: There is a lack of clarity regarding the State’s health policy towards indigenous peoples. The health system is beset by discriminatory attitudes, corruption, inflation of fees and unofficial charges which pervade against indigenous patients. Indigenous peoples generally distrust immunisation programmes due to poor information on its short-term effects and the aggressive attitude of Bantu medical staff. This report identifies one possible case of ethnic discrimination in the implementation of immunisation policy in the North.

Indigenous women are put off by the lack of privacy afforded to them when giving birth in medical premises. As a result, the records of the local dispensaries and the health centres visited in rural and urban areas show a very low take-up of healthcare facilities by indigenous people: 11 visits were recorded in the Plateaux and none in the North between September 2011 and April 20124.

-

Justice: Indigenous peoples are generally not inclined to report cases of abuse to the police and judiciary due to their fear of prejudice from the police and justice system, as well as costs associated with initiating and pursuing legal action. Mbendjele victims in particular cannot bring their case to the attention of the police and justice without the intervention of a Bantu on their behalf. These factors explain why the reporting of violent assaults by Bantu on indigenous people is very rare: only five out of the 20 cases recorded in the three regions were brought to the attention of the police and/or courts (all of which were cases of murder or attempted murder). None of these five cases led to a trial and/or the activation of the pronounced sentence showing the failure of the police and judiciary to bring justice to indigenous peoples. More technical problems also exist such as: the language of the judiciary (French), which indigenous peoples do not understand; the absence of any verbal or written translation in indigenous languages; the practice of using family or friends as defendants. This last practice is disadvantageous to indigenous people as they lack a circle of welleducated kin and friends to represent them. The same factors are also undoubtedly

4

No figures could be gathered in the South as the Bongo have Bantu names and the ethnic identity of the patient is not recorded.

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partially responsible for the fact that cases of sexual abuse committed by indigenous men on indigenous women are not reported to the authorities.

-

Education: Negative stereotypes of indigenous culture are perpetuated within state schools and have the potential to alienate indigenous pupils from their parents and their indigenous way of life. Schools are often too distant from permanent villages and temporary forest camps to be accessible on foot and their timetables conflict with indigenous food gathering seasons. The fees and cost of materials for secondary education are beyond the means of indigenous families. There is also pervasive bullying and discrimination by Bantu staff and pupils in state (especially primary) schools. These factors impact adversely on indigenous children’s attendance at state schools: in the 11 state schools visited5 in the three regions (which had between 100300 pupils each) only 64 pupils were indigenous. On the basis of this sample, around 3% of pupils in states schools are indigenous, of which the vast majority are found in the first three years of primary school, during which time they benefit from the Praebase programme6. From the upper level of primary onwards, this percentage drops to almost zero. However, private initiatives show that indigenous attendance can be very high throughout the primary years when the above barriers are lifted.

Sixty seven percent Mbendjele children living in the logging camps of Sembola and Mopepe in Pokola currently attend the private indigenous primary school, Foyer Frederik Association Baka (FFAB).

-

Birth registration offices: Indigenous peoples generally, do not register the birth of their children because they are frequently charged for this service (despite it being legally free since 2008), they lack information on its benefits and they often live far away from birth registration offices.

2.2 Opportunities and challenges for programming Widespread discrimination suffered by indigenous peoples in Congolese society and public services is a main source of abuse and negative impact on indigenous peoples as a whole and on indigenous children and women in particular. Addressing this problem requires the implementation of a major anti-discrimination programme to promote positive attitudes to indigenous culture and underline the unacceptability of discrimination. The principal channels for such a campaign would be the mass media, the school curriculum and the training of civil servants.

This report also strongly recommends the creation of a government department responsible for addressing discrimination against indigenous peoples. It also recommends the recruitment of indigenous staff into all public services in order to increase indigenous peoples’ trust in and access to these services. Problems of access could also be solved by developing mobile services e.g. mobile clinics, pharmacies and magistrate courts staffed by trained indigenous people.

More specifically, in the justice sector, the provision of trained state-remunerated lawyers to indigenous communities could ensure competent legal representation to both plaintiffs and 5

The Integration School, which is a state school, is not included in these figures due to its atypical background. The school was built initially for indigenous children and as, as a result, is especially attractive to them.

6 This programme, financed by the World Bank and implemented by the government and UNDP, covers the costs of school fees, material, uniforms and of one meal a day for every child in primary education.

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offenders. Similarly, interpreters should be made available to indigenous peoples in their dealings with the justice system, as should written records of their court appearance.

In the public health sector, fees for consultation and medicines in healthcare facilities should be made competitive with those practiced by traditional healers to encourage indigenous peoples to use these facilities. Ideally, no fees should be charged. The most important objective is to ensure that low fees or free access are implemented is such a way as to guarantee the rights of indigenous peoples.

Schooling also needs to be the target of specific programmes to ease indigenous children’s access to education. This research reveals that schools that are sensitive to indigenous peoples’ needs and culture attract a high number of indigenous pupils. This could be achieved either by modifying certain aspects of the state school curriculum to accommodate indigenous cultural practices and needs or by developing a dedicated stream of indigenous schools. The former option is preferable as indigenous integration into Congolese society relies heavily on children from Bantu and indigenous communities mixing together.

However, its potential is restricted by the large differences in lifestyle between indigenous and non-indigenous communities, as is the case in the North, where the development of special indigenous schools would probably be necessary.

Another major priority for programming is the protection of indigenous peoples’ land rights and access to resources. The inadequate protection of these is the cause of much of the abuse suffered by indigenous peoples, both directly and indirectly. This report recommends in particular: - The production and delivery of land titles to both rural and urban sedentarised indigenous communities as a means of preventing land evictions.

- The establishment, if possible, of immediate moratoria on all activities restricting indigenous hunting and land access (especially those involving industries and national parks). Indigenous peoples should have the right to access their resources freely and to negotiate third parties’ use of their territory using the internationally recognised framework of FPIC. The FPIC approach is the only way to ensure proper consultation, participation and agreement of indigenous peoples on matters involving the use of their territories or changes to their way of life. Should it not prove possible to impose moratoria, the re-negotiation of indigenous land exploitation plans should nevertheless be carried out on the basis of FPIC. - The use of GPS technology to map indigenous territories and monitor any abuses7 related to access to land and/or resources in those territories. This technology, which can be operated by indigenous peoples themselves, is already employed by FSCcertified logging companies. Its use could be extended on a national scale to produce maps of indigenous territories, key resources and abuses taking place on them, especially illegal hunting and logging. Any maps produced could be used as the basis for indigenous peoples to negotiate resource-management plans with extractive companies and conservation NGOs. The raising of awareness among industries, NGOs and Bantu populations of indigenous land rights and how their actions might contravene them. Eco-guards in particular need to receive better training on indigenous rights and be compelled to respect them.

7

Including illegal hunting.

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Introduction Indigenous peoples number about 370 million globally. While they constitute approximately 5 per cent of the world’s population, indigenous peoples make up 15 per cent of the world’s poor.

They also make up about one-third of the world’s 900 million extremely poor rural people.8 Despite the large number of indigenous peoples and the numerous territories they inhabit across the earth, as a group they suffer many similar abuses due to a lack of respect for their human rights. These abuses are related to the maintenance of their culture, economy and religion and to their restricted access to appropriate education, fair treatment in national justice systems, modern healthcare and key resources. Also, indigenous peoples suffer from lack of decisionmaking power at local and national levels, with the result that they are unable to determine the terms and conditions of their development, or to influence policies that have an impact on their land, livelihoods and culture.

There has been little systematic investigation of the role that the cultural ideas and practices of indigenous peoples themselves might play in terms of the respect of their human rights and those of indigenous children and women9. Yet, if human rights programming is to be effective, it is essential to take into account indigenous peoples’ own cultural perspectives on what it means to be human and how children and women should be treated. In addition, it is necessary to document which cultural practices are consistent with international rights standards and which contravene them. While this approach is vital for protecting the rights of all indigenous peoples, it is particularly crucial for protecting those of children and women, as they are especially vulnerable to abuse.

This research addresses these fundamental issues through a study of indigenous groups in the Republic of Congo (RC) in a range of contexts that reflect the diversity of situations in which most indigenous peoples in Central Africa find themselves. It explores the institutions and key patterns of organisation which govern the life and worldview of those groups and studies how these impact the lives of children and women in several areas central to the measurement of rights standards. These areas are health, justice, education, economy, disability, gender relations and violence and how cultural attitudes and behaviours of both indigenous and nonindigenous peoples have on the rights of the former.

1. General aim and calls for the research The aim of this research is to identify – with indigenous peoples themselves – those elements of indigenous lifestyle which safeguard and promote children’s and women’s rights as well as those which might impinge upon them. More generally, it is to allow for a more culturally sensitive approach to human rights. By investigating how indigenous peoples relate to human rights standards both on a conceptual and practical level, the report advocates for indigenous concepts and practices that promote children’s and women’s rights and well-being to be taken into account in all stages of programming. It creates a platform for discussion around the importance of interpreting international human rights’ standards in a way that reflects indigenous ones when appropriate. This is particularly true for certain indigenous practices which might initially appear to contradict or to undermine children’s and women’s rights but

United Nations, State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, New York, 2009.

Two important documents on this topic published recently by UNICEF are: La situation des enfants et des femmes autochtones au Congo (UNICEF 2008); and the study on violence against indigenous girls, adolescents and young women (UNICEF, UN Women, UNFPA and Office of the Special Representative on Violence Against Children. 2012).

8 9

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which are actually protective of their well-being when understood within the broader social, economic and cultural context in which they are performed.

The need to think about the above issues and develop a more culturally sensitive approach to indigenous peoples’ human rights is called for and/or underpinned in several Conventions, Declarations, Guidelines and Action Plans (see extracts in Boxes 1 and 2 below). These include: the Convention on the Elimination on all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, 1979); the International Labour Organization Convention n169 (ILO, 1989); the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1990); the African Charter on the Right and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC, 1999); the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD, Plan of Action, 1994); the Plan of Action of the World Conference on Women (Beijing Platform for Action, 1995); the World Fit for Children Outcomes (2002); the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, better known as the Maputo Protocol (MP, 2003); the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples (UNDRIP, 2007); and the United Nations Development Group Guidelines on Indigenous Issues (UNDG, 2009). Similarly, numerous institutions and groups stress the need to respect indigenous ways of life and to study their patterns of organisation so as to inform programming. Among such institutions and groups are: the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII); the Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Indigenous peoples and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous peoples.

Box 1: Calls for a culturally sensitive approach to indigenous peoples’ human rights ‘The norms and practices of indigenous cultures at the national, sub-national and community levels need to be understood and linked to universal human rights principles in order to address inequalities and achieve positive outcomes that respect the diversity of indigenous peoples, a precondition for the successful implementation of the MDGs.’ (United Nations Development Group Guidelines on Indigenous Issues 2008: 27) ‘UNCTs should identify needs based on the definitions of indigenous peoples themselves with relation to human rights’ (United Nations Development Group Guidelines on Indigenous Issues 2008: 27) ‘Indigenous peoples have the right to promote their development and maintain their traditional structures and their distinctive customs, spirituality, traditions, procedures and practices and in the cases where they exist, juridical systems or customs, in accordance with international human rights standards’ (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples 2007: Article 34) ‘The right of indigenous peoples to education includes the right to provide and receive education through their traditional methods of teaching and learning and the right to integrate their own perspectives, cultures, beliefs, values, languages in mainstream education systems and institutions’ (Expert Mechanism on the Right of Indigenous peoples, Advice n1 on the rights of indigenous peoples to education, 2009: 1) ‘Recognizing that the formulation and implementation of population-related policies is the responsibility of each country and should take into account the economic, social and environmental diversity of conditions in each country, with full respect for the various religious and ethical values, cultural backgrounds and philosophical convictions of its people’ (The International Conference on Population and Development preamble and principles 1994) Box 2: The emphasis of the ILO convention No. 169 on the respect of indigenous peoples’ institutions Respect for indigenous peoples’ institutions is integral to Convention No. 169, as stipulated in a series of provisions: Article 2(1): [Government action shall include measures for]; (b) Promoting the full realisation of the social, economic and cultural rights of these peoples with respect for their social and cultural identity, their customs and traditions and their institutions; Article 4(1): Special measures shall be adopted as appropriate for safeguarding the persons, institutions, property, labour, cultures and environment of the peoples concerned; Article 5: In applying the provisions of this Convention: (a) the social, cultural, religious and spiritual values and practices of these peoples shall be recognised and protected, and due account shall be taken of the nature of

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the problems which face them both as groups and as individuals; (b) the integrity of the values, practices and institutions of these peoples shall be respected; Article 6(1): In applying the provisions of this Convention, governments shall: (a) consult the peoples concerned, through appropriate procedures and in particular through their representative institutions, whenever consideration is being given to legislative or administrative measures which may affect them directly; […]; (c) establish means for the full development of these peoples’ own institutions and initiatives, and in appropriate cases provide the resources necessary for this purpose; Article 8(2): These peoples shall have the right to retain their own customs and institutions where these are not incompatible with fundamental rights [...]

Source: Indigenous and tribal people’s rights in practice: A guide to ILO convention 169, International Labour standards Department, 2009.

Within the above context, the objectives of the research are to: -

Create awareness among UN agencies as well as governments, civil society and indigenous peoples themselves, of the importance of taking into account the social, cultural, spiritual and legal contexts of indigenous peoples in all stages of programme design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

-

Explore the existence of positive elements of indigenous beliefs and cultures and how these can be used as effective resources for advancing indigenous peoples’ rights within the framework of the CRC, CEDAW, ICPD, MP, ACRWC and the Law on the Protection of the Child in the RC (law n4-2010 of the 14th of June 2010).

-

Investigate the possible existence of any customs beliefs, myths and taboos, as well as social and traditional/modern structures and patterns of organisation which might appear to be incompatible with the fundamental rights defined by nationally and internationally recognised human rights protocols.

The study looks in-depth at the following associated themes: 







Intra-ethnic relations: definition of children; children’s identity including birth registration; children’s and adults’ status and roles in relation to life cycles and gender; children as subjects of rights; influence of lineage and patriarchy on women and children; gender discrimination; intersecting inequalities and disabilities; role and impact of rituals for women and children; Access to justice: traditional justice system; treatment of abused children by the law; treatment of juvenile offenders by the law; corporal punishment; forms of justice for women and men; the interface between traditional and state justice systems; and access to courts; Maternal and child health: access to health care and treatment of diseases, both traditionally and in healthcare centres; attitudes towards family planning, immunisation, abortion, HIV/AIDS; maternal health and maternal mortality; use of traditional birth attendants; specific nutrition for children; Gender-based violence: domestic violence; sexual violence; exploitative and hazardous labour; physical violence; psychological violence; environmental violence; children’s work; violence during initiation rites; slavery and trafficking; use of specific organs for traditional purposes;

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  

Access to education: school education versus indigenous education (value and differences); evidence of drop-out and completion; school attendance for boys and girls; Economic rights: economic status; land tenure systems and land access for women; inheritance systems; Inter-ethnic community relationships and how the behaviours and traditions of dominant groups such as the Bantu impact on all the above.10

To achieve those objectives we researched: -

The living environment, history, institutions and systems of organisation of the indigenous communities visited (Part I of this report) The situation of women and children with regard to all the different research areas and themes listed above (Part II of this report) The implications of all those for programming (Part III of this report)

Whenever possible, we also explored how the rights defined by the international community and the indigenous communities visited for this research are threatened or advanced by the rapid social changes experienced by indigenous peoples in the RC. Another underpinning objective was to develop guidelines and a conceptual frame for other studies of this kind on indigenous peoples. The study was conceived as a pilot study with a view to replication in other countries. This objective was based on the assumption that the methodology developed could be used in other programming contexts as the indigenous peoples of the RC face similar challenges and issues to other indigenous groups in Central Africa and elsewhere in the world.

2. General approach and methodology: a research matrix based on a rights approach Our general approach was to use as a guiding framework the human rights covered by five major international human rights conventions and protocols and one key national law. These are the CRC, CEDAW, ICPD, MP, ACRWC and the Law on the Protection of the Child in the Republic of Congo (law n4-2010 of the 14th of June 2010). The provisions of these instruments were used as a guide to support three interlinked methodological tools or approaches detailed in the research booklet and summarised below.

The first tool was a general questionnaire whose aim was to check the relevance of the articles’ clauses to the lives of indigenous men, women, boys and girls and to assess the similarities and differences between indigenous practices and those defined in human rights texts. This questionnaire was complemented by a ‘concept approach’ which investigated the indigenous definition of key human rights concepts11. Through this approach, we were able to assess whether the concepts embedded in the human rights articles pertaining to each research theme existed for indigenous peoples, and if so, in what form. A further objective of this approach was to test perceptions and comprehension of key international children’s and women’s rights. Finally, we used a gender analysis framework based on the Moser model (Moser 1993) to examine possible imbalances of workload, duties and power between males 10 11

The label ‘Bantu’ is used as a gloss for both Bantu and Oubangian language speakers living near indigenous communities.

These were selected from articles comprising the research matrix. The list is not, therefore, exhaustive.

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and females according to age and gender. Observation of and reflection upon social practice through this framework allowed us to determine whether practices observed were consistent with our results from the questionnaire and the concept approach. It also permitted deeper investigation into those results as well as the identification of any forms of gender discrimination and human rights abuses within indigenous communities.

3. Fieldwork plan and constraints Three teams undertook the research between March and April 2012. Each team was comprised of two researchers (one international and one national), both with previous experience of hunter-gatherers. The researchers were accompanied by two local indigenous interpreters. One student was provided by the Ministry of Education to join the team in the North.

The main constraint was the difficulty of translating the complexities of international human rights terms and concepts into indigenous languages. In order to address this, two days were spent intensively working with indigenous research assistants to develop translations and illustrative scenarios to facilitate understanding during meetings with the community.

However, due to the complexities of the meanings to be translated, the Congolese researcher had to do most of the translation work himself in the Plateaux and the South. He was able to do the translation because the Tswa and Bongo have adopted the local Bantu languages which the researcher himself masters. In the North, where the Mbendjele still speak their own language, the problem was less sensitive as the principal researcher spoke Mbendjele herself.

However, the time spent by the Congolese researcher performing the work of the interpreter and translator in the South and Plateaux placed a lot of time constraints on the team in those two regions. Some planned activities such as a census of the villages visited in the South and Plateaux could not, for example, be systematically carried out.

The research teams spent two weeks in each region and camped in the communities visited to facilitate the gathering of information through participant observation. To ensure that data and field notes from the different areas were comparable, a range of standardised research guides were developed for use by the different members of the teams. This had the added benefit of ensuring that all areas of enquiry were covered.

4. Key facts and terminology about indigenous peoples in the Republic of Congo 4.1 Hunters-gatherers or former hunter-gatherers also called ‘Pygmies’ In Africa, indigenous peoples are predominantly hunter-gatherers, pastoralists and agropastoralists scattered over an estimated 35 countries on the continent, according to the African Commission’s Working Group of Experts on Indigenous Populations/ Communities.12 In the Republic of Congo, the term ‘indigenous groups’ refers to forest hunter-gatherers or former hunter-gatherers. These groups traditionally live or lived primarily, in the forest by hunting and gathering their food. They are also commonly referred as ‘Pygmies’ even though 12

African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights and International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, Report of the African Commission’s Working Group of Experts on Indigenous Populations/Communities, Banjul, Gambia, 2005.

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the term has been banned by the Congolese government due to its pejorative connotations.

However, despite this ban ‘the label ‘Pygmy’ continues to be used widely’ (Lewis 2002: 48).

The reasons are rooted in the continued use of the term by many local people in the postindependence states of Central Africa, in popular writing about the region (see for instance O’Hanlon 1993 or Sarno 1993) and in many academic works.

The result is that many indigenous groups like the Baka in Congo and Cameroon declare themselves belonging to this ethnic category and may, for instance, proudly declare in French We are Pygmies! (Köhler, 1998: 36). Pygmy human rights activists, including some Batwa of the Great Lakes Region and some Bagyeli of Cameroon, also approve of the term and use it themselves (Lewis 2000: 5). However, the Mbendjele of RC disapprove of its use and prefer the encompassing ethnic term of Yaka13. Köhler (1998: 36-8) and Lewis (2002: 48) confirm that labelling indigenous peoples of Central Africa as Pygmies can have negative consequences since it may encourage other people to act in extremely discriminatory ways towards those assigned such a label.

4.2 The indigenous groups of the Republic of Congo Figures concerning the number of indigenous peoples in RC should be taken with caution due to lack of reliable information14. In 1984 and in 2007, their number was, respectively, estimated to represent 1.14% (Paulin 2009) and 1, 2% (RGPH 2007)15 of the total population.

In 2011, this figure increased to 10%, which represents an estimated number of 400,000 people out of a total of 3,900,000 inhabitants (IWGIA 2011).

The identification of the existing groups has led to great confusion as different ethnonyms are assigned by Bantu to the indigenous groups of RC.16 The same problem exists throughout the western Congo Basin. The work carried out by Lewis between 1994 and 2002 in northern Congo has helped to clarify this question and to identify the main indigenous groups existing in the country. According to him those groups are the Bongo, Tswa, Akoa, Luma, Tua, Kola, Mikaya, Mbendjele, Aka, Baka (see Maps 1 and 2) and a few Ngombe17.

These groups live primarily in five districts or ‘départements’ in RC: Niari, Lékoumou, Likouala, the Plateaux and Sangha. The Mbendjele, Ngombe, Mikaya, Tua, Luma, Kola, Aka and Baka are found in the Sangha and Likouala in the North, the Babongo in the Niari and Lékoumou in the South and the Akoa and Tswa in the Plateaux. As described below, the research focussed on the main indigenous group living in each of the northern region, the central region and the southern region.

13

They include under this term the Baka, Mikaya, Bakola and themselves.

For Ambianzi (2008) the problems lie in the way the census is carried out (by asking people to come to an office to register their identity), the lack of birth certificates and official documents for indigenous peoples, their mobility and their fear of the administration.

15 Le RGPH - 2007 en quelques chiffres, Ministère de l’Economie, du Plan, de l’Aménagement du Territoire et de l’Intégration, Centre National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques, Brazzaville, juillet 2010.

16 For example, in the north of Congo, each Bantu villager group living near Pygmies has a slightly different name for them.

Thus the Kouele and Njem farmers call Pygmies ‘bakola’, the Sangha-Sangha Bomuali say ‘bagielli’, the Sangha-Sangha Lino say ‘badjeli’, and the Bongili and Bomitaba say ‘bambenga’ (Lewis 2002). In the literature, many names are also given to the same groups or several groups. The Mbendjele in RC for example are also called ‘Bayaka’ (Bruel 1910: 111) or other names such as Bambenga, Babenga, Yandenga, Biaka, Bayaca and Bayaga (see, for instance, Ouzilleau 1911:75, or Bahuchet 1985: 28-31). The name Babinga or similar terms such as Yandenga are also widely used by non-indigenous peoples to designate a number of different indigenous groups speaking a number of different languages in the western Congo Basin: the Baka and the Bagyeli of Cameroon, and the Baka, Mikaya, Luma, Mbendjele and Tua in the Congo (Lewis 2002).

17 Who do not appear on the map (Map 1).

14

27

Map 1: The forest hunter-gatherers of the Republic of Congo and Central Africa

Sources: Thomas 1979; Bahuchet 1985; Schultz 1991; Joiris 1998; Köhler 1998; Barume 2000; Lewis 2000.

Map 2: The ‘départements’ of the Republic of Congo

Source: alacase.fr 2012.

5. Selection of research areas and villages 5.1. Research areas The research focused on the districts or ‘départements’ where most of the indigenous groups in the Republic of Congo live today. These ‘départements’ are: - The Likouala and Sangha districts in the northern region 28

- The Lékoumou and Niari districts in the southern region - The Plateaux district in the central region In each of those regions, one main indigenous group was selected: - The Mbendjele (in the North) - The Tswa (in the Plateaux) - The Bongo (in the South).

Each of these groups has a different history, possesses distinct institutions, has developed different relationships with the non-indigenous groups settled in their areas and lives in a different ecosystem. They typify the different situations and ways of living which characterise other indigenous groups inhabiting those three broad geographical regions in RC as well as in many other parts of Central Africa.

5.2. Research sites To reflect the different residential environments of the Tswa, Bongo and Mbendjele, we selected settlements in both urban and rural areas. Most indigenous people now live more or less permanently in one of these two areas, and sometimes move between the two. The settlements selected are introduced below and can be located on the accompanying maps.

5.2.1. The North The logging town of Pokola (Photo 1), is the main city of the north and one of the largest urban areas in the country in terms of inhabitants and infrastructure (GTZ [Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit] 2006). It was selected because two major Mbendjele urban camps (Sembola and Mopepe (photos 2 and 3)) can be found on its outskirts (see Photos 1 and 2). Each comprises between 100 and 130 inhabitants, according to our census.

The Mbendjele rural camp of Indongo, located in the forest beside a logging road at one day’s journey by 4x4 from Pokola, was also selected as it contains a significant population of Mbendjele (130 inhabitants according to our census). It is typical of the majority of Mbendjele forest camps since most camps have relocated to roadsides in the last twenty years.

Photo 1: Aerial view of the logging town of Pokola

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Photo 2: The settlement of Sembola

Photo 3: The settlement of Mopepe

5.2.2. The Plateaux The indigenous urban village of Oli on the outskirts of the local city of Ngo was selected as it is one of the larger indigenous urban settlements on the Plateaux. It comprises a group of 18 nuclear Tswa families. According to our census, Oli has an estimated population of 103 people. We also visited another large Tswa urban settlement called Mpala, situated on the other side of the town 18. Thirty kilometres from Ngo we selected three rural villages, Allion, Lome and Nsah, all situated along the main road connecting Ngo to the regional prefecture of Djambela. It is important to state that all Tswa villages are now located along roads. The Tswa settlement of Nsah is found at the entrance to the large Bantu village of the same name which possesses a local clinic and a primary and secondary school. It is comprised of 11 nuclear families and has a population of around 66 people, according to our survey. The settlement of Lome is located close to the Bantu village of the same name. It is a small village of eight Tswa families and comprises an estimated population of 48 people19. Allion is found at 3-5 km from the nearest Bantu village and is made of three scattered clusters of 18

We do not possess figures for this settlement.

No proper census could be carried out during the research. This number has therefore been calculated on the basis of the average number of inhabitants per household found in Nsah and Oli, which is six.

19

30

three to four families each. In total, it is estimated to be inhabited by 52 people20. Another rural settlement of 36 people, called Elouna, was visited briefly. It is located on the road between Ngo and the town of Gamboma.

5.2.3. The South The Bongo quarter of the town of Sibiti in the Lékoumou district was selected as our urban area of study. The town is located at the southern border of the forested Mont Chaillu. No figures concerning the number of households and inhabitants could be gathered due to the size of the district and other field constraints. The isolated rural village of Obili in the area of Zanaga in the Lékoumou district was also visited and for the same reason as indicated above no figures are available for this village. It is located 20 km to the south-east of Zanaga along a road in a forested area on the north-eastern border of Mont Chaillu. Like Tswa villages, all Bongo villages are located along roads. We also visited the village of Indo where the nearest primary and secondary school to Obili is located.

The structure of this report closely follows the research objectives outlined previously in this introduction. The first part deals with the presentation of the three groups by focusing on their unique historical and environmental backgrounds as well as their key institutions and systems of organisation. The analysis contained in this part is essential to an understanding of these groups’ power structures as well as the values, practices and worldviews underpinning their society. This provides the background to understanding the situation of women and children in each community and the rights they enjoy. The second part is dedicated to the study of specific themes which have particular impact upon children’s and women’s rights. These include justice, education, health, gender equality, economy, and disabilities. Its aim is to identify the positive aspects of indigenous life as well as the violations committed against indigenous children and women by indigenous people themselves and outsiders. The last part presents a list of recommendations drawn from the results of the two previous parts.

20

This was calculated on the same basis as used in Lome.

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Part 1: An overview of indigenous peoples’ living environment, history, institutions and systems of organisation The three indigenous groups visited have distinct ways of living, although the Tswa and Bongo have more in common with each other than either group has with the Mbendjele. This part is therefore divided in two broad chapters dedicated to the way of living of the Mbendjele on the one hand and the Tswa/Bongo on the other.

Each chapter follows the same presentation and analysis. It begins with a brief presentation of the different environmental and historical backgrounds of the three groups in order to provide essential insights into the lifestyle and cultural variations that exist between them. It then analyses the three populations’ key ‘institutions’ and social, political, economic and belief systems. By the word ‘institution’ we refer here to the important groups or entities which shape people’s collective behaviour, such as the family and extended family, the clan and lineage, the chiefs and counsellors (when they exist), the traditional healers and diviners and so forth. These groups or entities qualify as institutions in two ways: because they are central organs of decision-making with normative outcomes in terms of behaviour and because they regulate the exercise of power and access to material and immaterial resources (R. Mayntz & F.W. Scharpf, 2001). These ‘institutions’ are therefore as much social as they are political and are presented here as such. To complement this approach, we also looked at the set of values, practices and representations which organise and structure key domains of people’s lives such as economy, social relations, politics and beliefs. The values, practices and representations of these systems ‘institutionalise’ the life of indigenous communities in a powerful way. That is to say, they create the particular vision of life and reality by which they live (R. Mayntz & F.W. Scharpf 2001).

Chapter 1: The Mbendjele 1. Key environmental and historical aspects 1.1 Environmental aspects The Sangha and Likouala ‘départements’ where the Mbendjele live are essentially made up of plateaux broken by alluvial plains and have one dry season around January and February (GTZ 2006). The area is covered by dense forest with some swamps and clearings or ‘beys’ and represents an important zone for wildlife21 (see Photo 4 below). In 2006, the population density was estimated by GTZ at 1.5 inhabitants per square kilometre, although there are some very important local variations. The two ‘départements’ are found on the western side of a larger geographical entity called the Congo forest basin, which is the second larger rainforest location in the world.

21

There is a wide variety of primates, elephants, carnivores, ungulates, crocodiles, snakes, birds and other species such as otters and hippopotamus.

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Photo 4: A bey or clearing in the forest in the north of the Republic of Congo

Source: GTZ, 2006.

The region has attracted numerous international logging firms. One of them, the Congolese Industrielle des Bois (CIB), was allocated a large part of the traditional territory of the Mbendjele to the north of the Sangha River where the present research took place.

1.2 Historical aspects The activities of the CIB and other logging companies further north have had a massive impact on the Mbendjele and on all the indigenous groups in the area. These groups have been left with no forest where they can pursue their traditional life without large-scale interference.

Their traditional lifestyle was a collective hunting and gathering semi-nomadic life based around a main forest camp (accessible on foot from a Bantu village). Sometimes small groups or the entire community would leave this main camp for temporary ones to pursue hunting, fishing and gathering activities. Hunting, especially elephant hunting, was carried out by men, although hunting small game with a net could involve women and children. Fishing and gathering were mainly women’s and children’s activities (although men could help with gathering caterpillars). This lifestyle gave the Mbendjele a great degree of independence and freedom from the Bantu.

This situation changed dramatically with the expansion of the CIB forestry operations and the transformation of its sawmill into the large town of Pokola. The growing town and the company’s network of roads brought increasing numbers of Bantu settlers deep into the forest, leading to soaring demand for bush meat and uncontrolled expansion of hunting. In response, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) intervened by transforming a large area of Mbendjele forest into a national park22 and by enforcing hunting restrictions everywhere else. The Mbendjele’s meat supply diminished drastically. As a result, they grew dependent on the Bantu as trading partners and settled along the logging tracks. Tracking in the rainy season was gradually abandoned and elephant hunting ceased entirely. As explained in the following section on Mbendjele economic, political, social and ritual system, the suppression of these activities is leading to the extinction of a complex set of rituals and beliefs which bind Mbendjele society together.

22

Nouabal-Ndoki.

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2. Mbendjele economic, political, social and ritual systems 2.1 An economic system based on immediate returns In the late 1970s James Woodburn developed his comparative analysis of the ethnography of indigenous peoples to show that they could be divided into ‘immediate-return’ or ‘delayedreturn’ societies. Studies have been then carried out around the world to analyse the impact of these different economic models. The picture which has emerged is that delayed-return societies are generally hierarchically organised with inequalities between peers, seniors and juniors and gender groups whereas immediate-return societies are politically and economically egalitarian (Woodburn 1982).

Studies of the Mbendjele carried out by Jerome Lewis over the last twenty years confirm this analysis. The Mbendjele are an immediate-return society and the relationships between its people are egalitarian. As Lewis puts it, ‘Immediate–return societies impose economically egalitarian relations through procedures that force sharing on anyone with more than they can immediately consume, and so prevent saving and accumulation. A range of taboos (ekila) and mechanisms, notably demand sharing, but also gambling, ritual or gifting, ensure that valued goods circulate without making people dependent on specific others. People are systematically disengaged from property and therefore from the potential for property to be used to create dependency’ (Lewis n.d.: 5). The way in which these two mechanisms of demand sharing and taboos (ekila) shape Mbendjele social life is analysed below along with other key values, practices and representations.

2.2 A social system based on demand sharing, ekila, mosambo, moadjo and gender interdepedence 2.2.1 Demand sharing Demand sharing is the core practice that ensures egalitarian economic relations in Mbendjele society. In contrast to the donor-organized sharing familiar to most people, where the person owning the resource dispenses it according to his or her whim, demand sharing is controlled by the recipient. Potential recipients constantly demand shares of things they suspect may be around and it is the donor’s duty to give whatever is requested. Refusal is considered impolite and even offensive. This is crucial to prevent sharing being manipulated to the donor’s advantage.

For most material items, need determines who can claim the item, especially in the case of consumables. In this context, possessing something is more like a guardianship or caretaker role until someone else needs it. However certain personal possessions23 are recognised as belonging to named individuals, often the person who made, found, acquired or bought the item. These individuals have priority over others’ claims to the item. But when not in use by them, any of these objects will be shared on demand with someone who needs it.

Mbendjele men and women share the food they gathered in different ways. Women share among those present at the time of collection before returning to camp. Back in the camp, they send plates of cooked food to the men’s area (mbandjo) and other hearths. On the other hand, men returning from a hunt with a large animal give it up to the community on arrival.

23

Such as a woman’s basket, her cooking pots, and machete, and a man’s bag, his spear, knife and axe.

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The community will then proceed by butchering it and by ensuring the sharing is done equitably before cooking and further redistribution by the women.

In this system, people who are less able to contribute (due to age or physical or mental disadvantage) do not receive a diminished share. The principle is that if a person requires something, then they just have to ask for it. Mbendjele adults are expected to epitomize this quality by being generous to a fault – so they will give away all that is asked of them even if this results in having nothing left for themselves.

2.2.2 Taboos or ekila Correct sharing is regulated by a set of taboos referred to as ekila, which control the essential life force of individuals and the camp. The Mbendjele believe that on return from a hunt, the ensuing meat must be fairly shared amongst all present or the hunter’s luck will be ruined. If sharing is not conducted according to ekila rules it jeopardises future success and the wellbeing of the camp (Lewis 2008).

A similar logic operates in reference to gender relations and sexuality. If either husband or wife inappropriately shares their sexuality with others outside their marriage, the life force of both partners may be affected leading to problems of reproduction. A menstruating woman must also share her menstrual blood with spirits so that her male relatives continue to find food. She does so by placing the spongy soft material24 placed in the loincloth (gondo) which catches her menstrual blood in special locations in the forest.

2.2.3 Dispute resolution and moadjo Among the Mbendjele, no one can play the role of ‘judge’ since this would imply status or authority. Conflicts and disputes are therefore usually dealt with on a one-to-one or collective basis. On a one-to-one basis, people either argue publicly, fight or avoid each other by leaving the camp. Although fighting is publicly frowned upon, it is seen as a legitimate means of resisting others or expressing indignation25. However, Mbendjele fighting is theatrically structured to minimise the potential for injury depending on the seriousness of the combatants, and their gender. Mbendjele strongly dislike and disapprove of combat that draws blood (Lewis 2002: 156-8).

While arguing and fighting are immediate ways that people can deal with their differences, a more institutionalised and collective process exists. This process is called moadjo and is performed exclusively by women. It consists of shaming a man or a woman who behaved inappropriately by comically and publicly mimicking his or her behaviour26. As in a comic entertainment, children and younger girls laugh loudly and older women add to the jokes by offering explicit but humorous condemnation of the mimicked behaviour. Men tolerate such explicit criticism from women but not from men. Through moadjo, women educate the community about Mbendjele values and regulate tensions within the camp. As witnessed by Lewis, ‘A good [moadjo] performer will calm the atmosphere by allowing everyone to laugh at themselves. Indeed, if the person being criticised is present, the moadjo will only end when he or she laughs publicly too. However, … the wrongdoer often flees and hides in the forest

from the bark called εssiko.

Those fights do not involve children but can happen between men and between women.

26 The name of the person ridiculed will never be mentioned but everybody will guess who it is.

24Made 25

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until things calm down’ (Lewis n.d.:12). If the offender repeatedly misbehaves, he or she could be expelled from the community.

2.2.4 Mosambo or formalised public speaking Rather than depending on a recognised individual to coordinate activity, the camp is organised in a non-hierarchical way through a public speaking protocol called mosambo. It is the means by which the camp communicates with itself, organises its activities in a consensual manner and allows all individuals to express their opinions, frustrations and anger so as to prevent conflicts. It should be heard twice a day, in the morning and in the evening.

In the morning, mosambo focuses on the camp’s internal dynamics and interpersonal relationships and acts as a vehicle for individuals’ grievances. In the evening, it tends to focus on the day’s activities and what people should do the next day.

Typically, in a morning mosambo, an individual will complain by pacing up and down the middle of the camp before dawn. In his or her speech, the person will target a particular person or group, though never mentioning their name, not even indirectly. Only general phrases such as, ‘People who do this sort of thing are bad’ are used. Such speeches sometimes provoke arguments and even serious fights but are generally accepted for what they are, that is a way for people to air grievances. This form of speech is open to men, women, girls and boys alike.

The evening mosambo speech requires more complex preparation as it is about building collective consensus. It is prepared and performed by men, although inputs can come from anyone in the community. Its function is to formulate publicly what people think or want and test it by giving a chance to everyone to express their agreement or disagreement. Ideally, repeated mosambo will lead the community to consensus. To deliver this speech, men gather at the end of the day at the mbandjo27. As it is rude to ask questions, they wait to hear each other’s accounts of the day and also give time to women to express their experiences. Women do this by walking close to the mbandjo and by addressing another woman or sympathetic listener in a loud voice so all can hear. They may even move around the central space where the men are seated. Once the opportunity has been given to everybody to express themselves, men will discuss what the subject(s) of the mosambo should be and, one of them, considered a good speaker, will be proposed, or will volunteer, to deliver it using humour and satire28.

During the speech itself, anyone in the camp, including women, boys and girls who disagree with the opinions or decisions contained in the mosambo can make this known by appropriate expletives or comments. In the case of women’s disagreement, men have to prepare another mosambo to try to win their support or will have to drop their idea altogether.

2.2.5 Gender interdependence: cutting and tying Mbendjele gender relations are expressed in an ideology of complementarity found in the metaphor of ‘cutting’ (moena) and ‘tying’ (mokata). So during certain ritual singing sessions, women enter trance and ‘tie up’ the spirits of game animals in order for men to be able to find them. Men ‘cut’ the life of the animal and butcher it to provide food for women. Women’s cooking ‘ties’ the meat back into the community. When women fall pregnant it is said that 27

A seating place where they take their communal evening meal.

Examples of evening Mosambo: ‘The young men (boka) should cut palm-nuts at that abandoned plantation so-and-so saw yesterday! You young unmarried girls (bangondo) must bring us back lots of mea (wild yams) from that place the hunters saw!’.

28

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men have ‘cut their moon’. Women ‘tie up’ the man’s semen to grow the foetus. Women cut the umbilical cord at birth to separate baby and mother; later, the father provides the name that ‘ties’ the baby into society and his clan. At death, women are ritually concerned with cutting the spirit from the body (sending the spirit to the creator), the men with burying the body and ensuring the body is ‘tied’ into the earth29.

These dialectics of cutting and tying negate claims to higher status by either men or women, by attributing the valued production of one sex to actions by the other sex, and by emphasizing the equally important contribution each makes to valued social production. Thus women grow men’s children by turning semen into a foetus and men kill animals that women’s mystical activities have made available. These ideological levelling mechanisms effectively cut each gender group off from the potential status derived from the high social value of the tasks they uniquely perform, while tying them back together for successful production and social life to occur.

2.3 Mbendjele rituals and the importance of play The ideology described above of cutting and tying which emphasises gendered complementarity and difference is learned and reinforced in activities that the Mbendjele call massana, translated either as ‘ritual’ or ‘play’. Beginning with the casual play of children, massana activities develop as a person grows to involve a wide range of spirit play rituals (mokondi massana) where forest spirits are sung to so as to attract them to dance in camp.

One of mokondi massana’s main roles is to educate, define and celebrate gender differences.

Women’s massana such as Ngoku and Yelle are about fertility, childbirth, and child health, securing meat, catching the spirits of animals and telepathy. Men’s massana such as Sho and Niabula are about courage, strength and awe, invisibility, high-speed movement and elephant hunting. During these rituals, each group displays their gender power. Women display their freedom and their fertility power through erotic dances and song lines such as ‘Baito wonda to njơmbơ, dơtơ ba die ebε!’ (Women chase young men, old men are no good!), or ‘Mapindi ma mu pola!’ (Their testicles are empty!). Men, in turn, speak as ‘Man’ during Sho or Niabula, as they stamp up and down the camp, bound together as one, to show their physical strength and power as providers of meat and honey.

In this way, men and women assert and counter-assert their power over each other, creating a central dynamic to maintain gender egalitarianism (for more detail, see Finnegan 2009). The corporate body that both groups form during ritual performances can speak and be understood without identifying any single individual as a leader. It can also say things that no individual could express without fearing repercussions. Strong, provocative, insulting or political statements can then be made or enacted without giving the intended recipients space to respond or interrupt. In this way, tensions inherent in gender relations are expressed and acknowledged even if not resolved. As expressed by Lewis, ‘Massana celebrates gender and emphasises independence yet interdependence, antagonism yet desire, separation and unity, subversion and respect, and the management of gender relations by same-sex solidarity, by taunt and praise, or shaming and loving’ (Lewis n.d.:18-19). What matters here in the interplay between men’s and women’s groups is that it represents an egalitarianism that depends on each gender group asserting itself effectively in the face of the other, and in spite of the other. This is epitomised in the most important of all rituals: Ejengi. During this ritual, 29

Inverted commas are used to indicate that the application of these terms has been abstracted by the author rather than used by informants.

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men and women have to gather their forces in a collective performance to attract and control the most powerful spirit of the forest.

2.4 Myths The origin myths of the Mbendjele also have a function in maintaining the gender balance of power in their communities. As there are no apical, founding ancestors (either male or female), no family or individual from either sex can claim special mystical powers on that basis. Also, the fact that men and women have different versions of the creation myth creates a complementary ideological balance that privileges neither gender.

Men and women agree that they were created by Komba, the God of the forest and creator of all things and that at the beginning of time they used to live as separate groups. Despite this basic agreement, some ancient and important disagreements exist between them on how the story unfolds. The women claim to have given the most powerful spirit of the forest, Ejεngi, to the men as a sign of their might. Men emphasise that they took Ejεngi by force and that the women had no choice but to surrender it. These differences are characteristic of the way both groups stress the significance of their own action in the establishment of contemporary society and contest the other gender’s claims. Men and women have in fact agreed to disagree, and maintain a balance of power that shifts with the moment but remains roughly equal over time.

3. Mbendjele key groups and entities 3.1 The family and clan: bandi and ekuli The Mbendjele have one word for nuclear ‘family’, which is bandi, and a word for clan, which is ekuli. The latter refers to a group of people living together around a nucleus of parents, spouses and parents of spouses. Every Mbendjele belongs to a patrilineal descent group but the clan includes male members from different clans. One reason is that married daughters stay for several years in their clan with their husbands, who belong to another clan30.

A typical family or bandi consists of a young married couple with small children, the wife’s parents and unmarried younger siblings, all sleeping in the same house. The custom is for the son-in-law to come and settle within his wife’s family for a few years. After this time, the couple might leave and join the camp of the husband’s family unless they both decide to stay.

As Mbendjele have to marry outside their clan, partners usually meet during large ritual performances, especially mourning and remembrance rituals, which bring together many clans and last several days.

Another common household type is based around a mature married couple living with a wide age-range of children and sometimes grandchildren. The children will often include some of their own but also some of their siblings’ and others’ children. Children, like adults, value mobility. They can change their residence within the clan freely and easily should they desire to do so. This fluidity is possible because of the system of extended sharing operating in the camp. As all material possessions are shared between the members of a community, there are few opportunities to protect or hoard personal resources and limit other people’s access. In

30

They can sometimes spend all their life as a couple in the wife’s clan.

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this context children can circulate at will between hearths as they do not create pressure on the resources available to each house.

It appears, then, that while the family and the clan are distinct entities, the social and economic boundary of the family is not, in many contexts, pertinent. Families’ material resources are shared within the wider community, children are free to stay in different families and their education is mostly the product of varied individuals’ or groups’ input through storytelling and participation in gendered group activities including rituals. This reflects the collective nature of almost every aspect of Mbendjele social life. The only domains in which women play a primary role in the education of their daughters or other young female kin is in matters of reproduction and menstruation taboos. Boys will learn about sexuality in a different way, mainly through hearing random conversations on the subject from the men of the camp rather than as a specific subject of conversation between fathers and sons.

Despite this lack of social and economic boundaries between each family and the wider community, families retain ultimate political control over their lives. They can decide to leave the community for any reason and length of time without giving an explanation and/or asking anybody for permission. This is closely linked to the egalitarian lifestyle and the absence of a chief or leader exerting particular control over individuals and families.

3.2 Elders – but no chiefs and leaders As Lewis describes, ‘When non-BaYaka strangers arrive at an Mbendjele camp they are often presented to a male kombeti. The term means ‘elder’ and this man often becomes the main interlocutor between the strangers and the camp. Outsiders often interpret this as a sign that the kombeti is a ‘chief’. This is misleading. From a Mbendjele perspective, whoever is the oldest in a group is a kombeti and their responsibility is to provide anything that younger members of the group demand from them’ (Lewis n.d.:12). Every camp therefore has many kombeti – for the women, for the men, for the young men, for the young women, for the girls and for the boys. Unaware of this plurality, outsiders often expect to make decisions with the kombeti, and that those decisions will be respected by the rest of the group. As underlined by Lewis, ‘This causes problems since nobody [in an Mbendjele community] has the right to decide things on someone else’s behalf, nor has any authority beyond their individual charisma and skill at establishing consensus’ (Lewis n.d.:12).

3.3 Specialists: elephant hunters, spirit guardians…

The general denial of authority within Mbendjele society applies to people with superior abilities or knowledge in key domains such as hunting, collecting honey, healing, speaking in public and controlling spirits. Except for men’s role as tuma (elephant hunters), specialism is a result of competence and not of gender. While the titles of spirit guardian, song composer, orator, healer, birth attendant and great hunter recognize that certain people are particularly skilled or knowledgeable about a particular activity, they do not give any special treatment to these people. The power they could exert on their communities is also restricted by various means. First, the payment they receive (either in kind or money or both) for their work is subjected to demand sharing, just like any other item31. Second, their abilities are never praised and are considered to be put to the service of the community. Finally, most of them are dependent on people’s willingness to help them to perform their duties. For example, 31

Only by quickly hiding the payment could the recipient have any hope of keeping some for later.

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spirit guardians depend on the willingness of those initiated in that particular spirit to sing and dance well for the spirit. The guardian cannot oblige them to do so, but needs to cajole, persuade and encourage others humorously to do what is necessary for a successful performance.

In the particular case of healers, numerous specific factors limit their power. First, all Mbendjele have a strong basic knowledge of the plants which can be used to treat recurrent diseases. This knowledge is not the exclusive property of healers, even if their knowledge might be more exhaustive and precise than other members of their community. Healers’ special power to heal lies in their ability to diagnose and cure by making contact with the spirit world through the use of divining techniques. This source of power is also a source of vulnerability, for if people perceive that they gain too much power over others or accumulate more wealth, they will be accused of witchcraft and expelled from the community.

The specific institutions, values and systems of representation and organisation of the Mbendjele set them apart from the Tswa and the Bongo. As we shall see in the following chapter, the Twa and Bongo have a different history and live in a different environment. This has led them to abandon most of their traditional hunting and gathering lifestyle.

Chapter 2: The Tswa and Bongo 1. Key environmental and historical aspects 1.1 Environmental aspects 1.1.1 The Plateaux of the Tswa The Plateaux area is both an administrative region and a landscape of forest-savannah.

Savannah represents 70 % of the surface area, cut through by rivers and fossil valleys with variously-sized patches of dense forest (GTZ 2006). People of Bantu origin originally lived on the savannah while the indigenous people of the region (the Tswa) dwelt in the patches of dense forest. The Plateaux are also called the Teke Plateaux after the Teke Bantu group who took control of the area in the 15th century.

Most of the population is located along the roads, leaving the interior of the plateaux totally empty. According to the same source, 50% of the combined population of Bantu and Tswa are involved in hunting activities, 40 % in gathering food, and 90% in agriculture. As detailed below, presently, the Tswa are increasingly involved in agriculture and all are involved in hunting and gathering food. Figures on the number of Tswa living in the Plateaux could not be found.

1.1.2 The Chaillu Mountain of the Bongo The Bongo live in a massif called Chaillu which stretches from deep into Gabon to the southwestern part of RC in the LĂŠkoumou district. Both the Tswa and the Bongo were huntersgatherers before being forced to sedentarise in the 1970s, a process which has shaped their society in very similar ways. For this reason, their social institutions are presented jointly in the next section. However, the two groups live in very distinct geographical and

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environmental areas, as described above, and this had (and still has) various consequences on their history and current lifestyle.

1.2 Historical aspects 1.2.1 The Tswa The life of most Tswa changed dramatically with the policy of sedentarisation and relocation undertaken by the Congolese state in the 1970s. According to this policy, savannah-dwelling Bantu and forest-dwelling Tswa were obliged to resettle along the major tarmacked roads of the Plateaux. Because Tswa still had Bantu masters at the time, they often chose to settle close to the Bantu family to which they were attached. The result is that most Tswa villages are now located next to Bantu villages.

Tswa families seem no longer to be attached exclusively to one Bantu family. It is unclear why this practice has ceased but it is probably due to the influence of missionaries and churches as well as the context of sedentarisation. In this context, Tswa settlements became a generalised labour pool exploited by a multitude of Bantu families. These wider employment opportunities have helped the Tswa to free themselves from exclusive patron-client relationships. They also seem to have encouraged them to negotiate a salary for their work.

According to them, for a day of ploughing, weeding and/or planting in Bantu fields, children receive 500 to 1000 CFA (1-2 USD) and adults around 4000-5000 CFA (8-10 USD).

The Tswa are still able to access forest galleries to hunt and collect wild food but the distance they need to cover to reach it means their supply of traditional forest products has changed forever.32 Not only has it become difficult for them to feed themselves, but they are also slowly relinquishing their forest traditions and forest-based knowledge. A major problem for the Tswa is that the forest has not yet been totally replaced by another source of food such as farming, lead to malnutrition over recent decades. Elders recall that hunger and access to protein-rich foods such as meat and fish were never an issue before relocation.

There are several obstacles to the Tswa’s uptake of agriculture. Although they are not forbidden, access to farmland around their permanent sedentarised settlements, their poverty, lack of expertise in cultivating the land and their different hunter-gatherer economic system mean that they cannot engage easily with this new subsistence activity. Their economic system, like that of all hunter-gatherer groups in Central Africa, relies on the ability to access food when required and then on consuming it more or less immediately (Woodburn 1982).

No planning, storage or saving are necessary. As reported for the sedentarised Batwa of Rwanda (Freeman & Borreill 2007), it is very difficult for foraging societies to adjust to these basic necessities of agricultural work.

This situation has been slowly changing over the last ten years. In more recent times, some families plant manioc and make forest plantations where they grow chillies, pineapple, banana and sugar cane. Our researchers were unable to investigate thoroughly the reasons behind this change, but the Church (which is mainly Protestant on the Plateaux) probably had an impact. As demonstrated by Comaroff and Comaroff (1988), the work ethic promulgated by the Protestant Church in Africa introduced the idea of time as a commodity and therefore 32

Forest products include game, wild fruit, roots, caterpillars, nuts, edible plants, fungus and honey as well as medicinal plants, leaves, wood and bark, plus a range of materials for building houses and making baskets, traps and tools.

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as something needing to be controlled for the purpose of organising labour. This might have had a gradual effect on Tswa attitudes towards work which involves forward planning, such as agriculture. The proximity of Bantu fields in the vicinity has also given Tswa an incentive to have their own fields, especially as they have become dependent on manioc as a staple food. Being paid by Bantu for their labour has also allowed Tswa to buy tools for cultivating their own land.

One significant consequence of Tswa sedentarisation and increasing dependency on the Teke Bantu ethnic group over the last forty years has been their adoption of Teke institutions. Like the Teke, each community now has a chief and counsellors. However, as detailed below, neither role carries any political or economic powers. The Tswa have also abandoned their own indigenous tongue and adopted Teke language. This probably occurred well before their forced relocation in the 1970s. Indeed, none of the elders currently living in the rural village of Nsah, who were born in the forest prior to relocation, could remember talking or hearing their parents talk in ‘Tswa’. An important marker of distinct cultural identity has been lost.

1.2.2 The Bongo The Bongo’s recent history resembles that of both the Tswa and Mbendjele. As happened to the Mbendjele, numerous logging companies started to exploit Bongo territory33 and the penetration of service roads led to the establishment of logging towns deep in the forest such as Mossendjo. This attracted poachers, migrants and traders, destabilising the local ecosystem and the structure of Bongo society. The Bongo became dependent on alcohol and external goods while their resource base quickly became depleted. They became increasingly subject to Bantu imposition and exploitation.

In the 1970s, the Bongo, like the Tswa (but unlike the Mbendjele), were also forced to relocalise and settle permanently along the logging roads, a process which led to them becoming agriculturalists. However, as their settlements were still surrounded by forest, they continued to gather and hunt (probably more so than the Tswa). Small game animals have also been returning to their forest since the departure of logging companies in the 1970s34.

Nowadays entire villages sometimes depart for a month at a time to hunt and gather food in the forest. This is in sharp contrast to the Tswa, who have abandoned these long collective expeditions as their settlements are now too far from their traditional forest environment.

However, the sedentarisation of the Bongo had similar consequences to those experienced by the Tswa. They have adopted the local language and the institutions of chieftainship and counsellors of their Bantu neighbours.

2. Tswa and Bongo institutions The social institutions of the Tswa and Bongo have evolved in similar ways in recent decades. For this reason, they are presented together here. Differences are highlighted where relevant.

2.1 The nuclear family -

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A distinct social unit

This started earlier than for the Mbendjele (in the 1940s, according to Forest Monitor [2008]).

Their departure was due to the exhaustion of good quality trees for export.

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Among the Tswa and Bongo, the nuclear family is composed of a father, a mother and their children. It is a much more distinct social unit than in Mbendjele communities, where the social boundaries of the family unit merge into those of the clan and the wider community.

Children who are weaned and able to walk on their own are not allowed to spend days and nights with other people from within the clan. They can visit their relatives in the daytime but they live with their biological parents. Only in cases of serious and/or repeated abuse against children can other members of the extended family network take a child or adolescent boy or girl away. Because women live in their husband’s village, it is generally members of the husband’s extended family who intervene in such cases.

-

The primary carer and educator

The Tswa and Bongo family unit is pivotal in women’s and children’s lives as it retains relatively high independence from the rest of the extended family network and the clan as a whole, making it the primary source of care for its members.35 The family provides love, care, protection and advice as well as a range of daily material needs such as food, shelter, clothes, shoes, medicines and essential equipment (pots, knives, machete, hunting net, hoe and sometimes a rifle).36 For a full discussion on gender roles within the family, see the chapter on intra-ethnic relations in Part II. The importance of the family unit for women and children and its independence from the rest of the community are also evident in the way food is shared within families and between them within the community. Husband and wife use all the food they produce or buy to meet their children’s needs before their own. Any surplus may occasionally be shared with closely related families (such as parents, brothers and sisters). Direct food requests from another family are satisfied for close kin (especially for elderly parents) but not systematically and repeatedly for anyone else. The same principle applies to any tools or artefacts possessed by each nuclear family. Money is occasionally lent, but not given away. This is an important difference from the Mbendjele, whose social organisation is based on sharing food, material possessions and even money without restraint, spontaneously or on demand, with all the members of the clan.

2.2 The extended family -

An institution with no control over access to land and specialist knowledge

Among the Tswa and Bongo there is no relationship between seniority and access to land or resources within the extended family network. Each individual is free to find a piece of land to farm and to choose an area of forest in which to hunt and gather food. This separation of seniority from the authority to control the distribution of land greatly limits the degree of power that any senior person or persons can exert over other members of the extended family.

Similarly, although some areas of specialist knowledge (such as healing or midwifery) are inherited through family lines, there is no lineage monopoly on such skills. People from lineages with no history of specialisation in such areas can become expert in them if they show a strong willingness and aptitude to learn. This prevents any single lineage from restricting access to key knowledge for political ends.

Our researchers were informed that in-laws tend to avoid getting involved in couples’ private affairs so as to avoid creating tensions within them and between families. They will step in only if asked to or in case of abuse.

36 Which also equates with providing education (see Chapter on education, Part II).

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-

An important unit for support and the most powerful institution for the protection of individuals

The extended family, especially close kin is crucial to bringing support (sharing of food if necessary, lending money, borrowing materials, looking after children), to settling disputes and protecting women and children in case of abuse (for details, see section on traditional justice systems in Part II). This is especially true for the husband’s close kin since nuclear families are systematically established in the husband’s parents’ village. In this respect, they can act as a sort of legal institution. Indeed, according to legal anthropologists, the main function of a legal institution is to settle disputes (Bohannan 1965). However, most anthropologists in the field now recognise that this criterion is insufficient in defining a group as a legal institution. Other traits should be considered, in particular the capacity of the group to constrain and sanction others for their behaviour and to make its decisions applicable to similar cases (Rouland 1994). On these criteria, the Tswa and Bongo extended family do not qualify as an institution with legal powers. Beyond exerting moral pressure, none of its members actually has the power to constrain, to sanction or to make all decisions taken applicable to similar cases.

2.3 Clan and lineage -

A mildly patrilineal lineage system with possible bilateral roots

The Bongo and Tswa claim to have a patrilineal lineage system at the level of the nuclear family. The Bongo explained this as being due to their (Christian) God, Nzambe, holding men to be superior to women. Among the Tswa, the explanation given was that the men bring their wives to live in the husband’s village with his clan.

However, despite this patrilineal lineage system, power over decisions is not systematically in the hands of men (see section on women’s status in Part II). There is great gender equality in the Tswa and Bongo communities visited, which is reflected, for example, in the lineage system of the Tswa at the level of the clan. At this level, the system is, according to our informants, bilateral and people trace their ancestors along patrilineal and matrilineal lines.

The original ancestors or founders of the clan are believed to be a man and a woman.

-

The clan is the ultimate protection and social and moral institution

Amongst the Tswa and the Bongo, the clan is composed of the male descendants of the head of the clan (who is a man) and of their wives and children. The clan is thought of as a ‘family’ in the same ways as extended family is, although with looser ties between members.

Similar expectations of sharing, assistance and common interest exist but to a lesser degree.

As Tswa and Bongo marry and set up home in the husband’s village, members of one community generally all belong to the same clan – either by birth or by marriage.

The ultimate power of the clan relies on its capacity to exert social and moral pressure on all members. Due to the small size of each village, very little escapes the eyes of the community.

In theory, this closeness acts as a safeguard against any abuse or violence. A person misbehaving can be cut off from the network of support and care from within the community and kept at a distance but they cannot be expelled by force. In the context of the severe

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discrimination that exists within the wider society and the poverty that affects indigenous groups, being ostracised by the clan leaves individuals in a very vulnerable situation.

Therefore, the clan acts as a buffer against potential mistreatment from both fellow clan members and outsiders. Its function is also to bring support to community members facing difficult circumstances such as illness, pre- and post-natal periods and death by providing them with food, water, fuel and other services. Women, in particular, have a strong ethic of mutual assistance. As they all originate from outside the clan, they form strong bonds to help one another to settle in, learn about the place and to carry out work together, such as gathering food, wood and pounding manioc. However, it is important to note that the ostracism of an individual is not extended to his or her family, who continue to receive the support of the clan.

2.4 Chiefs and counsellors -

Hereditary chieftainship from the male line

The Tswa and Bongo have chiefly lineages in every community. On the Bantu model, the male ancestors of their chief are believed to be the founders of the village. On this basis the chieftainship is hereditary and passed to the male line to the eldest son. As no hunter-gatherer societies in central Africa have hereditary chiefs (Lewis 2002, Woodburn 1982, Bahuchet 1991), it is highly probable (as underlined briefly in the history of the Tswa and Bongo above) that their chieftainship system has been adopted from their Bantu neighbours. This could not be confirmed by the elders interviewed as they were too young to know about the political system of their clan when they left the forest.

-

A moral (rather than legal) institution with relatively limited powers

Despite the existence of a system of hereditary chieftainship, Tswa and Bongo chieftainships do not hold the same power as their Bantu counterparts. They do not control people’s access to land or resources, so they have no material base on which to ground their powers. The roles and powers of the Tswa and Bongo chiefs are limited to mediating and appeasing tensions within the community, calling for meetings, distributing gifts made to the village and representing the community to outsiders. They seem to have no powers of enforcement. In fact, they have less power to constrain and control people than the extended families or community as a whole. Their authority is more moral than legal.

-

Similar standards of living to other community members except the nganga chiefs

Also Tswa and Bongo chiefs seem no better off than other members of their clan, visual evidence of this, tends to be undermined by the reluctance of community members to display their wealth publicly. This is so as to avoid jealousy and possible accusations of witchcraft. It is therefore difficult to confirm the relative wealth of chiefs, although chiefs working as diviners (nganga) seem to be the wealthiest members of their communities and do have much more power over their clan than non-nganga chiefs.37 -

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Counsellors

This issue needs to be investigated further.

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Following the Bantu model of chieftainship, Tswa and Bongo chiefs have a group of counsellors to assist them in their tasks, especially in the settlement of conflicts within the community. This circle of counsellors is composed of the male elders of the clan, who also are the heads of the sub-lineages. According to our informants, they are respected by the clan for their wisdom. Like the chief, they are a kind of moral institution with no real powers over individuals.

2.5 Traditional healers and nganga Tswa and Bongo traditional healers and nganga both fulfil an institutional role in terms of curing and treating illness. There is, however, a slight difference in focus. The traditional healer cures naturally occurring diseases using natural remedies whereas the nganga has the additional skill of curing illnesses believed to be caused by supernatural forces. Both institutions are strong in the South, but the institution of traditional healers is dying out in the Plateaux.

-

The disappearing institution of the traditional healer among the Tswa

The basis of Tswa traditional healers’ knowledge is their expertise in the healing power of plants and trees. This knowledge is crucial for the general state of health of the Tswa (and all indigenous groups), especially as access to state healthcare is difficult for them. The position is often held by women as a large part of their remedies and treatments concern birth and postnatal care. Although the profession is open to all members of a clan regardless of gender or sub-lineage, it no longer appeals to young people for several reasons: the work is poorly remunerated (200-500 CFA for consultation and remedies, i.e. between 0.3 and 1 USD) and is considered ‘backward’. Tswa and Bongo children told our researchers they aspire to become nurses, doctors, teachers, and police officers rather than traditional healers.

Another reason for the disappearance of this institution in the Plateaux is the competition traditional healers face from nganga and the distance that Tswa need to cover to access the forest and its pharmacopoeia.

-

The increasingly powerful institution of the nganga

The nganga are believed to have the power to diagnose people who have been cursed and to provide them with potions to counteract the curses and/or fetishes and to protect them against further malevolent supernatural forces (ancestors, spirits and witches). Nganga use divination and spirit possession to identify the source and type of curse and its remedies. In this respect, their role is political as they have an important influence on people’s relationships. They can divide or reconcile people and families and confirm people’s suspicions about certain individuals’ use of witchcraft. They also know herbs that can heal the body.

Nganga are supposed to oppose witchcraft and not practise it. However, it is believed that they can potentially use witchcraft and that some do it for their personal gain or out of jealousy or envy. Tswa nganga are said to have the same type of powers as Bantu nganga but they are thought to be more efficient and powerful. This is perhaps because, traditionally, all indigenous nganga are believed to have a special connection to the forces and spirits of nature.

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Tswa and Bongo nganga are a very ancient ‘institution’. Recently, their power appears to be increasing due to the sedentarisation and monetisation of their communities. Sedentarisation has made them more accessible to Bantu clients, who come from as far away as Brazzaville.

Nganga are now paid with money and can earn more than other Tswa and Bongo families, making them the only noticeably wealthy people in their communities. Although they are generally reluctant to flaunt their wealth, our research still witnessed some exterior signs of prosperity. For example, the nganga of Nsah village was the only person to possess a mobile phone, and the nganga of Elouna was the only one with a house made of bricks.

One reason behind the increasing popularity and influence of nganga is the growing gap between rich and poor in wider Congolese society. This gap has aggravated social tensions and jealousies and increased recourse to nganga. They are, therefore, key people to talk to in a community to understand not only its state of physical health but also its mental and social health.

2.6 Tswa and Bongo system of beliefs: witchcraft, ancestors and church The Tswa and Bongo have abandoned their traditional rituals due to the effects of sedentarisation and evangelisation over the last 30-40 years. However, despite their claim to be Christians, they retain their belief in the evil power of witches, ancestors and spirits. How these seemingly contradictory beliefs fit with the Christian message were beyond the scope of this study and remain to be explored.

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Part II: Key areas of indigenous social life and human rights: practices, concepts and data This part of the report elaborates upon specific areas particularly pertinent to women’s and children’s well-being and rights. These areas are intra-ethnic relations38; maternal and child health; access to justice (both traditional and modern); violence; education and economic rights. Each is treated in a separate chapter.

Each chapter compares the research data from all the indigenous communities visited and focuses on how children and women are treated both within their communities by fellow indigenous people as well as outside of them by non-indigenous members of Congolese society, including local authorities, public servants and powerful actors operating on indigenous territories such as local churches, extractive industries and NGOs. The aim here is to identify which practices uphold children’s and women’s rights and which practices threaten them.

This part also explores how indigenous peoples interpret into their own worldview some key human rights concepts as defined in international legal frameworks. The purpose of this comparison is to help programmes tailor their interventions to local conceptions.

Chapter 1. Intra-ethnic relations 1. Indigenous notions of equality, equity, fairness, rightness, child and ‘best interests of the child’ 1.1 Equality There is no single equivalent to the concept of equality in the communities visited, which made a straightforward translation of the term impossible. Some explanations were nevertheless forthcoming, and on the whole people felt able to explain what equality means to them. For the Tswa, equality refers to the fact that, ‘We [human beings] are all the same’ and, ‘Nobody is in front or behind anybody else’. The Bongo equate the term with social harmony and equity and the Mbendjele with the fundamental principle that, ‘People should be valued equally regardless of age, sex or ability’. The meaning of the concept of equality in indigenous societies is therefore very similar to that given in international human rights texts.

As detailed in this chapter, equality seems central not only as a concept but also as a practice in the way gender relations are lived in these three indigenous groups.

1.2 Equity, fairness and rightness Equity, understood as ‘the fair distribution of society’s material and non-material goods’ (Peterson 2009: 9), is another important value for the Tswa, Bongo and Mbendjele39, a value linked to the central social practice of proper sharing. For all groups, proper sharing within a 38

i.e. relationships between men, women, boys and girls in indigenous communities and the treatment of people with disabilities and multiple layers of vulnerabilities.

39 This finding corroborates those presented in the ethnographic literature on Central African indigenous peoples, amongst whom are found some of the most egalitarian social orders observed in the world.

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household means that husband and wife decide together on all matters concerning their life and that of their children, inform each other of their activities and share whatever they bring in to the family (money, food etc.).40 However, outside of the family unit, sharing practices differ between the Tswa and Bongo on one hand and the Mbendjele on the other.

For the Mbendjele it is obligatory to share amongst all clan members. This means that all the food, material items and money gathered in a camp can be used by anybody, either spontaneously or on demand. Equity here is practised to the utmost degree.

Among the Tswa and Bongo, the situation is different. Outside of the nuclear family, food, equipment and services are shared on an occasional basis, mostly with the husband’s close family living in the same village. The husband’s elderly parents, however, can access all the food and goods available in their eldest son’s household. Although the degree of sharing is lower than amongst the Mbendjele, some communal sharing mechanisms exist nevertheless to support members of the clan who are in a temporarily difficult position, such as widows, who will receive food, firewood, water and help in the maintenance of their hut. (For a more detailed discussion on the treatment of people suffering intersecting inequalities, including disabilities, see the section 4 of this chapter). However, in some urban settings where alcohol addiction and poverty are rife, sharing mechanisms outside of the family unit are disappearing, leaving the elderly, single mothers and widows in a very precarious situation.

1.3 The definition of ‘child’ The concept of child exists in all the groups and is related to the recognition that children have a special time for themselves before adulthood. For the Mbendjele, this special time translates as ‘the period where a person is growing up’ (moto aphonga). The used of the word ‘person’ here is significant as, in all the communities visited, children are considered as full persons. Their will is respected almost equally to that of adults and they are granted great autonomy and freedom in their choices and movements.

Everywhere, the same term (‘bana’) is used to designate children. But while the Mbendjele distinguish children at various different stages in the life cycle,41 the Tswa and Bongo emphasise only the distinction between pre-pubescent children and adolescent boys (beri) and girls (cari).

In all three groups, adolescence begins at the beginning of puberty (which is around the age of 12 years) and ends on becoming parents (usually between the ages of 13 and 15) after which they are considered adults. The recognized sign of puberty among girls is their growing breasts rather than menstruation. Signs of puberty for boys are pubic and axilla hair and the breaking of the voice. The definition of adults and children in indigenous communities is therefore very different from the definition given by Congolese law and particularly the CRC which defines a child as a person below the age of 18 years unless majority is attained earlier.

1.4 The definition of ‘best Interests of the child’

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Except very particular material possessions exclusively used by men or women (i.e. hunting equipment, pots).

First, bana are babies in arms (bana mabo or bana na moepe), then children that walk (bana batambwa ) then big children (bana mandi), then adolescent boys (boka) and adolescent girls (ngondo), and finally girl/woman (mwito or plural baito) or boy/man (mutopai or plural batopai).

41

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As defined in the CRC, acting in the best interests of the child is, ‘to ensure the child such protection and care as is necessary for his or her well-being, taking into account the rights and duties of his or her parents, legal guardians, or other individuals legally responsible for him or her’ (CRC, Article 3.2). This includes the right of the child to express his or her views and to have them heard; to live in a safe environment; to have caring and respectful relationships with family members and other care-givers and, if separated from family or care-givers, to have the possibility of being reunited with them; and to have his or her physical, emotional and educational needs met. We used this definition to determine whether indigenous peoples understanding of the rights of the child was in alignment.

The notion of ‘best interest of the child’ was difficult to translate since it is taken for granted in indigenous culture. On the Plateaux, the closest equivalent found for this broad concept was that of being responsible for one’s child42. The men from the village of Nsah said, ‘You have to treat your child like your own body’. In the South, we found no equivalent, but people understood its meaning. The Mbendjele translated it as, ‘how to make sure that a child grows well so that tomorrow the child is a good adult’ (Makanisi mena ma soki mona phonga enye). In practice, for indigenous women and men, to have the best interest of your child in mind means meeting your children’s needs in terms of food, clothing and hygiene before meeting your own. The Mbendjele women also stressed their general protective and healing role as mothers and the sacrifices this implies.

When asked for their views on the other specific indicators, all parents agreed on the importance of bringing up the children by giving them advice on how to look after their own children and spouses later in life and become respected members of the community. This is the basic and most important ‘education’ they must receive and it is considered as more important than school education, as illustrated later in the report. Similarly, they agreed on the importance of bringing up their children in a safe environment where their growth into strong, healthy adults is ensured and in a social environment where people have respectful relationships. In such social environments, shouting, beating and publicly interrupting and contradicting people should not take place. Children who are temporarily separated from their parents have the right to visit them where possible, although it is unclear whether such visits would be allowed in situations where removal of the child was because of abuse. The removal of a child from their family or carer for the sake of their well-being is also considered to be important but is not a straightforward process among the Tswa and Bongo, as detailed in the following chapter on access to justice.

2. The comparative status of women, men, girls and boys 2.1 The influence of lineage and clan systems The Tswa and Bongo have a patrilineal lineage system with hereditary chiefs while the Mbendjele have a clan system43 without chiefs (see Part I). As demonstrated throughout this section, none of these systems has a deep influence on the status and treatment of children and women within their communities.

2.2 Adults’ duties and relationships towards children

This translates in Teke as ‘Obonon Mbana’.

Unlike lineages, clans are not traced back to a common named ancestor despite the fact that Mbendjele men now present themselves as heads of the family.

42 43

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Adults accept that their duties are to provide all children with food, education, healthcare, shelter and leisure time. They also stress their role in educating children about protecting themselves from injury and mistreatment, and respecting others by avoiding lying, violence, aggression and boastfulness. The Tswa and Bongo also mentioned the necessity of allowing boys and girls to attend school, as they see education as a means of gaining respect from the Bantu. Mbendjele stressed the importance of transmitting forest knowledge as a basis for their children’s survival and protection from abusive behaviour, especially from the Bantu.

However, more generally, the educative influence of adults appears to be increasingly challenged by children and adolescents, especially in urban areas. While the Bongo and Mbendjele attribute this change to children’s consumption of alcohol , the Tswa refer to the stigmatisation they have suffered since their forced resettlement next to Bantu. They stress that this has led their children to reject their identity and, with it, their parents.

Photo 5: Young BAAKA girl reading his lessons

© UNICEF Brazzaville

2.3 Male and female productive roles Boys and girls are allowed to play as much as they like before puberty but are also expected to help occasionally with small tasks such as butchering game, carrying food back to the village or camp, collecting water and helping care for smaller children. Mbendjele boys and girls also go into the forest with their mothers at an early age to play, observe, dig yams or catch fish. Transmitting forest knowledge as early as possible is central to Mbendjele culture.

After puberty, all indigenous boys are expected to follow their fathers more systematically in daily tasks both within and outside the village or camp. The same is expected of girls with their mothers. As they grow up, children’s activities become increasingly gendered. Girls concentrate on pounding manioc, cooking, washing, working in the fields, collecting wild foods and looking after younger children. Boys on the other hand, learn to hunt, plant edible species in the forest and collect all foods growing above ground (i.e. those that require climbing). Mbendjele mothers and girls are also active in fishing in the rivers. During this period, imbalances in terms of workload start to appear between girls and boys that reflect those existing between men and women in the wider society. However, in each group, there 51

are particularities in the distribution of male and female productive roles which mitigate these work imbalances. Mbendjele men, for example, have a very active role in terms of childcare and perform many household chores44. Among the Tswa/Bongo, all adolescents and adult members of the family help to fetch water and collect firewood, and men are increasingly involved in farming.

2.4 Male and female management45 and reproductive46 roles Indigenous men are recognised as family heads. However, as detailed below, husbands and wives have equal decision-making powers in many, if not all, areas of life.

- Sexuality, polygamy and choice of spouse Although men and women are free to choose their sexual partners and spouses, having multiple sexual partners is discouraged for both women and men as it is considered a source of problems and tensions. Therefore, polygamy is not practiced among the Tswa and is very rare among the Bongo. Only one case in this group was recorded. Interestingly, we found one case of polyandry in the North among the Mikaya (another indigenous group). The woman had two husbands, one in a forest camp and one in a logging town.

- Rituals Traditional rituals have disappeared among the Tswa and Bongo but are still fundamental in Mbendjele society (see photo 5). Mbendjele boys, girls, men and women have different ritual associations whose powers complement each other and help create a unique form of gender egalitarianism (see Part I). Initiation, which is not obligatory, generally starts from the age of 10-12 years. Although there are no consequences for refusing to undergo initiation, those who chose not to be initiated will generally not be able to share the ritual knowledge received by initiates. Although theses ritual traditions have deep roots, they are slowly being abandoned by urban Mbendjele communities as their relationship with the forest is now attenuated. As they no longer depend on the forest for daily resources, rituals that ensure its abundance tend to be dying out. Besides, they cannot access the forest produce required for ritual performances. As underlined by Lewis (2002: 169-70), this could impact greatly on the gender egalitarianism characteristic of the Mbendjele traditional way of living and have a deleterious effect on women and women’s rights.

Photo 6: Mbendjele women dancing at the Ngoku ritual in Indongo

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They are renowned in the ethnographic literature (alongside other Central African forest hunter-gatherers) for providing their children with the most paternal care and attention observed worldwide (see ‘Intimate Fathers’ by Hewlett, 1991).

45 Management roles refer to decision-making powers in key areas of social life such as rituals, access to resources etc.

46 Reproductive roles refer to control over sexuality as well as care and maintenance of the family, especially children.

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- Choice of residence and divorce/separation All indigenous peoples practice exogamy (i.e. marry outside of their community and clan).

However, regional traditions differ on where a married couple should live and who decides on the matter. Among the Tswa and Bongo, the status of men as family heads gives them the power to choose the village where their family will reside but it is the women who chose the site of the house. Among the Mbendjele, the fact that men have the status of family heads has no influence on women’s choice of residence. On the contrary, newly married men must provide bride service to their in-laws and live in their camp for a couple of years. During that time they will be examined on their capacity to care for their wives and look after a family properly. After that period, couples may choose to live elsewhere.

Although in theory, all indigenous women can ‘divorce’ and choose another partner, in reality only Mbendjele women enjoy that right. To free themselves from their husband, Tswa and Bongo women need to repay the value of the dowry offered by their husband upon marriage, which is generally financially impossible. By contrast, Mbendjele women give no notice, nor do they provide any return of ‘payment’ before leaving their husband. They simply take their belongings and children and leave the house.

- Raising of children There are major differences between the Tswa and Bongo on one hand and the Mbendjele on the other. Among the Tswa and Bongo, children’s upbringing is more influenced by the father’s family as children are born in their father’s village and clan. However, in the case of divorced or separated parents, the boys and girls will live alternately with their mother and father. Neither fathers nor mothers are favoured in such cases.

Among the Mbendjele, the situation is different. Children often live for a period of time in the clan of each of their parents. Their upbringing is, therefore, influenced by both parents and their respective clans. However, in case of divorce or parental separation, children will systematically live with their mother and their mother’s family, leading to a greater influence of mothers and the maternal lineage.

- Access to land and resources All indigenous women and children are free to engage in any activity of their choice and to access land and forest resources where available. The money they earn from these activities is considered theirs and they can dispose of it as they wish. However, in Mbendjele communities it can be difficult to keep control of personal earnings as money is subject to demand sharing.

- Freedom of participation, expression and association In all the communities visited, the practice (if not the concept) of ‘freedom of association’ exists. Anybody can assemble or create a group if they want to. It is particularly important for the Mbendjele, for whom freedom of choice and freedom of movement are fundamental principles of life itself.

On the notion of ‘freedom of participation and expression’, we found great differences between, the Tswa and Bongo on one hand, and the Mbendjele on the other. Among the Tswa 53

and Bongo, in the private sphere, all decisions are taken together by husband and wife and children can express their views and should be listened to. Everyone is free to take part (or not) in meetings, but only men are expected to express their opinions publicly, although they must do so in ways that do not openly shame or criticize others. Freedom of expression is, therefore, limited by two important behavioral constraints operating in the public sphere.

First, it is rude and disrespectful to contradict someone, especially in front of strangers.

Second, women and children are not expected to contribute to formal discussions concerning the community, although they can make use of spokespersons to express their opinions (a woman for the Tswa and a man for the Bongo).

The situation of the Mbendjele is totally different as everyone, including children, can participate fully in the life of the community and express themselves publicly. Adults, and even children, who want to raise an issue concerning life in the camp, can do this through a rhetorical mechanism called mosambo (see Part I for details).

3. Gender equality and gender discrimination The previous key findings on male and female productive, reproductive and management roles show some important regional differences in terms of gender discrimination, which are summarized below.

Among the Mbendjele, there is no evidence of discrimination based on gender. Men and women respect each other different yet complementary roles and gendered activities that assure the group’s physical and cultural survival. This deep respect is fundamental to Mbendjele society and is carefully maintained through the application of several ‘levelling mechanisms’, as detailed in Part I, namely moadjo (theatrical re-enactments), gano (myth, story-telling) and massana (gendered ritual associations). In contrast to Tswa and Bongo women, Mbendjele women enjoy the same rights as Mbendjele men: freedom of speech, participation, association and movement, access to land and resources, equal (if not greater) influence on their children’s upbringing, choice of partners and freedom to divorce, choice of place of residence, share in domestic chores and childcare and control of powerful institutions such as moadjo, story-telling, myths and rituals. Women’s solidarity is also very strong and if a man or men try to assert authority over them, women quickly band together to resist.

Among the Tswa and Bongo, the situation is different. Despite the fact that a general balance of powers and rights appears to exist between the sexes, there are some strong gender stereotypes and some gender-based differences in terms of role and status. A summary of the egalitarian and discriminatory practices found among the Tswa and Bongo is given below: - Egalitarian practices  Men and women have equal access to resources  Both can sell the fruit of their labour and choose to spend the money earned as they wish  Women have as much influence as men over family and community decisions  Women and men both have equal right to be treated in case of illness and to be assisted if they are victims of violence  Both girls and boys are free to attend school if they wish, and parents will encourage them equally to do so  Both parents are responsible for the bringing of their children  In case of separation, boys and girls will be looked after alternately by their mother and father 54

- Discriminatory practices  Women’s and girls’ workload is heavier than men’s and boys’ as females are expected to do much of the childcare, farming, washing and cooking, including pounding large quantities of manioc every day (Photo 5)  Women tend not to initiate divorce due to the implications of returning the value of the gifts offered by their husband upon marriage  Women cannot hold the position of chief or head of family  Women have to settle in their husband’s village.

Photo 7: Tswa girls pounding manioc in the village of Nsah

4. Intersecting inequalities including disabilities 4.1 Indigenous concept of disability In all groups, there is a specific term for disability: Eboka in Mbendjele refers to permanent physical as well as a mental affliction or disorder. Polio and leprosy, for example, are classified by the Mbendjele as disabling. The Tswa and Bongo have a different term for physical handicaps (icara) and mental handicaps (ngalari) and no overarching term that encapsulates both.

4.2 Community treatment of people with multiple vulnerabilities For persons experiencing multiple layers of vulnerability such as widows, women and children with disabilities, childless women and elderly women, it is difficult to ascertain how they are treated by members of their family or community for two reasons:  Our research did not come across many concrete cases  Treatment may vary according to individuals, families and/or communities With these limitations in mind, a summary of the data is presented below.

In the Plateaux, we found no cases of women presenting signs of infertility or having no children. However, people stressed that such situations should not affect a woman’s relationship with her partner, all things being equal. Although we found no cases of divorced 55

women, we were told that in such circumstances women return to their parents’ village and live with them. We did, however, observe that elderly people and widows are helped and well cared for by their relatives. Widows in particular are allowed to stay in their house and make use of any personal belongings they shared with their husband during their life together. We were also informed that people with disabilities were looked after by their family and considered full members of their community. However, we came across one case of a woman with a disability who was clearly excluded from her social surroundings and was barely surviving. This one example should not be taken of evidence of any wider pattern since the general situation of women and girls with disabilities could not be fully explored.

Among the Bongo communities visited, it was claimed that a woman or child is always accepted as a community member whatever his or her situation or condition. If a woman is divorced, she will always be welcomed back in her parents’ village, even if she has no children. If she has disabilities, is old, or is a widow, her family and the other women of the community will help to facilitate her everyday life as best they can. The same claim was made about children with disabilities. Although corroborating evidence was found about the situation of elderly women in rural areas, none can be advanced here for widows, divorced women, childless women or women and children with disabilities. Moreover, in towns, the situation of elderly people did not match the discourse. They seemed to receive very little help from other community members, who already struggle to feed themselves.

The Mbendjele claim that widows, childless women and women with disabilities enjoy the same rights and responsibilities as anybody else in the camp and contribute to its life according to their mental and physical abilities. For example, women with disabilities will often care for children in camp when their mothers go gathering in the forest. They may even care for certain children for long periods and become like another parent to them. Childless couples may do the same. Women who are unable to have children often become traditional birth attendants since, with no childcare responsibilities of their own, they are free to assist women in labour. As a corollary, men whose disabilities prevent them from hunting should, in principle, receive a share of another man’s hunt, and a woman with disabilities would be supported by her fellow women. We found three cases which corroborate the above claims (see cases 1, 2 and 3 in Box 6 below) and no evidence that disproves them.

Box 3: Cases of disabilities witnessed in the North Case 1 In 2010, a team from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) travelled to Indongo to record the Mbendjele’s polyphonic singing. During recordings someone began tapping a metal plate out of time – highly unusual for a people regarded as possessing great musical talents. People in the community were asked to stop that person but nobody did it as the person tapping out of tune was a 6-year-old girl with disabilities. The Mbendjele said she was contributing to the music and that they could not stop her or discourage her from doing so.

Case 2 A young Mbendjele man called Mongemba fell out of a tree whilst cutting palm nuts, which left him with a spinal injury and partial paralysis. He is married and lives with his wife in Indongo.

The male members of the group give him and his wife meat, palm nuts and honey – forest produce usually provided by men. He is a trusted and respected member of the group. When others move, they frequently give him their belongings to look after so passing Bantu won’t take them. Mongemba has the role of trusted advisor and safe keeper of goods for the whole community.

Case 3

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Mokaba, a Mbendjele man, has no use of his legs as a result of polio. In order to follow the groups’ movements he crossed the marshes by swimming through them and walked the rest on his hands. Mokaba has been married three times (two of his wives died) and has had several children. Despite his hands being covered in callouses from walking on them, he is one of the camp’s most revered thumb piano players as well as the community’s gifted ironsmith. In the evening the children often sit with him and ask him to tell them gano song-stories through which traditional knowledge and moral tales are transmitted.

Source: Northern regions, April 2012 and previous research carried out by members of the team in 2010.

5. Children’s identity and registration of births 5.1 Names and birth The Bongo is the only group which names children on the day of birth. The Tswa and Mbendjele avoid it for two reasons. First, it is considered to expose the child to the possibility of evil spirits entering their body and causing illness or death. The second reason is that names are inherited from respected ancestors and it is believed that if the infant should die, the name and the force it embodies will die with it. As a result, Tswa babies have no name until the age of two or three. Mbendjele wait until the umbilical cord has dropped and the scarring has healed i.e. a few months after birth before naming a child.

5.2 First names and surnames The general practice today is to have two names: a traditional surname and a first name, which is usually of Christian derivation. The traditional name is the more important, as Christian names are only used to ease relationships with Bantu and the local authorities, specifically in order to have an identity card and a birth certificate. The Mbendjele still show a greater preference for traditional names only.

5.3 Problems in the registration of births There are five main reasons why the vast majority of indigenous people encountered do not register the birth of their children: - Lack of appreciation of its importance - As noted above, among the Tswa, babies are not named until they reach the age of three years and among the Mbendjele, they may not be named until the age of six months - Registration offices are often far away from indigenous communities - Registration represents a significant expense (1000 CFA [20 USD] in the town of Zanaga; 2000 CFA [4 USD] in Ngo and 5 000 CFA [10 USD] in Pokola, according to indigenous sources, although officially, it has been legally free since 2008. As a corollary, there tends to be lack of clear information about the real fee required to register the birth of a child (see Box 7 below) and corrupt and discriminatory practices seem to exist in some registration offices.

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Box 4: Case reported on certificate of births A young indigenous man tried to obtain birth certificates for his three siblings aged 13, 16 and 17 after being informed that, since 2008, birth certificates have been issued free of charge to people under18 years old. When he did not receive the documents, he went back to the authorities, who told him that only children under six years old were entitled to their documents free of charge. The authorities required him to pay 15,000 CFA (30 USD) to obtain the certificates.

Source: Sangha region, Mbendjele, April 2012.

Chapter 2: Maternal and child health 1. Indigenous notions of health The concept of health for indigenous peoples is much wider and more complex than its Western counterpart. It is a holistic concept in which the mind and the body as well as an individual’s behaviour and relationships with people, ancestors and God all play a part.

Despite this complexity, a clear distinction is made between natural diseases and supranatural ones (caused either by witches, ancestors or spirits). The difficulty resides in identifying in which category an illness falls. In order to ascertain this, people often resort to the service of an nganga (diviner), especially if the patient or his family are experiencing an undue amount of difficulties, stress and social tension. In such circumstances, the illness is generally attributed to the ill will of jealous or resentful neighbours (i.e. witchcraft) or to the contravention of ancestral taboos and/or rituals. Good health is therefore related to the maintenance of peaceful social relationships and respect for social norms within the clan.

Other factors mentioned as important to good health were access to food (especially wild food) and both traditional and non-traditional medicines.

2. Access to healthcare and treatment of diseases, both traditionally and through medical centres 2.1 General state of health Important regional differences exist in the general state of health of the groups and communities visited. Basically, they amount to differences in terms of access to the forest and of addiction to alcohol, which is particularly prevalent in urban communities in the South and in the North. For reasons unknown to this research, or perhaps due to an unknown bias in our sample, the Tswa seem not to suffer from alcohol addiction. However, their overall access to the forest for hunting and to rivers for fishing is poor compared to the two other groups. As a result, Tswa families have a very low intake of animal protein which has not yet been counterbalance with the consumption of other available sources of protein, resulting in acute child malnutrition (see photo 6).47

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This was observable among children in communities visited.

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Photo 8: Tswa baby from the village of Oli suffering from malnutrition

2.2 Traditional healers and treatments: importance and access in terms of gender Indigenous traditional healers or nganga are widely recognised as being among the most effective of all the country’s traditional healers. They are also considered by the government as important sources of treatment (Congolese national policy document on traditional medicine 2006).

In the South, indigenous people claim that their nganga can treat diseases such as epilepsy, intestinal worms, coughs, menstrual pain, stomach ache, head ache, urinary disease, elephantiasis48, fractures, wounds and diarrhoea49. Both the Bongo and the nurses at the Zanaga and Sibiti Centres de Santé Intégré (CSI) report diarrhoea to be one of the main causes of death among Bongo children. This claim could not be confirmed as no official data could be gathered due to the fact that the ethnic identity of patients is not recorded in the CSI books.

In contrast, traditional healers’ knowledge is dying out in the Plateaux as healer’s age and the younger generation show little interest in traditional healing practices, based on its association with backwardness and minimal financial reward50. The gradual loss of this knowledge creates a serious problem as Tswa traditional healers specialize in the treatment of common diseases such as fever, diarrhoea, coughs, scabies, stomach pain, infertility and body pain through massage (massages of babies and mothers’ breasts). They are also acquainted with plants that can ease pain during childbirth.

In the North, the healing tradition is strong and the Mbendjele’s knowledge of plants is impressive. They claim to be able to cure malaria and tetanus. Unlike the Tswa and Bongo, the knowledge of plants among the Mbendjele is not limited to traditional healers as most people have great mastery of healing plants. The Mbendjele claim that their nganga can heal diarrhoea without blood (daiya), cough (ekotu), respiratory problems (ekiba/pema), malaria (yuku na musoko abea), tetanus (mboko) and intestinal parasites (pambo). Despite their extensive knowledge, Mbendjele claim to have no effective treatment for yaws, leprosy, tuberculosis, dysentery (diarrhoea with blood) or some cases of tetanus and malaria.

48

A disease that causes the thickening of the skin and underlying tissue, especially in the legs.

They can apparently cure diarrhoea occurring in rural villages but not in urban camps.

50Witchdoctors, however, can command high fees and some attract clients from as far away as Brazzaville.

49

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Indigenous peoples do not discriminate against women, children, girls or the elderly in terms of access to traditional medical treatment. They prefer to try their own traditional medicines first and only resort to medical centres if traditional remedies prove ineffective and they have the means to pay, by which time the person may be too sick to be saved by the medical staff.51 Traditional healers are favoured because they provide a diagnosis and treatments culturally relevant to people at costs either cheaper or similar to those offered in the healthcare centres and hospitals. They are also available in most villages or those nearby.

Perhaps most importantly, patients are perceived to be treated with more dignity compared to modern clinics.

2.3 Access to government healthcare and availability of treatment for women In theory, indigenous people have access to the government health centres but several obstacles severely limit their access. These are: - Financial means: Despite claims from nurses that indigenous people have cheaper consultation and free medication, every indigenous person interviewed indicated having to pay much more than the quoted price. Indigenous peoples find it very difficult to meet supplementary costs such as medicines, hospital transfer and residing outside of their communities for medical reasons - Lack of clarity and enforcement of national health policy regarding indigenous peoples - Distance to health facilities, especially in rural areas - Prevalent and commonplace discrimination – which includes ignoring, blaming, insulting, shouting at and overcharging indigenous men, women and children.

- Lack of privacy especially during childbirth.

The above points are elaborated upon and/or illustrated in more detail below.

- Discrimination As witnessed and illustrated in the box below, the attitude of medical staff’s towards indigenous peoples tends to be discriminatory and often times condescending and brutal as may be seen from the examples cited in Box 8 below: Box 5: Cases of discrimination observed in the health sector

Case 1 During a visit to the village of Allion in the Plateaux, we found a six month-old baby weighing less than two kilograms and an eight year-old girl with the weight of a two year-old (13 kg).

Both had symptoms of severe malnutrition, including yellow hair and swollen feet and stomach.

There was also a high suspicion of tuberculosis. We took the two sick children to the local government dispensary at Nsah, where the local nurse, midwife and social liaison officer (communicateur social) accused the parents of letting their children die. The liaison officer and the midwife in particular shouted at them publicly, insulting them while they stayed silent with their eyes down. The Tswa were constantly referred to us as ‘those people’. As the children’s case was too severe to be treated on the premises, we had to take them to regional hospital of Djambala. We paid 2000 CFA each for the transfer of the children and two carers and gave extra

51

If the sick person is considered cursed and likely to die, people claim they will still seek treatment for him or her at the hospital.

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money to allow them to live in Djambala for a few days. Without this moral and financial support the children may not have received treatment.

Case 2 We witnessed similar psychological situation in the Plateaux town of Ngo when we brought a 36 month-old baby to a healthcare centre. The girl’s father was accused of neglecting the child despite having tried everything he could to save her, including making previous visits to health centres and spending all his money on ineffective consultations and medicines. He did not reply to any of the insults but simply looked straight ahead. He later told us that it made him angry but he would try everything to save his daughter’s life, including suffering mistreatment himself.

Case 3 During the research in the north, we met M. who had just given birth to an extremely premature baby weighing a mere 900 grams. She had gone to Pokola hospital and stayed there as long as the ‘white man’ (a Dutch doctor) was present. When he left for his annual holiday she left too as she was too frightened to stay with the Bantu medical staff.

Source: Plateaux and north region, April 2012

- Lack of clarity and enforcement of national health policy regarding indigenous peoples As already noted above, there tends to be lack of clarity regarding the cost of health care for indigenous peoples in public health settings. The Ngo, Nsah and Zanaga health centres all charged different prices and medical staff tended to quote contradictory fees to the research team.

According to the most senior male nurse in Nsah, indigenous peoples are entitled to free medicines and are required to pay lower fees for follow-up during pregnancy (2 500 CFA [5 USD]) and for consultation (500 CFA per child [1 USD] and 1000 CFA [2 USD] per adult).

However, indigenous women recalled being asked 10 000 CFA (20 USD) during pregnancy and more than 2000 CFA (4 USD) for consultations. In the South, according to official sources, there is no special tariff for indigenous peoples and the flat rate for everyone is 1500 CFA (3 USD) for consultations (photo 7).

Due to reasons cited above, the majority of indigenous peoples who utilize public hospitals in the North are urban residents such as the Mbendjele of Pokola. It is worthy of note that between 1996-1999 a mobile pharmacy set up by indigenous healers toured indigenous camps in the North. The Mbendjele asked if this initiative could be resumed as they had experienced an improvement in their general state of health at the time. Since 1999, the local logging company, Congolese Industrielle des Bois (CIB) has been providing free medical treatment for indigenous peoples at its hospital in Pokola. However, it is only since the arrival of a European doctor in 2003 that Mbendjele have started to visit the facility. While up to date data on Mbendjele uptake of the hospital’s services were not available, the hospital records that 156 Mbendjele patients were treated between January and April 2012. Although this treatment rate is relatively high compared to that of the Plateaux, indigenous peoples remains confronted by discrimination, psychological violence, lack of privacy and lack of money to buy the items requested by the hospital for birth.

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Photo 9: Official tariffs for consultation in the Integrated Health Centre (CSI) of Nsah

3. Attitudes towards traditional and non-traditional family planning methods All indigenous peoples share a similar traditional taboo on post-partum sexual relations which allows women to space births. While for the Tswa and Bongo the taboo lasts one year, among the Mbendjele the period lasts until weaning is complete at around two to three years.

Compared to the Tswa and Bongo who indicate that the absence of traditional contraceptive practices, Mbendjele women suggest that drinking the bark of a tree and wearing medicinal necklaces or mokodis (ropes made from forest lianas) prevents conception. They also claim to be able to provoke permanent infertility by burying the placenta of their previous baby in the ground in a particular way.

Non-traditional methods for contraception or birth spacing are generally not known and opinions differ with respect to eagerness or willingness to learn more about them. While Tswa and Bongo women claim to be very keen to know more about contraception, Mbendjele women, tend to trust traditional methods out of fear that modern methods are aimed at deliberately making them infertile. Others, such as the women of the rural camp of Indongo, indicated being keen to learn about non-traditional means of contraception.

4. Attitudes towards immunisation and implementation of the immunisation policy Visits to indigenous villages to immunise children are carried out in all three regions studied.

However, the large rural indigenous settlement selected for this study (Indongo) was omitted from a recent vaccination programme targeting children under five in villages along the Sangha River. Consequently, none of the 70 children recorded by our researchers in Indongo were vaccinated. The settlement’s inhabitants claim that the programme did not select their village because there are no Bantu among the population. Further research is needed to verify that there is no systematic failure to immunise children living in indigenous settlements with no immediate Bantu neighbours.

Vaccination visits (when they happen) provoke different reactions depending on the level of training of the vaccination teams and their attitude towards indigenous peoples. In the Plateaux, Tswa fear vaccines as they claim they make their children ill (feverish). The nurse from Nsah confirmed that they are suspicious of the Bantu when they come to immunise their children and hide when they approach. However, in urban camps in the North, people had a 62

positive experience of vaccination as the team was friendly and explained the short-term impact and long-term benefits. It is important to maintain the principle of mobile teams visiting settlements as indigenous people indicate they would not attend hospital facilities for vaccinations due to fear of being harmed by the Bantu.

5. Attitudes towards abortion -

Abortion in the context of consensual and non-consensual relationships

Indigenous women who decide to abort do not have to justify their choice, ask anybody else’s permission or even tell their husband and family. There is a variety of forest medicines for effecting the process, including species of mushroom, the juice from a large forest liana and tree-barks. The most common reasons for aborting are:    

When a woman gets old and already has several children.

When the pregnancies are clearly difficult and risky, especially when a woman is considered too young to have a baby.

When the father is a Bantu.

When a woman has been left by her husband and already has several children.

If a Mbendjele girl conceives at an age considered too young for motherhood, her family (usually her mother) will arrange for a termination using traditional medicines.

Forced sexual relations is an urban phenomenon and tends to be linked to excessive alcohol intake by both men and women. While women are reticent to talk about cases of rape committed by members of the indigenous community, they speak more openly about it when it involves Bantu community members. Views about abortion in the context of forced sexual relations vary across regions and urban and rural locations. However, it is important to note that when communities support the right of women to abort in the case of pregnancies resulting from forced sexual relations, they do so regardless of the identity of the rapist (indigenous or non-indigenous).

In the Bongo communities visited, respondents suggested that that abortion would be avoided in the case of forced sexual relations. Among the Tswa, women indicated that would definitely abort in the case of a pregnancy following a rape perpetrated by an indigenous or non-indigenous man. Some Tswa female commercial sex workers living in urban communities indicated they would also abort if a pregnancy were to result from paid sex with a Bantu52. Among the Mbendjele, the research revealed numerous cases of forced sexual relations by indigenous men in the urban settings but no cases of rape by Bantu men or prostitution with indigenous or non-indigenous men. In this group, women stated that they would abort any pregnancy resulting from any forced sexual relations.

While traditional healers are the preferred means of abortion, Tswa and Bongo women would consider abortion in healthcare centres if the barriers already noted were addressed. On the contrary, Mbendjele women perceive their traditional medicines for abortion to be safer and would generally avoid medical facilities.

52

Women did not mention whether they engaged in paid sex with indigenous men (which seems unlikely for financial reasons).

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6. Maternal health 6.1 Good health during pregnancy and breastfeeding Tswa and Bongo women carry on with their daily tasks almost until birth and resume their activities three to four months after birth. Women’s activities such as tilling the soil, weeding fields or pounding manioc are particularly tiring for pregnant women and new mothers. As a result, mothers often leave very young children with relatives for most of the day. In neither group do pregnant nor breastfeeding women have a specific diet, although among the Tswa, manioc leaves are forbidden during pregnancy as they are said to transfer inkira (a bad spirit) into the child, leading to low birth weight. Tswa and Bongo women are aware that cigarettes and alcohol are especially dangerous during pregnancy, although there is little indication that regular smokers and drinkers abandon these habits when pregnant.

Like Tswa and Bongo women, Mbendjele women also stay active until they give birth, not resuming their activities until at least four months later. However, when they first return to work in the forest they are accompanied by other women who support them by handling their baby and by sharing all the food gathered that day with them. Another major difference is the complex and sophisticated system of preferred and taboo foods observed by Mbendjele women during pregnancy and breastfeeding. In this system, good foods are edible leaves of forest creeper finely cut and boiled (koko and kali), avocado (djabuka), pounded cooked manioc leaves (mbonja), all wild tubers, fruits, nuts, and seeds as well as wild pig, small antelope and elephant meat. Bad foods are various types of forest meat believed to induce illness in the child53. Mbendjele women also recognise that tobacco, marijuana and drugs are very bad for the unborn foetus and should be avoided. All agree that large amounts of alcohol are also bad for the mother and the unborn child. Small amounts of ngolongolo (maize alcohol) are, however, considered to be good because they are believed to make the baby strong. Small amounts of molenge (palm-wine made from the sap of a wild marsh palm tree) are consumed as it is thought to give the baby a light complexion. The Mbendjele are proud of their lighter complexion compared to the Bantu.

6.2 Mortality rates in new-borns, infants and mothers during labour In the South, a significant difference in mortality rates in children and mothers appears to exist between rural and the urban areas. In the rural communities visited, people claimed that no baby had died in childbirth in living memory. Neither was there any memory of women dying in labour, nor of infant mortalities. In towns in the South, however, a great number of children have died in the last few years, especially babies and toddlers. According to women, these deaths were due to the insanitary conditions of their camp. Local nurses attribute the deaths to severe diarrhoea, while the increasing consumption of alcohol and drugs by pregnant Bongo women in urban settlements has also had a negative impact upon the health of new-born children.

Such foods are: Gbeti – red-tailed monkey, believed to cause cough; Ngoki – crocodile, believed to cause the baby to have no saliva; Mosome – large duiker, believed to cause diarrhoea; Kema mambe – monkey, believed to cause coughing; Isenge believed to cause ‘white’ diarrhoea; Kalu – monkey, believed to cause pneumonia; Mokwake – small crocodile, believed to cause dry mouth and a weak neck; Ngoki – crocodile, believed to cause difficulties in breathing and baby will die quickly; Ndia – water-turtle, believed to cause diarrhoea; Kudu – tortoise, believed to give bloody diarrhoea; Mboloko – small duiker, believed to produce an undersized child; Mbongo – bongo antelope, believed to cause diarrhoea & tetanus; Ekadi – pangolin, believed to cause very long and obstructed labour.

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The situation in the North is very similar to that in the South. In the forest camp of Indongo, and others nearby, no women in labour or children under five died in the twelve months prior to our research. However, in the urban camp of Mopepe two women died in labour and six children under-five died from unspecified illnesses during the same period. The heavy consumption of alcohol by Mbendjele pregnant women also tends to be a problem in urban camps.

In the Plateaux, child mortality appears worse in rural compared to urban settings. The figures show that, in the rural part of the Plateaux visited, three children under five died in 2006 in the village of Lome, and 10 in 2011 in the villages of Nsah, Allion and Elouna54.

When our survey was conducted in April 2012, no death had occurred that year in these rural villages. However, a baby and a girl in Allion were both found in a very precarious condition.

In comparison, people in the urban camp of Oli recalled only two children dying in living memory, both in 2009.

More generally, according to staff in all the health centres visited for this research, the principal causes of infant mortality are diarrhoea, malaria and tuberculosis. Amongst the Tswa, these ailments are aggravated by the lack of access to clean drinking water and to nutritious food, especially protein. Signs of malnutrition in children under six (e.g. yellow hair, general body thinness and sometimes swollen legs and abdomen) are found in most Tswa urban and rural settlements.

In all three regions, death in labour seems to be a rare occurrence, according to both indigenous and health centre sources. As far as people could recall, one woman had died in labour in all the communities visited.

6. 3 Childbirth practices One month before giving birth, Tswa and Bongo women drink a type of tea prescribed by the traditional healer to ease the delivery process. They give birth in their house surrounded by the traditional birth attendant and other women and immediately after are given hot water to drink and bathe. The placenta is buried on the outskirts of the village as it is thought to be dangerous.

Among the Mbendjele, the practice is different as birth is considered ‘women’s magic’.

Women give birth in the forest where they hold onto to a tree, bush or lianas or sit on a small log or squat accompanied by either a nganga wa baito (healer of women) or a woman of their choice experienced in childbirth. The presence of this woman is vital for the mother as she provides assistance during labour, helps her to bury the placenta, and then accompanies her back to camp with the baby. In the meantime, the partner remains in the camp and awaits his wife’s return. He sits for the first three days with her in the hut to acknowledge his paternity.

As the forest is too far, Mbendjele women living in urban camps have to choose between the hospital or the camp itself. This is a difficult choice as women feel humiliated when seen by men of the community or by male medical staff. For those willing to go to hospital, it is also hard not be able to buy what the hospital requires for the birth (clean clothes for the mother before and after birth, fresh clothes for the baby and a bath tub to wash it in).

6.4 Care for infants and mothers 54

According to local traditional healers.

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Indigenous women stay at home with their new-borns and are looked after by their husbands and kin during the first four months. For Mbendjele women this period lasts until the umbilical cord has dropped and the scar has healed. During this period, all indigenous women are brought food, water and helped with any necessary household tasks. Mbendjele women are also given medicines to heal their womb and hot compresses to put on their abdomen to stop the lochia. Mbendjele children also have medicines made of bark applied to their skin.

On the contrary, Tswa and Bongo women and children receive no special medical treatment.

After the post-partum period, Tswa and Bongo women slowly resume their usual activities.

They leave their baby behind with a relative when farming or collecting food in order not to expose their child for hours to the hot sun of the savannah. This is problematic when the child is sick with diarrhoea as it will need fluid and food. Mbendjele women carry their baby with them during all activities once the umbilical cord has healed.

6.5 Breastfeeding and weaning foods The Tswa tend to have the shortest period of breastfeeding as children are weaned when they can walk properly, usually from 18-24 months. Bongo and Mbendjele women breastfeed until the child is three after which they smear chilli (gonju) on their nipples to discourage the child from feeding. If this does not work they place a bitter fruit (djambamba) on their nipples. As Mbendjele women recounted, ‘you crush the fruit and put it on your breasts where it will give you sores. The child will see these and say ‘ah mabe wambepha’– ‘ah my breast is destroyed’. Then you give the child honey to placate it for the loss of the sweet breast milk.’

While the Tswa and Bongo mothers breastfeed their children exclusively, Mbendjele mothers allow their infants to be breastfed by other women from their family.

Almost immediately after birth, Tswa and Bongo babies are given unboiled water and little pieces of manioc, sometimes mixed with sugar, to stop children from crying (crying is thought to be provoked at that age by hunger). As soon as a few weeks after birth, quantities of manioc are increased and other food such as fish is introduced. Aspects of this practice related to the ingestion of unboiled water are extremely dangerous for the babies’ health.

Mbendjele babies are breastfed exclusively for at least four to five months. They are sometimes given boiled water but never cold (unboiled) water as it is considered dangerous.

Solids are introduced slowly. Typical weaning foods are bananas (but not plantains as they are thought to cause constipation), manioc or maize porridge with a little palm oil, or soft fish. Maize soup and maize meal are given to underweight babies to encourage them to thrive.

6.6 Access to government facilities for childbirth Indigenous women are reluctant to give birth in hospital for the following reasons: - The cost of a consulting a doctor during pregnancy (follow-up and birth) is around 30 USD (15 000 CFA) on the Plateaux - Discriminatory treatment at the hands of staff - The lack of privacy during birth (particularly from male staff) - Lack of affordability of items requested by hospitals.

These disincentives pose a particular risk to Mbendjele women living in poor urban camps, where high mortality rates have been recorded.

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7. Healthcare attendance figures As mentioned earlier, no data could be collected in the South due to lack of detailed information on the record books of the health centres visited.

In the North, only figures in the hospital of Pokola could be gathered as no trace of visits by Mbendjele to other medical centres could be found. The Mbendjele in the villages visited confirmed that they never visit medical centres other than the Pokola hospital because there the consultation and medicines are free and they can be treated by ‘the white doctor’. The research found that the hospital treated 156 Mbendjele patients between January and April 2012. Data also existed for the Centres de Santé Intégrée (CSI) of the rural village of Nsah and the city of Ngo located in the Plateaux: In Nsah, between September 2011 and April 2012, 8 Tswa patients visited the CSI, all of whom came from the surrounding Tswa settlements visited for the research (Lome, Nsah and Ngo). Three of the patients were boys under the age of seven who were diagnosed with diarrhoea and malaria. Two patients were elderly men who suffered from asthma and hernia problems, and one was an elderly woman who had a cervical abscess. Finally, two middle-aged men visited the CSI, one for intestinal parasites and the other for eye trauma. In the town of Ngo, between September 2011 and April 2012, only three Tswa visited the local CSI. Two were children (a one year-old boy and a three year-old girl), both seeking diarrhoea treatment. The third case was on old man suffering from hernia.

The above samples are too negligible to determine whether there is a gender or age bias in Tswa communities in terms of access to healthcare. However, according to our own survey in the urban Tswa village of Oli, 34 people out of the 103 residents (evenly divided by gender) have visited a health centre at least once in their life. The overwhelming majority of the visits to the health centres were made by children (24 visits: 14 by boys and 10 by girls in total). In this particular community, no gender bias seems to prevail and treatment for children seems to be the priority55. More generally, the figures collected at the CSIs and the urban village of Oli reveal that both rural and urban Tswa attend health centres in very low numbers.

Chapter 3: Access to justice 1. The indigenous notion of accountability The concept of accountability, defined as ‘ensuring that those responsible act on their obligations and making sure there are mechanisms for redress in situations of violation of rights,’56 was not readily understood by the Tswa, Bongo and Mbendjele. Their emphasis was on the importance of respecting people’s (including children’s) free will rather than on constraining or obliging someone to do something. However, as detailed below, mechanisms exist in every group to redress a situation in which people suffer from the actions (or inactions) of others such as being assaulted physically or verbally or not being cared for sufficiently. Their efficacy, as seen below, varies according to the group and the situation in which they live.

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It is reasonable to assume that children are more susceptible than adults to illness.

B. Duncan, personal communication.

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2. Traditional justice systems The Tswa and Bongo have very similar systems to deal with crime and anti-social behaviour in their own communities. The Mbendjele employ a different and distinctive set of strategies.

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Tswa and Bongo

The main objective of the traditional justice systems of these two groups is to try to restore peace and harmony between the offender(s) and the person(s) offended rather than to judge and punish the offender. The system includes a strong element of counselling and follows five steps as described below. These steps should be read as a general model, as in practice each case is treated according to its own specificities.

First step: The plaintiff or complainant will seek the advice of an extended family member or close friend and may ask that person to talk to the alleged offender on their behalf. It is rare for children to seek help or protection independently, so they have to rely on an adult to take up their case. If the offence is of a public nature, this approach to the alleged offender may be made by several people. The objective is to bring about a change in behaviour. This is usually all that is required for minor offences such as drunkenness or verbal abuse.

Second step: If the above approach does not work then a family council will be called by the victim’s father to discuss the problem with those concerned. (In the case of alleged abuse of a child by their father, another suitable relative – generally a paternal uncle – will take the father’s place.) The aim is to point out the wrongdoing in a wider context and to exert social pressure on the offender and their family.

Third step: If the problem is still not resolved, the family of the offender will be brought into the process and a family council with both families will be held in the presence of the offender and victim, even if the victim is a child.

Fourth step: The chief and counsellors will hear from both families, as well as from the victim and offender. Child victims able to express themselves (from the age of six or seven) will be given the opportunity to do so. Any witnesses present will testify and other community members contribute to the discussion. The chief and counsellors will give their advice and give a symbolic fine to the offender and their family which operates also as a gift to restore their broken relationship with the victim and family. However, their role is to mediate and give counsel as they have no powers of enforcement.

Offenders frequently suffer a degree of mockery and ridicule from the community. As with the Mbendjele, this is an effective means of exerting social pressure on offenders.

While the family and community are trying to solve the problem, the victim can take refuge with his or her close or extended family. However, once the offender has made amends and agreed to reform, the victim is expected to return home. The victim’s family and the wider community both oversee the conduct of the former offender.

Fifth step: If the problem persists after all these steps, then community members will avoid all contact with the offender. Avoidance is the ultimate sanction since the community provides protection, help, care, affection, advice and identity. Nobody has the power to expel the offender from the community.

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This traditional justice system raises particular questions about the protection of women and children. For example, children who suffer neglect or ill-treatment may not always seek help.

However, in a small community there are usually relatives and neighbours who will take up their case with the persons concerned to try to understand the situation and give advice. In cases where a child’s safety or well-being is threatened, he or she will be taken away by relatives. The main problem with this system, however, is that it relies on the will of the family to act, rather than on a system of enforcement. For women who are abused, the main issue is also of enforcement. If an abuser continues offending, women have no recourse as the abuser cannot be forced to leave the community (although of course the community will make every reasonable effort to prevent offences reoccurring and to intervene if they do).

This is particularly problematic if the abuser is their husband, as women cannot leave their marital home without repaying the value of their husband’s wedding gifts, which is generally beyond their means.

These weaknesses are less problematic in the Tswa communities visited as no cases of rape or physical violence (including domestic violence) against women or children have been recorded. However, in urban Bongo settlements, where excessive consumption of alcohol provokes frequent rapes and sexual assaults against women and adolescent girls, these weaknesses are dramatic. Women of all ages have no protection against these abuses and no means of redressing them. (See the forthcoming Chapter on violence for more details on sexual abuses).

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Mbendjele

The traditional justice system of the forest-based Mbendjele is efficient in protecting women and children within their community in rural areas. It has enforcement powers (eviction and use of physical force against offenders) and in the case of domestic violence women can leave their partners to return to their family with their children. Besides, violence and abuse are rare in forest camps.

The strength of the system resides in its ‘openness’. As the Mbendjele do not have chiefs or leaders who act as judges or counsellors, the whole community gets involved from the outset in cases of mistreatment. Contrary to the discreet and personal approach taken initially by the Tswa and Bongo, the Mbendjele methods are generally of a public nature. People are quick to tell an offender that they are upset and any member of the clan can intervene, either by commenting on a person’s behaviour in front of the group or by intervening personally.

Depending on how the accused reacts, the conflict can escalate to include more people, or even to a fight, but generally people accept their guilt. The wrongdoers are always given a chance to correct their behaviour.

Women, especially elderly women, are very critical actors in addressing behaviour issues because they control the moadjo or traditional theatre whose purpose is to make the offender understand and also, crucially, laugh about their misconduct). If this fails, the community may progress to the use of physical force. Another important difference is that serious and repetitive offenders can also ultimately be refused refuge and told to leave the camp. The clan can also decide to bring the offender to a local Bantu chief or to the police. However, handing an Mbendjele over to the police is thought to be ‘as good as killing him’ so it is generally avoided. Local Bantu village chiefs are preferred in that context.

Despite its efficiency in its traditional forest setting, the Mbendjele traditional justice system does not offer protection to women and adolescent girls in urban settlements, where culprits 69

of sexual abuses are left unpunished and women exposed to further abuse. This situation results from the heavy alcohol consumption by most male and female adults and adolescents.

(For details see the following Chapter on violence).

3. Protection of abused children and women As indicated above, abuses committed against children (most specifically girls) within their communities have been identified in urban settlements located in the South and the North.

There are two main reasons why none have been brought to court. First, victims and ‘witnesses’ often cannot remember who the assailants were due to the general state of drunkenness in the community at the time. Second, they fear or distrust the courts and/or the police.

According to indigenous accounts recorded in the three regions studied, there have been 20 cases of abuse recently committed by Bantu against indigenous women or children. Of these, only two were reported to the police and brought to the magistrates’ court57. Indigenous peoples cite three reasons why they do not pursue legal recourse: Firstly, cases of Bantu abusing ‘Pygmies’ are systematically ignored by local authorities unless a non-indigenous person brings and supports the case. Secondly, Bantu offenders are unlikely to be forced to pay compensation or to complete any custodial sentence given. Thirdly, the costs of taking legal action are prohibitive as the victim’s family will in all probability have to pay 4000 CFA (8 USD) to the local Bantu chief to launch the court procedure and 15000 CFA (30 USD) to the magistrates’ court to open the case. As a result, indigenous people only bring cases involving death or the drawing of blood to the attention of the police and the courts. It is also important to note that most of the abuses committed by Bantu against indigenous women and children took place in urban settings, where children and women seem more vulnerable to abuses due to their increased level of economic dependence on the Bantu, the competition with them for land and forest resources, and a high level of alcohol and drug consumption by Bantu men. The details of these abuses are presented below for each region:

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In the town of Sibiti located in the South, the Bongo claim that about ten women and children were killed by Bantu in 2011 year, that one child was murdered and one assaulted during the month in which the research was conducted. In both cases, the offenders were Bantu children under 16 years old. The case of the Bongo child murdered was judged by the local court and the murderer was sentenced to jail and a fine of 10,000 CFA (20 USD). According to the victim’s family, the culprit stayed in prison for only two days and the fine was never paid. In the case of the assaulted child (who lost an eye as a result), his parents asked for a trial but their claim was dismissed. According to indigenous sources in the same town, five children were taken into Bantu families as house servants with the consent of their parents. These families later left town without obtaining the consent of the children’s parents and without leaving any means of contacting them. One indigenous mother reported her daughter’s disappearance to the police but claimed that no investigation ensued. In all five cases, there is cause for concern that the children may be being exploited and possibly trafficked into slavery.58

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In the North, two cases of abuse were reported in the town of Pokola and two in the forest. In Pokola the researchers witnessed Bantu traders employing eight year-old

These two cases apart, it was impossible to corroborate these claims with official sources.

The distinction between trafficking and bondage is dealt with in the section on violence in this Part .

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Mbendjele boys to clean out the cess pits of drop toilets in return for 50 CFA (0.1 USD) and some glue to sniff. In the forest, the Mbendjele mentioned the severe beating of one boy and the murder of another. According to them, the local authorities carried out no investigations nor did they make any attempt to apprehend and try the culprits.

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In the Plateaux, only one case of abuse was recorded, that of a woman who was shot going into the forest near to the city of Ngo. The case was reported to the police and brought to trial, at which point the man admitted trying to kill her. According to the victim and her brother, he was sentenced to seven years in prison and given a huge fine but he only served two months in prison and never paid his fine. In this case, the victim was not represented by a lawyer but by her brother. This practice is common when cases go to trial as the services of a professional lawyer represent an unaffordable cost.

4. Treatment of juvenile offenders by the law No cases were reported of indigenous children being tried in a Bantu court for crimes committed against members of their own community. Indigenous peoples said they would avoid such a situation at all costs as they have no trust in the Bantu court system. Should such a problem arise, they would deal with it internally according to their own traditional justice system (see above). However, an indigenous child accused of committing an offence against a Bantu will be tried by the relevant Bantu chief’s court or by a magistrates’ court. No such cases were reported in the Plateaux and the North but several cases were mentioned by the Bongo in the South. Some of the children accused were apparently taken into custody.

Precise figures or details of their stories were unobtainable at the time of the research as the people concerned lived in distant locations. The communities visited claim that children in this situation are systematically mistreated and insulted during their trials, and their families are ordered to pay compensation.

5. Corporal punishment of children Corporal punishment of children was condemned in all the communities visited. Tswa and Bongo parents mentioned that they resort to occasional smacks only if repeated attempts to reason with their child fail. The Mbendjele on the other hand stressed that it is unacceptable to punish a child physically, whatever the circumstances.

6. Interface between traditional and magistrates’ court systems The magistrates’ courts and the traditional justice system of the Tswa and Mbendjele are totally separate entities and do not combine their efforts to tackle abuses affecting or involving indigenous peoples. No effort is made to integrate the indigenous judicial systems into the national judicial one (see access to court below, 7). Moreover, in the latter, state officials seem unaware of the existing national laws concerning indigenous peoples.

The situation is similar in the South. However, a form of cooperation seems to exist between Bongo and Bantu chiefs. If the former cannot resolve a case, he sometimes will bring it to the latter. More generally, the Bongo are increasingly opting to bring their cases directly to Bantu chiefs as they feel that they have more authority and more enforcement powers than their

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own chiefs. This does not seem to apply to children, whose cases are treated as much as possible within the community.

7. Access to magistrates’ courts As detailed earlier, numerous claims of apparent abuses against indigenous peoples were noted by our research team, but only two of these were reported to and handled by the court system. This disparity illustrates the various barriers and problems which prevent indigenous peoples from accessing the magistrates’ courts. These problems are: 

Access to the state justice system represents a significant expense for indigenous families. In the town of Zanaga in the South, it costs 2000 CFA (between 3 and 4 USD) to open a case with the authorities and a further 15000 CFA (between 2 and 3 USD) to take the case to trial. The magistrates’ court is also often a long way away, which could incur travel costs of up to 2000 CFA (3 to 4 USD). If the trial lasts for more than one day there will be the additional cost of accommodation and food.  Indigenous peoples suffer from discrimination within the judicial system (as in all other sectors of public services). It is claimed that in the past a Bantu committing an offence against a Mbendjele was never found guilty. Nowadays, it is claimed that if Bantu are found guilty they neither serve their full sentence nor pay the required compensation to the indigenous victims.  The language used by the judiciary is highly technical French. Judgments are given in written French. There are no verbal and written translations into the languages spoken by indigenous peoples (either their own or that of the region).  In the absence of legal aid, only family members or persons from a defendant’s social network can represent a plaintiff during their trial. As indigenous families do not master French and lack a circle of educated and/or influential relatives and friends, they are at a serious disadvantage.  Corruption and lack of resources within the judiciary and prison system also tend to impact negatively on due process. There are numerous claims made by indigenous people that Bantu who have been sentenced to imprisonment for crimes committed against indigenous peoples do not serve their entire prison sentences. Neither the police nor the court intervenes in such cases, mainly due to corruption or lack of resources or willingness to pursue such matters.  In the north, Mbendjele are not recognised by the judicial authorities as capable of bringing cases of abuse by a Bantu to the police or court without a Bantu ‘patron’ to represent them. (In other words the Mbendjele lack locus 72ill72 a). This prejudice both prevents indigenous peoples from taking legal action against their own ‘patron’ and also reinforces at a judicial level the perception that ‘Pygmies’ are the possessions of Bantu, with no rights of their own.

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Chapter 4: Violence 1. Indigenous notions of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation The definition of violence varies regionally and does not necessarily coincide with the definition given in human rights texts. For example, the notion of environmental violence, which refers to acts of environmental pollution with detrimental effects on indigenous peoples’ health, has no equivalent term in the communities visited for this report.59 Although indigenous communities in Republic of Congo recognize that they suffer from the negative impact of others’ actions on their environment, they do not classify it as a type of violence and do not link it to contamination of their environment by pollutants. Similarly, the idea that insults and disdain are forms of psychological violence did not seem to be grasped by the Tswa and Bongo, although it was by the Mbendjele.

For the Tswa, violence is the use of physical force, either to force someone to do something or to assault a person physically to the point of bruising them, drawing blood and making them cry in pain. For the Bongo, the notion is more restricted as it refers to unjustified use of physical force (for example a drunken husband beating his wife). The most encompassing definition is found among the Mbendjele, who define violence as emotional-psychological mistreatment (insults or cheating) as well as physical abuse (beatings). In their society, controlled fighting or severe beating can be used to address tensions, domestic and sexual violence within the camp (see Part I). In these cases, violence is an accepted way to prevent the recurrence of abuse.

The notion of abuse in the three groups is closely linked to their different definition of violence. For the Tswa and Bongo, abuse (impoula) refers to physical violence while for the Mbendjele it also includes verbal violence (bo.sembi.e). Despite these differences, the Tswa and Bongo consider insults as the manifestations of bad behaviour and intervene to stop them. The Mbendjele, however, approve of verbal assaults as a levelling device as long as they are indirectly aimed at a person and done with humour. In all three groups, abuse is also closely linked to the notion of exploitation (deceit, fraud, robbery) and lying.

On the notion of neglect, we had contrasting responses due to important differences between the groups’ different lifestyles. For the Tswa and Bongo, neglect involves refusing to support and help someone who needs it. For the Mbendjele, the notion was difficult to grasp due to the right people have to make demands on others for goods and support.

2. Physical, domestic and sexual violence In the rural communities visited, physical, domestic and sexual violence (particularly sexual violence) against women and children are apparently infrequent. We witnessed one occasion where a man returned home drunk and beat his wife, but the community intervened quickly to prevent harm to the woman.

Unlike in rural communities, violent physical, domestic and sexual acts are common in many of the urban indigenous settlements visited, especially those of the Bongo and Mbendjele.

This notion is discussed in documents such as the report of the 2006 International Indigenous Women’s Forum or the 2012 UNPFII EGM report on combating violence against indigenous women and girls.

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Women (including elderly women) and adolescent girls are the main victims as there is not enough group solidarity in these communities to protect them. These victims claim to be subject to beatings, repeated rape and even gang rape by men, in particular young adults from within the community. However, there were no reports of cases of rape or other sexual and physical abuse committed against pre-adolescent girls and boys in their community.

These acts of rape against women and adolescent girls in Bongo and Mbendjele settlements emanate from the consumption of drugs and alcohol by community members. In some cases, rapes are perpetrated against girls and women who are in a vulnerable state due to their own alcohol consumption. This state of intoxication also makes them frequently unable to identify the person or persons who raped them, resulting in lack of accountability of culprits.

We could not identify the reason why no such violence was reported by women and girls in urban Tswa settlements. Further investigation should be carried out to determine whether unreported violence is occurring and, if so, what is preventing victims from reporting it.

3. Psychological violence Psychological violence is the most widespread form of violence experienced on a daily basis by all indigenous peoples (men, women and children). This violence is committed largely by the Bantu and takes the forms of insulting behaviour and the denial of fundamental rights such as the right to privacy, property and expression. These abuses are rooted in the disdain in which indigenous peoples are held by the Bantu and are expressed in variety of ways.

Indigenous people are, for example, commonly referred to as ‘filth’, ‘stupid’, ‘animals that speak’ or ‘chimpanzees’ and are considered so dirty that physical contact with them is avoided. In a similar vein, they cannot share public food processing mills, food and cooking instruments with Bantu. It is also common practice for Bantu to enter indigenous villages and homes without invitation, shout at people and refuse to hear them speak. In the North, Bantu ‘patrons’ commonly seize their ‘Pygmies’’ belongings to punish them or force them into unpaid labour.

Psychological violence is also pervasive in the domain of public services. We witnessed instances in all three regions when our teams brought sick indigenous children and their families to hospitals and healthcare centres (see Chapter 2 on health). Indigenous men and women report that similar attitudes exist in the police, the courts and in schools. As a result, indigenous peoples avoid contact with or are very apprehensive of these Bantu-dominated institutions.

4. Exploitative and hazardous labour, slavery and trafficking -

Situation within indigenous communities

No evidence of exploitative and hazardous labour, slavery and trafficking was found within indigenous families and communities. Before the age of ten, children are totally free and are not expected to work. However, when they start a family, sometimes as early as the age of 12-15, they gradually take on heavier and more time-consuming tasks. These activities are generally a source of pride rather than a psychological or physical burden.

The only practice that creates a context that could approximate to a situation of forced labour occurs in the Plateaux and the South. This is the obligation of a woman who wishes to 74

divorce to return the value of the gifts offered by the husband upon marriage. The prohibitive cost forces women to remain with their husbands, even in the case of mistreatment and abuse.

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Situation with Bantu

Clear acts of exploitation by Bantu, mainly against children, have been identified but the situation varies from region to region and between urban and rural settings.

In the Plateaux, our research found children as young as nine years old ploughing, weeding and planting Bantu fields. They earn 500 to 1000 CFA per day (1 to 2 USD) compared to 4000-5000 CFA for adults (9 to 10 USD a day). As their parents are often in debt to Bantu families, it is very difficult for children to refuse to work for them, providing a leverage which Bantu can use to extract cheap child labour.

In the North and the South, there are big differences between rural and urban areas. In rural areas, according to indigenous and Bantu sources alike, children generally do not work for Bantu. However, the situation is very different in towns, where serious cases of child exploitation have been identified. In Zanaga (South) and Pokola (North), children work regularly for Bantu to earn money, some of which is spent on alcohol and drugs (the most popular of which is glue to sniff)60. In Pokola, payments are also often made directly with glue, a practices which fuel’s children’s addiction and increases their dependence on exploitative labour.

In the South, cases of child trafficking are linked to a common practice by which indigenous parents place their children with Bantu families if they have insufficient resources to feed them at home. According to indigenous parents, the children are taken away to carry out domestic work in exchange for food and shelter. Boys and girls leave their villages to go to large cities such as Sibiti or even Pointe-Noire, and their parents lose contact with them. The research was unable to gather reliable information on the precise arrangements made between Bongo biological parents and Bantu families who employ their children in this manner. The arrangement is probably entered into in the spirit of confiage61, especially from the side of the indigenous family who are seeking a situation in which their child will be cared for better than they can care for it. However, contextual elements of the relationship between the parties involved give cause for concern that the situation could become one of exploitation and possibly trafficking. These contextual elements are: the heavy discrimination faced by indigenous people and their classification as perceived sub-human ‘animals’; the fact that the families involved are not related; the transport of children, over long distances, to unfamiliar urban settings; the potential for the child’s parents to lose contact and knowledge of the child’s whereabouts and welfare. If either party enters into an arrangement in awareness of the children being possibly exploited, then the arrangement could be classified as a case of trafficking62. If an element of ownership of the child is implicit in it, it will constitute an act of slavery63. These issues require urgent thorough investigation.

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However, no cases of girls exchanging sex for drugs or alcohol were reported.

Confiage is a cultural practice in RC and central/west Africa whereby parenting responsibilities are delegated to persons other than the child’s biological parents. It usually, but not necessarily, involves kin.

62 For a definition of trafficking, see Article 3 of the Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Supplement to the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime in 2000 and the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings in 2005.

63 See, Allain, J (2007:143). Slavery in International Law: of human exploitation and trafficking. Martinus Nijoff Publishers.

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Chapter 5: Access to education 1. Indigenous ‘education’ In all the communities visited, the word ‘education’ means advising. Education is seen as guiding children into adulthood and is not institutionalised. It is about passing on to them, in a continual and informal manner, a range of practical and relational skills to survive and live well. The emphasis is on orientating children rather than forcing knowledge upon them. It is also about letting them do what they wish with that guidance. Disciplining children is not part of the indigenous learning systems observed, and as noted earlier physical beating is strongly disapproved of. Parents emphasise the over-riding importance of nurturing children’s free will and sense of communal responsibility as they grow into adulthood. In doing so, both parents have equal responsibility though not necessarily equal input at all times. Parents let their children learn mainly through trial and error by copying what adults are doing. Until the age of 10 years, boys and girls are educated essentially by their mothers, especially in Tswa and Bongo communities. After that period, their teaching and learning becomes more gendered. Girls mainly follow their mother (photo 8) and boys their father. Although parents are the main educators, members of the wider community also play an important role. They are expected to advise children on how to behave and to intervene in cases of bad behaviour.

Children are considered to have reached social maturity by the age of 15 years and are thereafter considered as adults.

While the Bongo use the same word, ‘malo’, for their own indigenous education system and the formal school education system, the Tswa and Mbendjele distinguish between the two.

All three indigenous groups consider formal schooling to be important, but not as important as the education that children must receive from the forest, their parents, extended family and clan.

Photo 10: Bongo mother and daughter on their way to gather food

2. School education -

Importance attached to school education and access according to gender

Indigenous peoples consider school education to be important. They recognise its potential to change their life by teaching them to read, write and count. However, studying beyond the 76

first three or four years of primary is not considered a realistic path out of poverty and is therefore unappealing. Learning the key skills needed to live self-sufficiently from the forest and thereby becoming a full adult member of their community is seen a more important and vital task.

Parents provide opportunity for schooling to boys and girls equally. However, by age of 12 years, girls cease their studies definitively, while boys carry on a little longer (until the age of 13-14 years). Of the 18 schooled indigenous children older than twelve identified in the state schools visited, only three were girls. This gender imbalance is due to the different ages at which girls and boys enter puberty and take up adult responsibilities and tasks. Attendance records in a special indigenous school in the North show that providing a flexible timetable adapted to indigenous peoples’ activities is a critical factor in encouraging/enabling girls to continue their schooling into adolescence. This flexibility, which allows pupils to drop into and out of school anytime during the day and year, has proven particularly attractive to adolescent girls, who have competing claims on their time as they begin to assume the responsibilities of adult Mbendjele women within their community. As a result, out of the 46 children older than twelve attending the school on the day of our visit, 21 were girls. Other factors explaining the high rate of girls’ (and all children’s) attendance at the indigenous school are detailed below.

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Seasonal movements

All indigenous peoples encountered agreed on the necessity of adapting school programmes to accommodate the seasonal movements associated with their hunting and gathering lifestyle. For Bongo parents, schools should run from Monday to Friday but with vacation periods fitted around gathering seasons when children need to help their families. These seasons are from December to January (to collect mushrooms) and from June to August (to go fishing). For the Tswa, the situation is more complicated. There are fixed seasons for collecting some types of valuable food (e.g. mushrooms), but others (e.g. asparagus) are available all year round. In the context of malnutrition and poverty that pervades in the Plateaux, it is difficult to stop children gathering food regularly both to feed themselves and to earn some pocket money. The Mbendjele have different opinions on the subject. Those living in urban camps are happy with a weekly rhythm, while those living in the forest would like the flexible drop-in system offered by the indigenous school in Pokola, so that their children also ‘learn from the forest.’

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Different treatment of indigenous and Bantu pupils

The way indigenous pupils are treated compared to Bantu pupils seems to vary from region to region and school to school. In the Plateaux, parents complain that the teaching and administrative staff in state schools discriminate against their children. However, we were unable to corroborate this as most of the state schools visited did not have Tswa pupils and those which did (e.g. l’Ecole Intégration and the Nsah primary school) are not representative of other state schools64. In the South, Bongo parents declared that there was no difference in treatment between Bongo and Bantu children. On the contrary, in the North, indigenous children are reported to be extremely reluctant to attend state schools due to the bad treatment they receive from Bantu teachers. This could be a major reason why no children could be Both schools are atypical, as the head teacher in Nsah has worked for UNICEF in the past and the funders of l’Ecole Intégration are Norwegian Protestants.

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found attending state schools outside Pokola while among all those living in or close to the city only 25 finished primary education in 2011 and only one was in secondary education in 2012. Indigenous children in or around Pokola prefer to go to the nearby private indigenous school, where 157 were registered in 2012.

An important issue found in state schools concerns the attitude of many teachers towards indigenous culture. They often portray it in a negative light so that indigenous children learn from them to be ashamed of their cultural and family heritage. The contrasting cases of two young indigenous men educated in different settings (a traditional mission school and an indigenous school) illustrate this point. The one educated in the mission school declared openly that he was ‘ashamed of his parents still living as hunter-gatherers’, while the other still hunts during his holidays and seems proud of his skills and heritage.

Other challenges associated with education access include distance to schools, lack of role models, the opportunity cost of leaving employment opportunities, and high fees for secondary education.

3. Initiatives to facilitate indigenous children’s access to schooling -

The Praebase programme

The Praebase programme funded by the World Bank and implemented through the cooperation of the Congolese government and UNDP has eased indigenous children’s access to primary schooling by meeting the otherwise prohibitive costs of equipment, uniforms and one school meal per day.

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l’Ecole Intégration

In the Plateaux, in the city of Ngo, a primary school for the Tswa called l’Ecole Intégration was built in 1984 (photo 9) by the Norwegian Protestant church. However, within a generation, it lost its status of indigenous school to become a state school populated mainly

by Bantu children. Nevertheless, as it was originally built for Tswa children, l’Ecole Intégration remains the only one of the four state schools in the city which they attend. The Tswa consider this school as their own, which encourages them to use it.

Photo 11: The ‘Integration School’ in Ngo

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In the North, a private indigenous primary school called the Foyer Frederik Association Baka (FFAB, photo 10) was built in 2003 in Madjibongo near Pokola. This school was funded by a voluntary organisation initially set up by a French couple and it has since joined a wider network of schools in northern Congo called ORA (Observe, Reflect and Act).

Photo 12: The private indigenous school of Foyer Frederik Association Baka (FFAB)

Supported and funded by UNICEF and several associations (l’Association des Pères Spiritains; l’Association des Intervenants Retraités; and Enseignants sans Frontières), the ORA schools are trying to develop a new educational model for indigenous peoples as part of the National Education Strategy for Indigenous Peoples proposed by the RC government in 2007 (Stratégie Nationale d’Education des Peuples Autochtones or SNEPAC). This model is based on teaching basic numeracy and literacy skills as well as indigenous and national languages using the world and words of indigenous children. All lessons are grounded in the activities known and performed by the children and taught in their indigenous language by indigenous teachers. The schools also organise their timetables around the foraging seasons, during which children help their families in the forest. These policies, coupled with the fact that no fees are charged, have led to the FFAB school attracting a large number of Mbendjele children (157 in 2012) compared to the nearby state schools (26 in 2011). However, as identified by Gambeg et al (2012), the FFAB and the other ORA schools face numerous problems and challenges if they are to serve as a suitable education model for indigenous children. These problems and challenges are:  The strong missionary component of some ORA schools (not the FFAB). This component is extremely problematic as evangelisation programmes seek to eradicate indigenous peoples’ respect for their own values, culture, beliefs and practices, which are essential components of their social system, identity and dignity.  The absence of proper training for indigenous teachers.  The disconnection between the ORA curriculum and the national curriculum.  The lack of state recognition of the ORA schools.

4. Literacy and other courses for people who have received no schooling All the adolescents and young adults encountered during the research were enthusiastic about the idea of evening classes to learn to read and write. They said they would make the extra effort at the end of the day to attend such classes if there were any nearby. They also asked 79

for practical training to learn small jobs such as carpentry, mechanics and dress-making. The Mbendjele were also keen on the idea of using the community radio station, Biso na Biso, for educational purposes, as they already have experience of using wind-up radios to receive its broadcasts.

5. School attendance and evidence of drop-out and completion rates -

Plateaux

The figures below were collected from the registers of the following three schools:  The primary school in the rural village of Nsah.  The primary school called L’Ecole Intégration in the town of Ngo.  The lower secondary school in the town of Ngo (or ‘Collège’ in the French educational system).

The primary school of the village of Nsah The school in Nsah is the only school in the rural area of the Plateaux where the research was conducted. In the five Tswa villages located around Nsah there are roughly 60 Tswa children of school age. Eleven pupils (of whom five are girls) are registered at the Nsah school, which equates to approximately 18% of the indigenous children of primary school age in the area.

No gender bias in attending primary school was found here.

The primary ‘Integration School’ in the town of Ngo In the town of Ngo we visited four primary schools of which only one, l’Ecole Intégration, had Tswa pupils. As this school was specially built for the Tswa, the school attendance figures below should not be read as representative of the general number of Tswa children in state schools in urban areas in the Plateaux region. The real situation is more likely to be that of the other state schools visited, where very few or no Tswa children are registered.

The level of school attendance of indigenous children at l’Ecole Intégration on the day of our visit was high (68 %), as was the average number of Tswa children per year since 2009 (64).

The school director confirmed that those registered attend regularly. The majority of children come from the nearby urban Tswa settlement of Ngo. The figures for Tswa pupils attending the school65 are: -

2009-2010: 64 2010-2011: 67 2011-2012: 60

Tswa children still represent a minority of the pupils at l’Ecole Intégration. We have no exact figures for the total number of children in the school but we estimate it to be between 200 and 300. Tswa pupils represent therefore on average about 25% of the total number of pupils for the years 2009-2012.

Between the years 2009-2012, the Cours Préparatoire Niveau 1 (CP1, equivalent to the first year of elementary school in the United States) had the highest number of Tswa pupils 65

For the breakdown of the figures in terms of gender see Box 13, below.

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registered compared to all the other levels. The average number of indigenous children over this period is 23, with an even gender split each year. The number of Tswa pupils registered then decreases in Cours Préparatoire Niveau 2 (CP2)66, Cours Elémentaire Niveau 1 (CE1)67 and Cours Elémentaire Niveau 2 (CE2)68, where there are between 15 and 19 Tswa pupils registered, and sometimes fewer. The gender balance is still maintained in CE1 and CE2.

Then the figure of registered Tswa children drops suddenly to three in Cours Moyen 1 (CM1)69 and to only one in CM270. Only boys continue at the level of CM. This stage coincides with the age of puberty, when boys and girls generally abandon childhood activities in order to learn practical life skills in their community. It is also the age at which girls start a family.

Lower secondary school or ‘Collège’ in the town of Ngo At the lower state secondary school in Ngo, there is only one Tswa pupil, a boy in the second year.

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The South

We collected the following figures from the seven schools listed below.  The primary school in the village of Indo.  The Henri Mboun primary school, the Moussanda primary school, the Jean-Jacques Mouaya lower secondary school or ‘collège’ and Sibiti town upper secondary school or ‘lycée’ in the town of Sibiti.  The ‘Collège de l’Amitié’ technical lower secondary school or ‘collège’ and the Zanaga town general lower secondary school or ‘collège général’ in the town of Zanaga.

There are important variations in the number of Bongo children attending primary and secondary schools in rural and urban areas. The rural village of Indo counts 15 indigenous children in one school whereas the town of Sibiti has only three in two schools, even though the town has a significant Bongo population. There are no Bongo children registered in Sibiti’s lower secondary school and only one in its upper secondary school. These low school attendance figures reflect the deteriorating situation of urban Bongo families in Sibiti, most of which are affected by increasing alcohol dependence. The figures collected in the town of Zanaga are better, with 10 indigenous pupils attending two lower secondary schools. The difference between Zanaga and Sibiti is that the Zanaga technical collège attracts Bongo children from rural areas. However, the Bongo families there are also subject to the devastating effects of heavy alcohol consumption. As in the Plateaux, the majority of Bongo pupils attending school beyond the first three years of primary school are boys. Before, no gender bias could be recorded there.

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The North

66

Equivalent to the second year of elementary school in the United States.

Equivalent to the third year of elementary school in the United States.

68 Equivalent to the fourth year of elementary school in the United States 69 Equivalent to the fifth year of elementary school in the United States 70 Equivalent to the sixth year of elementary school in the United States 67

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No Mbendjele children living in the forest camp of Indongo attend school. This situation is common for children from Mbendjele forest camps. Outside of Pokola, only large villages have schools and none have indigenous schools.

In the logging town of Pokola, the situation is different. Pokola has one primary state school, four private primary schools and the private primary indigenous school of FFAB. Figures show that no indigenous children attend the private schools71 and only a few attend the state schools (25 in total were registered in 2011, of which 12 were girls). In contrast, numerous indigenous children living in or around Pokola attend FFAB. A total of 157 Mbendjele children (59 girls & 98 boys), as well as 22 adults (1 woman & 21 men), were registered there as pupils in April 2012. At the time of the study, it appeared that men and boys formed the majority of registered pupils. However, it is difficult to confirm this apparent gender imbalance as FFAB’s policy allows children to register throughout the year even if they join in late. The director of the school maintained that a fairly equal number of girls and boys attend his school. The attendance figures recorded on the day of our visit seem to corroborate his statement (see Box below presenting a ‘snap-shot’ of attendance figures on April 16th 2012). According to our own survey in the indigenous urban camps of Sembola and Mopepe, 67 % of school-age children in the two camps are in regular attendance at FFAB, with equal numbers of boys and girls.

Box 6: Number of Mbendjele children attending the FFAB school in Pokola on April 16th 201272 - CP: 22 registered (2 present and 20 absent) - CE 1: 40 registered: 13 girls and 27 boys (all present) - CE 2: 53 registered: 27 girls and 26 boys (21 present and 32 absent, of which 21 were girls and 11 were boys) - CM 1 and 2: 46 registered: 21 girls and 25 boys (27 present and 19 absent, of which 8 were girls and 11 were boys) Source: FFAB school register, April 2012.

Chapter 6: Economic rights 1. Indigenous concept of property The three indigenous groups distinguish between material objects, intellectual property and land/forest.

In all groups, the idea of owning the land or forest (beyond the fields they have themselves cleared and planted) is morally abhorrent. They consider people who make such claims to be ignorant. They know that the state, Bantu or white people claim to own their land and forests but, as two Mbendjele told us, ‘How can they? If you take any of them into the forest, they will not know where to go or how to live there’. To the mind of indigenous peoples, access to the land and forest they inhabit is free and everyone can hunt and gather food, including 71

The cost for the private schools is 3000 CFA or 0.5 USD per month for the primary and 4000 CFA or 0.6 USD per month for secondary schools.

72 Our visit occurred at a time when indigenous children often go fishing and gathering yams with their mothers.

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outsiders. The Mbendjele in particular consider the forest to be their mother and father and see themselves as its guardians. Each clan has the responsibility to perform the necessary rituals to maintain the health and abundance of the forest, and to refrain from hunting and gathering temporarily if required. However, in intensively logged areas, Mbendjele clans now appreciate the importance of claiming forest areas as their own in order to make claims to protect their resources from logging companies.

The Mbendjele, Tswa and Bongo agree that intellectual property is private property (in the accepted Western sense of the term). Specialist or unique knowledge such as remedies and songs must therefore sometimes be paid for. The only difference between the three groups concerns the question of material possessions. While things bought with one’s own money (including land titles) or built, produced and gathered with one’s own labour are considered private property among the Tswa and Bongo, among the Mbendjele no claim of ownership can be made on material possessions. Within the clan, all material possessions have to be shared on demand if they are not being used.

2. Economic status 1.1 Differences in economic status at the regional level Differences in material wealth are visible across the three groups, although to varying degrees. These regional differences result from the degree of sedentarisation and the role that hunting, gathering and agriculture play in the lives of the three groups (see Part I). Hunting and gathering activities favour redistribution of wealth and food, whereas agriculture promotes personal or family accumulation. The value systems of the different societies are closely linked to these differences.

The life of the Tswa and the Bongo is now basically sedentary, oriented towards agriculture and influenced by the lifestyle of the Bantu and the Protestant ethos taught (for generations now) by missionaries and the local churches. It generally encourages families to work in isolation and accumulate wealth for themselves. Conversely, the life of Mbendjele is still largely nomadic, based on hunting and gathering and on the idea that the forest will provide.73 It is founded upon a model of abundance of resources and values such as sharing and redistribution of resources within the clan.

1.2 Differences in terms of material wealth within indigenous communities On the ground, material differences are generally low among the Tswa and Bongo and nonexistent among Mbendjele. However, economic differentiation within indigenous communities is increasing and this has the potential to create important social tensions.

Differences in material wealth tend to be more marked amongst the Bongo than amongst the Tswa. This is probably due to the longer and more widespread Bongo involvement in agriculture, particularly the cultivation of manioc, which the Tswa have only adopted in the last ten years. Compared to other activities (hunting, gathering and forest plantations), manioc cultivation is the most lucrative. It requires long-term commitment, labour and strength, which all families do not possess in equal terms, making it a major cause of economic differentiation. Coupled with an appetite for new goods available in nearby Bantu 73

The Mbendjele move camp regularly but return to ‘base-camps’ located either in the forest or into town.

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villages and towns, this has encouraged individual accumulation and economic stratification within Bongo communities. Despite this trend, economic differences are mitigated within indigenous communities by fear of witchcraft and, to a lesser extent, by sharing practices.

People recognise that the wealth of a person is proof of their strength and courage. However, in reality, anybody wealthier than others will be accused of sorcery74. Sharing practices, especially within extended families, also keep differences to a minimum.75 Among the Mbendjele no enduring economic status differences pervade as all material possessions are shared within the clan (see Chapter 1 in Part I). However, the fact that logging companies employ a number of indigenous people in their social and forest teams has led to some striking differences in terms of wealth. So far these differences are limited by the system of ‘demand sharing’, which extends to salaried income, but it is uncertain how long this will continue to be the case. Changes have already occurred in forest camps with men increasingly refusing to share meat within their clan.

3. The system of land tenure and land access for women 3.1 Conflicting land claims Bantu and indigenous peoples both lay claim to lands to which they are attached. Bantu claim legal ownership, whereas indigenous peoples claim to be the land’s first inhabitants and its custodians, a fact also recognised by Bantu. However, there are three reasons why neither group tries to enforce their land claims on the other: indigenous peoples do not think about the land in terms of ownership. Nobody on the ground possesses the means to control access to resources; and there is a generally no demographic pressure on the land. As a result, indigenous peoples across the RC do not have to ask permission to hunt, gather food or to cultivate the land. Neither do they have to pay compensation to the local Bantu chief in relation to land usage. In this sense they enjoy the land and forest freely. However, abuses and tensions in relation to resource access do exist and are increasing in the North and in the Plateaux (see Boxes 18 and 19 below).

In the North, the Mbendjele are facing a drastic reduction of their access to resources, especially meat. With the construction of logging roads by the CIB forestry company, commercial poachers from as far away as DRC, Rwanda and Cameroon, now use the Mbendjele territories to collect bush meat and sell it to the local markets and regional capitals. Logging activities have also had an adverse impact on the ecosystem and the fauna, leading to the creation of a national wildlife park and protected areas where hunting has been banned or limited. Eco-guard squads have also been established to enforce these bans or restrictions. All these changes brought about by loggers, poachers and eco-guards pose a serious problem to the survival of the Mbendjele. As one Mbendjele woman stressed, ‘Before, we could hunt everywhere and everything – it was wonderful. Today it is very hard.

It causes such suffering as there is no meat to eat.’ The system of eco-guards in particular is the source of many abuses: Mbendjele hunters reported being repeatedly harassed and beaten up by them for possession of ‘permitted bush-meat’ (see Box 18).

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Surprisingly, we found that a few young Tswa in their 30s, who are among the first to farm the land for commercial purposes, are buying motorbikes and even cars. It is not clear if their attitude is a sign of a generational change or an exception.

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It is important to mention two positive initiatives launched by the CIB which are designed to protect the Mbendjele from some of the impacts created by the company’s activities. The first initiative is the adoption of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology which has been specially designed to enable the Mbendjele to map their natural and cultural resources and thereby protect them from potential disruption or damage caused by logging operations. As this project has been very successful, there is potential for it to be scaled up and extended to other indigenous territories. The second initiative is to attempt to negotiate the Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of the Mbendjele for the use of their land. However, this has been hampered by competing legal frameworks and intercultural misunderstanding between the company and the Mbendjele. These setbacks indicate the need for further research into how best to negotiate FPIC between logging companies and indigenous peoples in RC. This would help to advance the implementation of FPIC on indigenous lands all over the world.

Box 7: Cases of abuse by eco-guards reported by the Mbendjele Upon our arrival in Indongo, M., the oldest man in the camp, recounted how he and another Mbendjele man, S, had been arrested for allegedly killing an elephant just two weeks earlier. They were found in the area near where a Bantu hunter had been apprehended in possession of a rifle and elephant tusks. They were arrested along with the Bantu, despite protesting their innocence and despite the absence of any evidence against them. They were all put in prison in Pokola. The Bantu mysteriously escaped. M., who is probably over 70 years old, is short-sighted and slow on his feet. It is clear that he could not kill an elephant. The Mbendjele community was outraged and gravely concerned that such a frail old man would not survive long in prison. They collected money and managed to raise 2000 CFA to free M. However, S. remained in prison and was sent to Ouesso to await trial. Source: April 2012, Indongo village

On the Plateaux, the situation is less problematic but cases of abuse have been recorded in relation to access to the forest. According to the Tswa, tensions have increased since they have had to leave the forest and live side by the side with the Bantu. Now the two groups share the same areas of savannah for farming and the same paths to reach the forest for hunting and gathering). This close coexistence and dependence on the same resources has led to increasing attacks on or threats against the Tswa (see Box 19). As the main hunting site for both groups is inside a large resource-rich national park where hunting restrictions are not currently enforced, the tensions have been kept to a minimum. Enforcing a hunting ban in the park would definitely increase the level of violence against Tswa hunters as it would increase competition between them and the Bantu for the meagre forest resources elsewhere in the locality.

Box 8: Case of discrimination in access to land, resources and justice A few years ago, A., a Tswa woman, went to the nearby forest to collect some food. On her way she met a Bantu who said that the forest was his, that Pygmies had no right to be there, and that he would kill her if she dared go further. She went on to gather some fruits and on her way back the man shot her in her lower abdomen and legs, abandoning her collapsed body. Her family went to look for her the following day and found her lying, barely alive, on the forest floor. They went to the police who arrested the man and brought him to trial in Djambala, where he admitted attempted murder. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison and given a huge fine but he only served two months and never paid any of his fine. He is living free in Ngo, but A. is paralysed. Source: Indigenous victims of the abuse related above, from the Plateaux region, April 2012.

In the South, the situation is less problematic. The forest is rich and big enough to provide resources for everyone and to prevent daily contact between the Bongo and the Bantu.

However, in the towns of Zanaga and Sibiti, where pressure on land is growing, Bongo urban camps are regularly displaced onto the periphery by Bantu families taking land on which to build their houses. Tswa in towns are also vulnerable to such practices. No similar problems 85

were encountered in the rural areas of the South and Plateaux, but as Bantu villages expand, Tswa and Bongo are becoming more vulnerable to evictions.

4. Inheritance regimes While the North, South and Plateaux operate inheritance regimes, they tend to be gender neutral in operation.

In the South and Plateaux, as families possess only a few clothes, pots, plastic mugs and equipment for hunting and ploughing, there is very little to inherit from one’s partner after their death. The most significant item of inheritance is the couple’s house, which, since sedentarisation, the Tswa and the Bongo increasingly construct from mud and wood rather than leaves and branches. A surviving spouse keeps the house and everything it contains except the personal possessions of the deceased, which will be interred at burial. For women, these will be their clothes, jewellery and cooking pots. For men, this will be hunting equipment. When both parents have died, the eldest child will inherit his parents’ possessions, regardless of gender.

In the North, if one partner dies and the bereaved spouse’s parents are still alive they are called upon to ensure proper sharing of the few material items left by the deceased. Women usually inherit their husband’s magic possessions, kept in a bag called ngamata, and all siblings will be called to receive a share of the other objects. The sons, younger brothers or sons-in-law will generally inherit the hunting implements, as they will be responsible for providing meat to their mother or aunt. Similarly, a widower will not inherit his wife’s gathering implements (machete, digging stick, basket), but will give them to his daughters or, if he has no daughters, his sisters-in-law. However, in practice, at the time of sharing all present will demand any items they desire and the family will often give in to such requests.

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Part III: Implications for Programming Introduction The final part of this report presents the major implications of this research for programming at national and regional levels. Some issues have to be tackled on a national scale as they concern Congolese society and/or all indigenous groups as a whole. Others are clearly specific to the situation and cultural identity of the different groups studied. Consequently, this Part is structured around three ‘types’ of implications: - National implications - Implications for the southern and/or the Plateaux regions76 - Implications for the northern region At both national and regional level, our recommendations generally concern indigenous people rather than children and/or women specifically. This is because, for the most part, the rights issues affecting indigenous children and women affect all members of their communities equally77. However, in some contexts, they have a particularly devastating effect on children and women and/or affect them exclusively78. The recommendations below address all of them.

The implications for programming presented below drawn upon the foregoing analysis of the central issues studied: discrimination, social and cultural practices, intra-ethnic relations, economic rights, access to justice, maternal and child health, violence, education, disabilities.

The findings relevant to each issue are presented as recommendations at national and regional level. The only exception here is the issue of discrimination, which is addressed exclusively at national level, as its impacts are the same for every indigenous person in Congo. The strong links between the findings on economic rights, intra-ethnic relations and violence and those on discrimination, health, education and social and cultural practices make it practical to integrate these two sets of findings, thereby avoiding repetition.

1. National implications and recommendations 1.1 Discrimination 1.1.1 Anti-discrimination campaigns -Awareness-raising campaign on indigenous peoples’ rights and their cultural heritage Appropriately designed education campaigns should be launched to inform citizens and state representatives about indigenous peoples’ rights (as the United Nations Partnership Framework of RC has already undertaken through the publication and dissemination of the text of the indigenous law79). These campaigns should also promote the particular values and achievements of indigenous culture and heritage.

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The Tswa and Bongo are treated together as they share many similar issues.

For example, the question of indigenous land rights.

78 For example, the discrimination suffered by indigenous children in state schools.

79 Loi numéro 5-2011 pour la promotion et la protection des droits des populations autochtones en République du Congo.

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Campaigns should target all citizens, including school children. Civil servants in the legal, health and education sectors in particular should be sensitized to the discrimination that pervades in their sector. They should also be made aware of the specific ways in which indigenous peoples deal with justice, illness and education, and instructed on how to deal with indigenous peoples in an appropriate way (see Recommendations 1.1.6 & 1.3.1). This awareness-raising should constitute one element of civil service training and also be reinforced in the workplace. A system of promotion and reward could also be established by public sector employers for staff observing good practice in regard to indigenous peoples.

Such a scheme would need to be elaborated in collaboration with human resources professionals and employment lawyers.

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Wide use of media

This awareness-raising campaign on the cultural heritage and rights of indigenous peoples should use traditional methods of communication such as printed documents, seminars, and speech but should also privilege materials suitable to non-literate people with a large impact such as radio and TV programmes.

The indigenous radio station Biso na Biso in the North could be used for this campaign and could serve as a model to create other indigenous radio stations in the Plateaux and the South.

The Biso na Biso project, financed by the World Bank and the Chirac Foundation, informs the Mbendjele about their rights, disseminates important local news and promotes their cultural heritage. Anti-discrimination messages should also be broadcast on radio and TV channels with high national impact.

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The topic of discrimination addressed in the national school curriculum

Schools should include lessons at all levels on the history, cultural heritage and rights of indigenous peoples in the Republic of Congo, Africa and worldwide.

1.1.2 Protecting land rights and access to resources The protection of land rights and access to resources is of crucial importance for the independence, security, health and way of life of indigenous peoples, especially of indigenous women and children. Forest access is particularly important as a source of traditional medicines and animal protein. There is also a correlation between loss of access to traditional territories and erosion of indigenous children’s and women’s rights. Both these factors correlate with an increase in acts of violence against women and children, particularly in urban communities. For indigenous peoples, being able to move freely and control their mode of subsistence is the best protection against abuse, poverty and the erosion of their cultural values and institutions.

Urgent measures should be then taken to enforce this protection. These measures should be: - The production and delivery of land titles to both rural and urban sedentarised indigenous communities as a means of preventing land evictions.

- The recognition of indigenous villages and camps as administrative entities.

- The establishment, if possible, of immediate moratoria on all activities restricting indigenous hunting and land access (especially activities of industries and national parks). Indigenous peoples should have the right to access their resources freely and to negotiate third parties’ use of their territory using the internationally recognised framework of FPIC. The FPIC approach is the only way to ensure proper 88

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consultation, participation and agreement of indigenous peoples on matters involving the use of their territories or changes to their way of life. Should it not prove possible to impose moratoria, the renegotiation of indigenous land exploitation plans should nevertheless be carried out on the basis of FPIC. The use of GPS technology to map indigenous territories and monitor any abuses80 related to access to land and/or resources in those territories. This technology, which can be operated by indigenous peoples themselves, is already employed by FSCcertified logging companies. Its use could be extended on a national scale to produce maps of indigenous territories, key resources and abuses taking place on them, especially illegal hunting and logging. Any maps produced could be used as the basis for indigenous peoples to negotiate resource management plans with extractive companies and conservation NGOs. The raising of awareness among industries, NGOs and Bantu populations of indigenous land rights and how their actions might contravene them. Eco-guards in particular need to receive better training on indigenous rights and be compelled to respect them.

1.1.3 Creating an anti-discrimination government department There is an urgent need to dismantle the culture of ignorance and impunity that currently surrounds the issue of discrimination against indigenous peoples. This report strongly recommends the creation of a government department within the Ministry of the Interior endowed with the powers to investigate and punish all forms of abuse linked to discriminatory practices against all citizens.

This department could open small offices and antennae throughout the country where cases of discrimination and abuse are reported. The staff should have the power to investigate any claims of abuse, to bring cases before the police and courts, and to ensure follow-up. They should also raise awareness of the issue of discrimination and the fines and sentences imposed on offenders.

These offices and antennae should be run by teams of specially-trained indigenous people and Bantu.

1.1.4 Training and recruiting indigenous civil servants Indigenous people need to be trained and recruited by the state as a means of integrating them into the police force, the judiciary, the health and education sectors (see Recommendation 1.5.2). The absence of indigenous civil servants is itself the product of discrimination. It is also a factor impeding indigenous peoples’ access to public services. Increasing indigenous representation in the civil service would help to overcome the ethnic bias and prejudice that exists within the public sector.

1.1.5 Basic numeracy and literacy skills for indigenous peoples It is essential for indigenous peoples to acquire basic numeracy and literacy skills in order to gain respect from Bantu communities and to avoid being cheated. Skills could be taught through very basic training geared towards practical activities. Mobile numeracy and literacy 80

Including illegal hunting.

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teams could visit villages and camps. Alternatively, schools could be made available for evening classes (see below 1.1.7).

1.1.6 Cross-cultural training for staff dealing with indigenous peoples Government and NGO staff who work with indigenous peoples should be offered training in the cultural specificities of the different indigenous groups living in the Republic of Congo.

The inclusion of indigenous representatives in such training programmes would encourage the development of mutual respect and acceptance in their work together.

1.1.7 Mobile teams providing basic education, healthcare and legal services The discriminatory attitude of public servants towards indigenous peoples has created a situation where indigenous peoples are highly reluctant to make use of important state services such as hospitals, the police, magistrates’ courts and schools. To address this situation, this report recommends the creation of mobile teams providing essential judiciary, health and education services for indigenous peoples. This would be particularly useful for isolated communities and would have the added benefit of helping semi-nomadic communities to maintain their itinerant lifestyle. More generally, such a service could help build indigenous peoples’ trust in public services and give them the encouragement and incentive necessary to access services located in fixed sites.

To function effectively, such teams would need to include indigenous people, whose presence will promote engagement with the programme. Bantu team members should receive training in cross-cultural understanding so as to confront any latent racial prejudices.

On the basis of the data collected, those teams should: - Provide legal information pertinent to indigenous peoples. They could provide assistance in a range of legal areas such as preparing an affidavit, legal advice in case of disputes, and the issuing of official documents81 as well as other matters of indigenous peoples’ citizenship and rights.

- Gather information on child and maternal health.

- Inform people on:  Good child and maternal health practices.  The long- and short-term effects of vaccinations, and the dates of future visits by immunisation teams.  Contraception methods, sexual diseases and Aids.  Correct fees for medical consultation and treatment.  The impact of alcohol and drugs on the individual, family and community and in particular on the foetus.

- Administer vaccinations.

- Teach practical numeracy and literacy skills.

It is worth underlining that mobile healthcare units have proved to be an efficient way of reducing the cost of access to healthcare in other countries82. Units operating in the Republic 81

Such as birth certificates. The cards should be laminated to protect them from damage.

According to Green (1992:221) who discusses Walker and Gish’s study in Botswana, the cost per output (patient contact) was lowest in ground mobile units, costing £0.63 versus £0.68 in fixed health posts, whereas the cost per outcome (excluding unsuccessful contacts) for mobile and fixed clinics were £5.87 and £0.75 respectively (1992:222). Using mobile units could be vital in increasing the number of effective patient contacts and in making their use more cost-effective.

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of Congo could employ locally respected traditional healers trained in primary health care alongside state doctors and nurses (see Recommendation 1.1.7). They could also provide low-cost generic drugs to treat the most commonly recurring ailments. During the civil war (1997-2000), a mobile pharmacy run by trained traditional Mbendjele healers operated autonomously in the northern forest with a revolving drug fund supplied by a local logging company’s pharmacy. Uses report that it greatly improved their health.

1.1.8 Eco-guard training The numerous claims of apparent abuse committed by eco-guards in the North may possibly be replicated elsewhere in the country. As the eco-guard system was developed in collaboration with the Congolese Ministry of Water and Forests, abuses should therefore be dealt with at national level.

In order to reduce the likelihood of possible future incidents of abuse, eco-guards should be targeted for a programme of awareness-raising about: - What indigenous peoples are allowed to hunt and how.

- The new indigenous laws concerning indigenous peoples.

- The existence of offices for reporting abuses (proposed in Recommendation 1.1.3 p.89) and their relationship with the police and judiciary.

- The definition of discrimination and abuse.

- Sentences and fines for such acts.

Any eco-guard found guilty of acts of violence, disrespectful behaviour or misuse of the law to the detriment of indigenous peoples should be suspended and fined.

1.2 Social and cultural awareness 1.2.1 Freedom and autonomy Although indigenous people form a closely bound unit within their clan, there is nevertheless a high value placed upon individual freedom. Freedom to choose one’s path, to decide for oneself, and to be autonomous are very important values in all the indigenous communities visited, where the idea of compelling other people to do anything is quite unfamiliar.

Indigenous peoples’ lifestyle and worldview are not dogmatic, nor are their way of learning or dealing with conflicts authoritarian. Communities do not work on a model of stratified status and power. Power is devolved, even in communities with hereditary chiefs or where men are family heads, as is the case among the Tswa and Bongo.

The importance of these values is visible in the way indigenous children are brought up.

From as young as five years old, they are treated in many respects as adults by the members of their family and community. Although young children are shown and advised on what to do, decision are always theirs to make. They have the freedom and autonomy to choose which path they want to follow, when and at what pace. This is even more so for adolescents, who start a family at around the age of 14-15, by which time they are full adult members of the community.

These positive values should be at the core of programmes and development projects developed with and for indigenous communities. However, this emphasis on personal autonomy and community democracy can render discussion and decision making very lengthy, as a majority of people will need to be convinced and motivated personally. There is 91

also a risk that individuals might change their commitment to a project according to changes in their situation or mood. Other community members will be neither willing nor able to make them continue working with a programme they have adopted but decided to abandon.

It is essential that all programmes and projects targeting the well-being of indigenous peoples should be developed with the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of indigenous communities themselves. All women, men and children in these communities have the right to decide upon the character and content of such programmes. Ensuring this right has the added benefit of encouraging the intended beneficiaries to participate at all stages of programming from conception through delivery, monitoring and evaluation. Given the emphasis placed on the right to personal autonomy in indigenous communities, this process may prove lengthy but it is crucial to the success of projects and to the provision of indigenous peoples’ rights.

The fact that indigenous children are given a lot of responsibilities at an early stage should be recognised and valued. They have gained enormous and valuable skills as early as 15. Those skills allow them to look after themselves and after their own family. To be considered as an adult so young in this context should not be seen as something bad or discouraged but understood as an advantage when it is one’s children that will provide the greatest security and care if you are ill or incapacitated as an adult. The maturity and sense of responsibility evident in adolescents is important to ensure that these young people are responsible parents.

It raises, however, questions regarding the pursuit of their studies in the formal education system (see education section for the discussion on this issue and on its implications).

1.2.2 Women’s contribution to public meetings and their influence over projects Despite the fact that indigenous women do not speak much in community meetings, especially in front of strangers, it is important to know that they discuss privately with their husband any decisions with a potential impact on the family. Women express themselves freely in such interactions and the decisions are taken consensually. It is, therefore, essential that meetings called to discuss planned interventions take place on more than one occasion in order to give couples the opportunity to discuss matters privately.

Existing means of giving women a voice in public should also be encouraged. Among the Tswa, women’s opinions can be represented in meetings by a designated spokeswoman.

Among the Bongo, the spokesperson is a man of their choice. For the Mbendjele, women’s opinions are often voiced by an elderly woman. In all cases, it is important to remember that spokespersons in indigenous communities are not invested with decision powers and should not be ask to negotiate on behalf of the others. This is also true for the Tswa and Bongo chiefs. In indigenous communities, chiefs (where they exist) and spokespersons should be treated as messengers, not as executives.

In other contexts than public meetings, it is important to remember that Mbendjele women can use mosambo to speak their minds to the community (see Part I). They can also meet and discuss issues at women-only sacred places before bringing their opinion back to the wider group. Generally, it is important to give time to communities to reflect on the topics discussed at meetings, both individually and within families and the wider group. These deliberations can then occur within the rhythm of daily life and be discussed informally in context rather than in the structured formality of a meeting. This is important for both

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genders, but it is particularly important for women as their daily schedule (particularly among the Tswa and the Bongo) is much heavier than men’s.

Finally, to encourage women’s voices to be heard, FPIC should be sought from different gender and age groups (men, women, girls and boys).

1.2.3 Putting egalitarian principles at the heart of development projects All sustainable development programmes should aim to improve material and economic conditions for the community, in general. Interventions that only improve the lot of certain individuals risk creating social tension. The egalitarian principles and strategies of indigenous communities can act as a potential corrective to such tendencies and therefore should be integral to programming. Projects which do not involve all members of the community risk favouring participants over non-participants. The consequence of this is that beneficiaries can become overburdened with demands from non-participants and lose the motivation to continue.

1.2.4 Limits on the applicability of the notion of accountability The system of accountability that exists is enshrined into specific situations and contexts and will not necessarily transpose itself naturally to others especially in relation to projects.

1.2.5 Early pregnancy and marriage: a pragmatic life strategy Indigenous people start a family at around 14-15 years. This conflicts with a fundamental human right as defined by international law and the national Congolese law on children, according to which child pregnancies (that is under the age of 18 years) are not permitted.

However, in today’s context of poverty and lack of employment opportunities for indigenous peoples, the early onset of adulthood (which involves marriage and starting a family) relieves the parents of adolescents of the duty to provide food to their children. It also ensures the support of one’s children from early middle age in the context of short life expectancy and the absence of state social security. It would, therefore, be counterproductive to advise indigenous adolescents to start a family later in life without supporting indigenous communities through related initiatives that: - Provide indigenous peoples with more security and confidence in their future.

- Give parents the means to support their children for longer.

- Work to establish a school system that provides indigenous peoples with skills that increase their ability to attain food security and to access to goods and services (see Recommendation 1.5).

1.2.6 Naming a child and birth registration As noted, Tswa infants under three years and Mbendjele babies under three months are not given names. In this case, the names of the parents and the baby’s date of birth (at least the month) should be recorded by mobile teams units (see Recommendation 1.1.7) and other visits planned when the baby has been named.

1.3. Access to justice 1.3.1 Specific training of indigenous representatives and the judiciary

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Indigenous representatives such as chiefs, spokespersons, RENAPAC representatives and other indigenous NGO personnel should be given specific training in how to support children and others in accessing the judicial system. The judiciary should be made aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the Tswa, Bongo and Mbendjele traditional justice systems in dealing with abuses and protecting women and children within their communities.

1.3.2 Training and monitoring of authorities issuing birth certificates Staff in registry offices and hospitals should be trained to issue birth certificates free of charge to parents of babies born in villages, camps or the forest. In order to avoid corruption, the law should be supported and monitored through: - Specific awareness-raising programmes for government staff, especially those working in remote areas.

- Dissemination of the rights of citizens.

- Regular independent audit of registry authorities and healthcare centres with the introduction of a system of rewards and promotion for officials implementing good practice.

1.3.3 Trained lawyers paid by the state In the rare cases that indigenous people use court services or go to trial they should be able to call upon lawyers trained in indigenous issues to represent them. Due to high levels of poverty among indigenous peoples, they should be provided with financial support to assist access to various forms of legal aid services.

1.3.4 Language, interpreters and minutes Interpreters should be made available to indigenous people to assist them in all their dealings with the judiciary and especially during trials. Whenever possible, the trial should be conducted using the Bantu regional dialects, as indigenous people master these better than French. Copies of the minutes of their trial should be given to indigenous people.

1.4. Health 1.4.1 Incorporating traditional and Western medical knowledge Indigenous peoples still rely almost exclusively on traditional healthcare and their system is efficient in dealing with a wide range of ailments. Therefore, as recognised in the national policy on traditional health care (2006), traditional medical knowledge needs to be preserved and used alongside the state healthcare system. The indigenous people encountered during this research expressed a strong interest in mixing their medical knowledge with that of the mundeles (white people).

Mixing indigenous and state approaches to healthcare has the potential to improve treatment outcomes that traditional remedies cannot always cure and vice versa. It is important also because indigenous people seek advice primarily from their traditional healers (be they purely herbalists or herbalists dealing with supernatural forces) and only go to hospital or dispensaries as the last resort. In many instances, collaboration between traditional healers and state doctors could encourage necessary and timely hospital visits.

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A programme should be developed to assist doctors, nurses and traditional healers and midwives in working together. Such collaboration is crucial to the long-term survival of traditional medical knowledge as programmes that focus exclusively on access to state healthcare risk devaluing traditional knowledge.

A programme similar to the one proposed here has been implemented in South Africa to bring sangoma (local traditional healers) into collaboration with hospitals. This scheme has been supported by the passing into law of the Traditional Health Practitioners Act of 2007.

Besides leading to improvements in patients’ health, the scheme has also enabled patients to distinguish between properly qualified traditional healers and charlatans. The collaboration also reveals the similarities and differences between the two systems, especially as concerns the attribution of causes of illness (biophysical versus supernatural). Any programme in the Republic of Congo would have to investigate similar issues.

The basis of such collaboration would be to foster a discussion between the different parties to see if they could agree on treatment protocols for each ailment they are both able to diagnose. Such protocols could include information about who the patient should see first; for how long; after how long he or she should be sent to try another treatment and to whom; what the treatment should be; in which cases the patient could receive simultaneous treatment from the dispensary and traditional doctors and so forth.

Such a programme has the potential to address two major issues: improving access to healthcare for indigenous peoples and helping traditional remedies and health knowledge to survive in the short and long term. However, it would be complex to implement as traditional healers might not want to share their knowledge, some might have no real knowledge and effective medicines to offer, and medical doctors and nurses would need to acknowledge and abandon any latent prejudices against traditional healers and indigenous peoples, in general (see Recommendation 1.1.6).

1.4.2 Improving access to healthcare centres To improve access to healthcare centres many programmes need to be implemented: -

Anti-discrimination training programme for health workers (see Recommendation 1.1.6)

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Training of traditional healers in primary health care (PHC)

Traditional healers should receive special training in primary healthcare as already stipulated in the Congolese national policy on traditional healthcare (2004). Selection of healers by the community is vital as some are more skilled and trusted than others. Healers could be supplied with generic medicines through a mobile pharmacy (see Recommendation below) and trained in diagnosis, dosage and contraindications of drugs.

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Rural radio programmes for specified intervention zones

Radio broadcasts would help inform local populations of dates, times and locations of medical care. They could also offer health education programmes to raise local awareness of health problems. Information could also be provided on the possible costs involved in consulting a doctor and the exact cost of medicines, so as to limit corrupt practices.

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Our northern research team tried this approach prior to leaving Pokola. With the help of one of their interpreters and the president of the Baka Association, they recorded a radio programme on health which will be re-broadcast at regular intervals. The aim was to explain how to get access to the facilities provided at Pokola hospital, supported by FFAB. This had raised significant interest among indigenous communities by the time the research team departed.

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Free consultation and medicines

The price of consultation and medicines is a major barrier for indigenous people. In order to encourage uptake of state healthcare, access needs to be free or to cost an amount similar to the fee they pay traditional healers. A more systematic distribution of high quality generic medicines through licensed outlets could help to keep the price low.

The national health policy should be clear on the free access to healthcare for indigenous peoples (or any small fees they have to pay) and ensure that every local hospital and dispensary in the country has the information and applies the policy correctly.

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Transport, food and lodging costs for relatives of hospitalised persons

Many sick indigenous people avoid hospitals as they can rarely afford the costs of transport for themselves and a relative to accompany them to a hospital. Financing this element of healthcare is vital if uptake is to be increased.

1.4.3 Alcohol ‘prohibition’ campaign The problem is acute and has dire consequences on women’s and children’s health and the lives of indigenous peoples as a whole. The problem is particularly acute in indigenous settlements in urban areas. Awareness-raising programmes on the effects of alcohol and drugs are insufficient to stop the soaring rate of addiction. To supplement these programmes, a ban on paying indigenous people with drugs or alcohol, or selling drugs or alcohol to indigenous people should be introduced.

Such ethnically targeted legislation could be introduced on the basis of Article 1 (4) of the International Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

On the basis of this article, special measures which might amount to racial discrimination are permitted to be ‘taken for the sole purpose of securing adequate advancement of certain racial or ethnic groups or individuals requiring such protection as may be necessary in order to ensure such groups or individuals equal enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms’. This article should be made applicable to the situation of indigenous peoples of RC. Any action taken in relation to the prohibition of alcohol among indigenous peoples in RC should be guided by the extensive experience of similar programmes elsewhere in the world as well as by policy debates which consider strengths and weaknesses of such programmes.

1.5. Education 1.5.1 The central issue: Is formal schooling the key for a better future for indigenous children?

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At the heart of the issue of education is the question of whether formal schooling is the best means of helping indigenous children improve their and their peoples’ prospects for the future. There is no single clear answer to this.

Basic literacy and numeracy should be a goal for every child, as these are necessary life skills. They can be achieved through a mixture of formal and informal modes of education and ways of learning. Formal education should be made more accessible to indigenous children but should be reformed in such a way that it does not alienate them from their community and/or erode their love for their culture and people. For the majority of indigenous children for whom an extended school career is neither feasible nor likely to lead to professional employment, other ways to further their numeracy and literacy skills should be supported. (See also the recommendation on mobile school units).

1.5.2 Ways of facilitating access to schools and learning The Praebase programme gives indigenous children an incentive to attend school but this incentive alone is insufficient. The following proposals are, therefore, aimed at complementing this programme, which should be maintained as long as possible. Proposals concern both primary and secondary schools.

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A national anti-discrimination campaign targeting Bantu pupils, parents and teachers, and a national curriculum with a new compulsory component on human rights, key national laws and the history of indigenous peoples (see Recommendation 1.1)

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Training and recruitment of both indigenous and Bantu playground assistants and teachers

Teachers and playground assistants from both communities should be trained and recruited.

They should be specially trained to watch and intervene systematically should indigenous children fall victim to bullying either inside or outside the classroom. Appropriate measures should be taken against any children using verbal or physical aggression against others.

Teachers should also be trained not to equate indigenous lifestyles with backwardness or to suggest that it should be abandoned for the good of the children and their people. Explanation of the sophistication of indigenous culture as well as the tragedy of its history should be included in the curriculum alongside human rights issues and the new indigenous law of the Republic of Congo (see further recommendation, below).

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Building more indigenous schools that are also open to controlled numbers of nonindigenous pupils

Indigenous children’s uptake of school is much higher in institutions built specially for them, as this gives them a real sense of ownership. This report, therefore, recommends the building of more indigenous schools around the country. These schools should be able to accommodate the local indigenous school-age population as well as a minority of Bantu children. They should be large enough to accommodate all local indigenous children but not so large as to allow Bantu to form the majority. Such a mix and ratio would encourage

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comradeship between indigenous and non-indigenous children while maintaining the indigenous character of the institution.

Having mixed schools of indigenous and non-indigenous pupils could help to change radically the way indigenous people are treated. This is especially true in the Plateaux and the South, where indigenous and non-indigenous peoples speak the same language. In the North, the situation is different as Mbendjele have their own language, which should be used as the language of instruction.

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Recognising and harvesting indigenous children’s motivation to go to school

Indigenous parents do not force their children to go to school. It is clear that those children who do attend school are highly motivated, given the many challenges they face at school.

Teachers should be made aware of this motivation and encouraged to nurture it.

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Taking into account non-authoritative ways of teaching and of children’s autonomy, typical of indigenous communities

Indigenous children are treated by their parents as persons with their own free will and autonomy, which contrasts sharply with the way Bantu children are raised and the way Bantu teachers deal with children, in general. Teachers should be made aware of this cultural difference and should use punishment and discipline with restraint. Other techniques of compliance should be taught to them, such as counselling and giving children responsibilities and creative tasks.

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Learning through experience, games, and trial and error

Learning through experience should be used as much as possible. Putting into practice what one has observed or heard is a very important tool in education in general. It is especially applicable to children for whom this is the only form of learning at home.

Learning by trial and error in the classroom should be encouraged as a means to introduce the principles of scientific theory and practice, namely building, testing and refining hypotheses.

The use of games for educational purposes should also be developed in the classroom for the benefit of all children -

Learning critical thinking without challenging others people’s views

Teachers should be aware of the difficulty indigenous children have in asking questions publicly or contradicting another person’s point of view. To overcome this barrier to learning, teachers should be helped to find alternative ways of teaching critical thinking that avoid these problems. At the same time, it is also important that indigenous children learn the skills necessary for making their voice heard in wider society, as this can be an important tool in protection of indigenous rights. The key action to be taken on this issue is to raise awareness among teachers of indigenous people’s cultural propensity for reticence while enabling students to master other communicative styles.

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Identifying indigenous children’s own cultural literacies and numeracies and bringing the classroom to them

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The ‘ethno-literacies’ approach (Street, 1984, 1997) promoted in educational programmes around the world uses the practical activities of local people as a basis for academic learning.

Children’s areas of learning should be identified through the activities they perform or take part in within their community (collecting wood, water, food, hunting, dancing, singing, games, pounding manioc, selling, family and community discussions, dispute resolution etc.).

The curriculum should be developed around these activities with the participation of the indigenous communities concerned. For example, collecting water could be used to introduce notions of weight, weather systems, ecology, and so forth. This type of instruction could also be given outside the classroom using the natural setting where those activities are performed.

Bringing the classroom to indigenous children in this manner would help to solve the problem of indigenous children missing school. This would be a way for both teachers and children to explore and promote indigenous knowledge about plants, biology, and the forest.

This type of programme has already been implemented in other parts of the world (for example, with indigenous peoples in Canada) and seems to show great promise. However, the dominant pedagogical norms employed in Africa would require new training initiatives for teachers and a rethink and revision of the national primary and secondary curriculum.

1.5.3 Continuing to secondary school and pursuing formal education Programmes need to be implemented to enable the brightest and most motivated indigenous children to continue their education at secondary and college level. As argued above, it is illusory and even problematic to lure all indigenous children into secondary school and high school given the current state of formal schooling and the limited employment opportunities available. Indigenous students risk losing contact with key elements of their culture without broadening their life chances. However, an educational programme could target a relatively small number of indigenous children across the country in order to build up a cadre of indigenous professionals. Some of these could go on to play a major role in reducing the discrimination faced by indigenous peoples in the country. Such a programme should offer: -

Special anti-discrimination training for primary teachers (see Recommendation 1.1.1) A system of bursaries

Indigenous pupils who have the capacity and motivation to attend secondary school should benefit from a bursary programme. A parallel programme could be implemented for poor Bantu children. This programme should be explained and made attractive to children and families in primary school.

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Training graduate indigenous children to become civil servants

Indigenous children who graduate through the bursary system should be supported in joining professional skills training programmes to help them secure professional employment as lawyers, police officers, military officers, doctors, nurses, teachers and so forth. There are no indigenous people currently serving in these key areas of public life, which is a major factor limiting indigenous access to public services. The commitment of the state to train and recruit indigenous people in these sectors could lead to a significant cadre of indigenous civil servants within a few generations.

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1.5.4 Non-formal education initiatives for numeracy, literacy and crafts skills Programmes are required to strengthen the numeracy, literacy and applied practical skills of those indigenous children supported by bursary schemes who ceased formal education after primary school or who attended secondary school but did not obtain their baccalaureate. Such opportunities must fit in with the rhythm of indigenous life and the priorities of indigenous communities. Mobile learning units (see Recommendation 1.1.7) or ‘learning foyers’, where children and adolescents can drop in when they want, could also be made accessible for adults. The skills taught should be those that are useful and directly applicable in everyday life, such as dressmaking, blacksmithing, mechanics etc.

2. Implications for the South and Plateaux 2.1 Social and cultural awareness 2.1.1 Communication Tswa or Bongo do not contradict each other in public, especially in front of strangers.

This has important consequences for any development practitioners who wish to ascertain people’s true opinions.

To elicit people’s opinion, development practitioners should engage them in conversation in small groups according to gender and age. To free their speech even more, they should hold a few private discussions with willing members of each group. It is also important to be attentive in discussions to any minor expressions of disapproval and to investigate these sensitively.

2.1.2 The financial independence of children and young adolescents In the years since Tswa communities have been sedentarised, young Tswa adolescents, and even children, have developed great financial autonomy. They have seized the opportunity of having permanent Bantu neighbours to whom they can sell the forest produce they collect.

This has not been discouraged by parents, who cannot afford to give pocket money to their children. Besides, young people are encouraged to have great autonomy over their decisions.

Projects (such as educational initiatives) that prevent Tswa children and adolescents from collecting forest produce on an occasional basis should take account of this practice.

2.1.3 Projects to counterbalance gender imbalances There is a general balance of powers between Tswa men and women. Both men’s and women’s roles and activities are valued, with neither gender seeming to hold a higher status than the other. However, there are some areas in which women have less control than men over decisions and roles, such as place of residence, family name and the ability to become a chief. Also, women’s workload is heavier as women spend more time than men on family chores. Cases of divorce are very rare because a woman cannot leave her husband without repaying the value of his wedding gifts. The practice of the husband presenting gifts to his wife upon their marriage is important as it marks the union of the couple and of their respective families. However, it ties a woman to a man for life.

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Projects should, therefore, focus on aspects of women’s lives that can realistically reduce gender imbalances, such as women’s workload and their obligation to return wedding gifts in cases of separation. These include: - Providing manioc mills to help women in this most time-consuming and arduous of daily tasks.

- Exploring ways of marking the union of two families other than by the offering of gifts.

- Raising awareness of the problems attached to the obligation to return the value of wedding gifts in cases of separation.

2.1.4 Contradictory explanations of financial success The Tswa and Bongo value the notion of individual effort and associated reward. The high value attached to these notions can probably be traced to the influence of the Protestant ethic instilled over several generations by missionaries and churches. Even when Tswa and Bongo work in groups, the fruits of their labours are retained for individual consumption. This fundamental value must be taken into account when designing cooperative development interventions.

The Tswa and Bongo are accepting of minor differences in wealth between members of a community. However, persons perceived to be significantly wealthier than others are viewed with disapproval. They may even be accused of using fetishes and may risk being cursed by jealous members of the community.

2.1.5 Development programmes based on individuals and households In the Plateaux and the South, there is a high value placed on individual effort and the associated rewards. This value needs to be placed at the centre of development programmes.

Tswa and Bongo work principally for the benefit of their family rather than that of the community as a whole. They want to be able to decide and control what to share, in what quantity and with whom. At the same time, as mentioned above, development programmes should avoid increasing economic differentiation, as the tensions caused would destroy the project’s viability.

2.1.6 The question of protection of cultural heritage Caution should be applied when the aim of projects is to protect the distinctive traditions of the Tswa or Bongo. Terms such as ‘preservation of tradition’ or ‘cultural distinctiveness’ should be avoided as men and women from these groups attribute their current poverty and lack of rights to their indigenous identity. The emphasis should only be on helping them to become fully respected citizens. If their positive traditions, such as greater gender equality and non-authoritarian style of managing relationships, can help them to achieve that status then they will accept projects that will promote those traditions, such as a Tswa radio station.

2.1.7 Agricultural projects The most useful agricultural project for the Tswa and Bongo would be to help them rent tractors for a few days so that every family could have a plot of the same size, big enough for subsistence and commercial purposes. Ploughing is the hardest task of all Tswa and Bongo farming activities and also a factor in creating inequality, as some families have more labour available than others to do the job. Providing tractors would minimise this factor of inequality 101

and enable all families to raise their income. Money-making projects are important, especially for the Tswa, in order to purchase protein-rich foods and water, neither of which is available without payment all year round.

2.1.8 Limitation of public meetings especially for women As it is considered impolite to contradict another person in public, it is important to recognize the limitation of public meetings for learning what people really think. This is especially true for women, whose public voice is heard less than men’s. In order to gain a female perspective, women-only meetings should be organised and the use of a spokesperson should be encouraged as this practice already exists.

2.2 Justice 2.2.1 Strengths and weaknesses of the Tswa and Bongo ‘traditional justice system’ Strengths: - For minor offences, the mix of counselling and social pressure that the system provides is very efficient at changing behaviour and it avoids burdening the judiciary and police with minor offences.

- The same system applies equally to men, women and children.

Weaknesses: - In case of mistreatment by their husbands, women are not free to leave unless they can afford to repay the value of their wedding gifts.

- In case of mistreatment, children are dependent on the will of their extended family to take them into care. Nobody can force them to do this and, as the majority of families are poor, they may be reluctant to take on another child.

- The local Tswa chief and his counsellors have counselling powers but no power to enforce measures to effect a change of attitude or the removal of the offender. The social and moral pressure of the community is the only means existing to protect vulnerable people. If community cohesion erodes, so does the system of justice.

2.2.2 Functional complementarity of traditional and court justice systems The magistrates’ courts and Tswa/Bongo ‘courts’ work on different premises. The former have powers of punishment and enforcement, whereas the latter seek to reconcile parties, provide counselling and have no enforcement powers other than community pressure.

However, these systems display functional complementarity which could be built upon to improve access to justice for the Tswa and Bongo.

The Tswa and Bongo systems work as a first port of call for offences at the community level.

If resolution is not found, social relationships with an offender can be severed but there is no guaranteed means of protecting victims. The national court system could potentially be useful in such cases, for example when a woman is unable to leave her abusive husband due to the obligation to repay the value of her wedding gifts. However, it is unlikely that the Tswa and Bongo will trust the judiciary unless the rampant corruption and discriminatory practices existing within the courts are addressed. Armed with better information about due legal processes, these indigenous communities might consider the possibility of using the court system to deal with recidivists (see Recommendation 1.1.7 on disseminating legal information).

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2.3 Health 2.3.1 Food and water projects for the Plateaux Malnutrition and diarrhoea are the main causes of death in children in the Plateaux.

Protein consumption is low due to the distance of many Tswa settlements from the game forests and fishing rivers. Diarrhoea results from scarcity of drinking water and consumption of unboiled water (as it is given to children from birth). Unlike Bantu villages, the Tswa communities lack their own rain water reservoirs. They can buy water (500 CFA for a 15-litre jerry can) but the cost and transportation involved limit the amount of water used every day.

Three major projects should be implemented to improve the general state of health of the Tswa (and Tswa children in particular) and to decrease the mortality rate in infants. These projects are: - A food project to identify and grow and/or harvest nutritious foods especially those with a high protein content such as groundnuts (see Recommendation 2.1.6).

- An agricultural project to help raise families’ income so that they can purchase protein-rich foods such as fish from the Bantu.

- A project to collect rain water on the model of the Hydroplan project developed by GTZ on the Plateaux in the 1990s.

2.3.2 Traditional healers’ knowledge rescue programme for the Plateaux Programmes are needed to promote the value of traditional healing practices and to make them financially rewarding. Such a programme should bring young people into contact with the most knowledgeable traditional healers of the Plateaux so that the latter can share their knowledge with the former. Both should be incentivised by receiving complementary training in primary healthcare and by being incorporated into mobile health care units (see 1.1.7).

Basic training in the Western medical tradition and well remunerated employment could make the work of traditional healers attractive again.

2.3.3 Special information package on hygiene and maternal and child health in the Plateaux and the South There is a need for an information package on: - Nutritious foods for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers - Common causes of intestinal illnesses, such as unclean hands, unboiled water or unsuitable or untimely weaning foods - Impact of alcohol and cigarettes on the foetus 2.3.4 Research on Bongo children employed as house servants Children in urban settlements are taken in by Bantu families to work as house servants. More research is urgently needed to know what becomes of children picked up by Bantu in indigenous camps and put into domestic service.

2.3.5 Agricultural and technical training programmes in urban Bongo settlements

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To address problems of poverty and violence in urbanised Bongo camps, projects should aim at raising their living standard and improving their food security. Agricultural land should be secured for them and some technical help provided to grow food (e.g. renting tractors to plough family plots). Training in practical urban trades such as blacksmithing or mechanics could complement such a programme. This would need to be run in parallel with programmes addressing addiction and violence.

3. Implications for the northern region 3.1 Development projects 3.1.1 Preserving an egalitarian lifestyle The Mbendjele are among the most egalitarian people on earth and this egalitarianism depends mainly on their access to forest produce and the preservation of their hunting, gathering and ritual practices. It depends also on a nomadic lifestyle in which groups can move according to the availability and abundance of resources. To lose this lifestyle and be forced (directly or indirectly) to sedentarise would have dire consequences on both their physical and cultural survival, as has been shown among other Central African indigenous groups such as Baka and Bagyeli in Cameroon, Baka in Gabon, and Bongo in the Republic of Congo. The consequences of this sedentarisation for the egalitarian society of the Mbendjele are already evident in some urbanised communities around Pokola. Women and children are already victims of violence (women within their own communities, and children from outside of their communities).

All the important recommendations made for the Mbendjele in this section concern the protection of their hunting and gathering lifestyle. This should be the main objective of all programming for Mbendjele as it is the key to safeguarding their human rights and limiting abuses against women and children.

3.1.2 Projects promoting demand sharing over individual property and consumption The notion of ‘proper sharing’ of care and resources is at the heart of how these communities define desirable social relationships, whether among themselves, with outsiders, or with the environment. Sharing extends beyond material items to social relationships which support the right of all members of the community to express themselves regardless of age or gender and which deny individuals the right to impose their will on others.

Development projects that seek to introduce notions of private property risk undermining the cultural uniqueness of these now-rare societies. Projects seeking to replace hunting and gathering with agriculture also risk failure as demand sharing acts as a major disincentive against farming. Farming works on a model of delayed returned benefits, long term investments and limited production of resources, while demand sharing works on a model of abundance of resources and immediate access to them. The system of demand sharing cannot survive in situations where sedentarisation, private property, accumulation of wealth and profit are the basic model for development. Agricultural projects should only be implemented when forest resources are no longer available or as a means to provide additional food or income alongside hunting and gathering activities.

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3.1.3 The importance of maintaining hunting practices and access to abundant forest resources on their territory It is important to understand the crucial social role that hunting serves within Mbendjele society and how the lack of opportunity to hunt has a very profound effect on men’s dignity and sense of purpose. This can be a major cause of apathy and problematic alcohol consumption. The opportunity to hunt and the existence of abundant resources are also important to keep alive the system of sharing and associated rituals which form, according to our respondents, the cultural heritage of the Mbendjele. Access to their traditional territories is the base of their identity.

3.1.4 Projects which do not impose leaders or provide preferential treatment The traditional strength of indigenous communities lies in the coalescence of individual abilities. In these societies, difference is a strength rather than a problem. The communal ethos and egalitarian structure of indigenous communities means that no single person has more or greater rights or power than any other. Projects which impose leaders or which give preferential treatment to some over others – for example, participants over non-participants – pose a threat to the egalitarian principles that are the foundation of these societies.

3.1.5 Coping with demand sharing and inequalities The Mbendjele cope with inequalities in a radical way which is found in all hunter-gatherer societies with a nomadic lifestyle. In their society, everyone has to share food (and most goods) on a demand basis with all the members of his or her clan. The only wealth that is not shared is intellectual knowledge and the revenues it generates (healing, attending birth etc…).

Even so, the revenue gained from such practices is shared when the payment is transformed into food and goods.

So far, the system of sharing seems to be persisting despite the mounting pressure on forest resources and the differences in terms of economic status created by the employment of some Mbendjele in logging companies. But the system may not last indefinitely as resources become scarcer. To protect the central value of demand sharing is to protect a unique lifestyle and help maintain the social cohesion of Mbendjele communities. Without this cohesion, the peace and stability necessary for development programmes to succeed will be severely impaired.

3.1.6 Development programmes based on communal cooperation The Mbendjele have a deep understanding of interdependence, cooperation and gendered subsistence, which is based upon an underlying respect for each other’s roles and contribution to subsistence activities sustaining their society. Cooperation is a means of survival and a strategy to maintain egalitarian living. These strengths, which have been developed over centuries and which are now in danger of disappearing, should be harnessed as the basis of any poverty reduction interventions. All such projects should be planned, executed and monitored with the full involvement of the indigenous people themselves.

3.1.7 Integrating Mbendjele knowledge into conservation policy Conservation projects should seek ways to integrate the Mbendjele and their vast forest knowledge into conservation planning and management. As Mbendjele roam vast areas of the 105

forest, they are often the first to know about animal density, poaching or illegal logging activities.

3.2 Justice 3.2.1 Strengths and weaknesses of the Mbendjele ‘traditional justice system’ Strengths: - A very powerful system of social and moral pressure which is effective because it is public and includes the whole community.

- Women have as much power as men to demand and obtain justice as well as express their outrage or grief publicly. Furthermore, they are free to leave their husband and return to their family in case of mistreatment.

- Every offender is given a fair chance to correct aberrant behaviour through a range of mechanisms applied according to the seriousness of offence and the context.

- Ultimately, if these mechanisms fail and if the case is really serious, the community has the power to impose moral and physical punishment and even exile the offender.

Weaknesses: - The system works on the premise that the community’s ties are strong and that people live close enough to each other to know what others are doing. In urban settings, this solidarity is eroding, and with it the means by which Mbendjele have traditionally controlled people’s behaviour. Better access to the police and judiciary for urban Mbendjele might possibly counter-balance this trend. However, rising drug and alcohol addiction among youth and men mean that this will always remain difficult.

More generally (as underlined previously), Mbendjele should not be encouraged (either directly or indirectly) to sedentarise in town.

3.2.2 Dependence on Bantu ‘patrons’ to bring major legal problems to the court In cases where Mbendjele are victims of abuse perpetrated by a Bantu (such as physical assault, rape or murder) they cannot bring legal action without their Bantu ‘patron’ interceding on their behalf. There are three problems with this practice. First, the Mbendjele victim depends on the willingness of their patron to act. Second, they need a ‘patron’ with higher points of contact within the administration than their adversary. Third, if the ‘patron’ is the source of the abuse, the victim has no recourse to legal support.

The Mbendjele require alternative support networks to intercede for them when they have been the victim of abuse.

3.2.3 Complementarity and friction between the traditional justice system and the judiciary Since Mbendjele are egalitarian, they prefer an outsider to be the person to pass judgement upon major criminal acts such as murders or rapes occurring within their own communities.

The court system, therefore, has the potential to be of service to Mbendjele in case of major offences. However, the existing barriers that prevent them from accessing the judicial system need to be addressed first (See national recommendations on fighting discrimination).

Some of the methods the Mbendjele deal with serious offences, such as severe beatings and fighting, can be perceived by the police and judiciary as offences in themselves. It is 106

important for these offices to recognise the difference between beatings and fights which are socially controlled and those which are not.

3.3 Health 3.3.1 Population density, nomadic lifestyle and geographical access to health With a population density of 0.4 inhabitants per square kilometre83, the Likouala and Sangha regions represent the most sparsely populated areas of the RC. The extremely low density is typical for areas inhabited by hunter-gatherer populations and is often used to justify the exclusion of such people from healthcare programmes.

If we assume a distance of 10 km by foot and 20 km by un-motorised canoe as the criterion for having a reasonable level of access to health centres, 79.4% of the rural population do not have access to healthcare. The situation is desperate for both hunter-gatherers and sedentary groups. Therefore, it is essential to create mobile healthcare units in this region (see 1.1.7).

3.3.2 Research on diseases associated with sedentarisation Since present-day hunter-gatherers have much more contact with their sedentary contemporaries than in previous eras, they are now prone to diseases which have evolved within other environments and ways of life. As their way of life changes, so does their pattern of disease, as described below. The experience of other indigenous peoples such as Australian Aborigines should serve as an example and warning of the devastating effects that a transition in lifestyle may have on hunter-gatherers’ health.

The close interrelationship between poverty and disease is well documented. Although research into the effects of a transition of lifestyle among hunter-gatherers in Central Africa is rare, Woodburn (1999:2) confirms that the transition from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a sedentary one is accompanied by varying degrees of deterioration in health status.

Collating the studies, he reports that up to 50% of a population can die in the first months or years of transition in lifestyle (ibid). As is commonly known, high population densities facilitate the spread of communicable diseases, thus previously isolated communities coming into contact with high population densities may die from diseases against which they have not had a chance to build up immunity. Woodburn (1999:2) proposes that situations where previously isolated groups come into contact with outsiders for the first time should be treated as medical emergencies.

Once dispossessed of or cut off from access to their ancestral lands, Mbendjele, as so many other hunter-gatherer societies before them, will add to the number of landless rural poor forced into marginal lifestyles in urban slums suffering from the diseases associated with poverty and exploitation. The Mopepe camp in Pokola is an example of a community made up of indigenous people who have succumbed to pressure to leave the forest due to eco-guard abuses and now live on the margins of logging towns. Our research revealed that all of the maternal and all infant deaths among the Mbendjele reported to us occurred in this camp.

Furthermore, none of the men or women in this camp is in regular employment. Like many other indigenous peoples caught between worlds, their economic and social marginality

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Mbendjele ‘Pygmies’ represented approximately 53% of the rural population in 1997.

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prevents the acquisition of the financial resources required to pay for medical consultations, medicines or hospital care.

Further research is needed into the specific causes of ill health in these communities and measures that can be taken to reduce them.

3.3.3 Forest pharmacopeia and medical knowledge Some hunter-gatherers, such as the Mbendjele, have particularly well-developed systems of traditional healers and medicine, especially in relation to maternal and infant health. This knowledge needs to be preserved in order to maintain health in such marginalised groups who may not receive state healthcare due to the discrimination they suffer or the cost of consultation and medicines (even if geographical distance from health centres is not a problem). For that knowledge to be maintained, Mbendjele must be able to continue to access their forest pharmacopeia and continue their forest lifestyle.

The involvement of traditional healers and midwives in mobile healthcare units and healthcare centres would have the dual benefit of encouraging indigenous people’s uptake of medical provision while recognising and publicising the value of their knowledge and practices (see Recommendations 1.1.7, 1.4.1 and 1.4.2).

3.3.4 Ethno-botany and medical anthropology research project HIV is said to have originated in the Sangha region, yet all of the Mbendjele so far tested for have returned negative results. This apparent absence of the virus should be studied more systematically. More generally, the different varieties of plants, mushrooms, roots, leaves and barks which constitute traditional remedies have not been investigated and could help to discover new remedies.

Any projects of this kind involving indigenous peoples need to be carried out with the negotiation of their free, prior and informed consent. This knowledge is their intellectual property and they should benefit from the rights attached to it. Any commercialisation of their knowledge should benefit them directly.

3.3.5 Improved access to hospital for pregnant women in poor urban camps Women living in urban camps do not have access to their traditional forest birthing sites and access to hospital is difficult for them due to the social and economic factors outlined in the research findings presented in this report. The following actions could greatly facilitate urban indigenous women’s uptake of maternity care in hospital: - Men should not be allowed in the maternity ward.

- A bathtub and two sets of clothes for the mother and the baby should be made available in the camp before birth or on arrival at hospital. Provision of these items should be extended to poor non-indigenous families so as to avoid jealousy and stigmatisation of Mbendjele.

- Indigenous women should be able to choose how to give birth (e.g. squatting rather than supine) and to be accompanied by a person of their choice (for example, a traditional mid-wife).

- Hospital nurses and midwives should receive special training in the medical and social practices of indigenous mothers.

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3.4 Education 3.4.1 The use of the Mbendjele language in teaching Teaching lessons in the Mbendjele language using a translated version of the national curriculum would have the dual benefit of preserving the language and facilitating Mbendjele children’s learning process. Such a measure would require the training of Mbendjele teachers, which in turn would encourage access to education by Mbendjele children. This project could be made into an international educational research project similar to those jointly implemented in Canada by Inuit representative councils, the University of Fairbanks and the Canadian government84.

3.4.2 Mobile schooling and use of Radio Biso na Biso for the Mbendjele State policies currently aim to sedentarise nomadic populations, claiming this is the only way to guarantee them access to public services. As the example of the Tswa and Bongo illustrates, sedentarisation does not guarantee this benefit due to a range of social, cultural and economic impediments. In fact, it is clear that sedentarisation increases poverty, ill-health and inequality while creating social and cultural disruption.

Other ways to ease access to schooling (and other public services) need to be developed for nomadic peoples such as the Mbendjele. For example, some parts of the national curriculum could be taught using community radio stations such as Radio Biso na Biso in Pokola.

Mobile literacy and numeracy schools could be created to visit camps for a few hours in the evening.

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The Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative (AKRSI).

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Conclusion Within Tswa, Bongo and Mbendjele communities – and most probably all indigenous communities in Central Africa – children and women enjoy many of the rights to which they are entitled in international law. In particular, children enjoy a high degree of independence and freedom of choice and women have a great degree of equality with men. In Mbendjele communities, the extent of women’s power is particularly striking and does not have many equivalents elsewhere in the world. In this indigenous group, equality and equity are two notions that are deeply embedded in the social fabric. This means that differences in terms of age, sex and abilities do not lead to differences in terms of individuals’ treatment and status.

However, this unique egalitarian system – characteristic of all foraging communities in Central Africa – is at risk of disappearing. As its existence relies on hunting and gathering activities and a specific spiritual relationship with the forest, it is seriously disrupted by the extractive activities of logging companies, the exclusion zones imposed by conservation NGOs, the strident evangelism of protestant missions and sedentarisation policies of national governments. Therefore, the priority for action is to protect indigenous peoples from these encroachments upon their right to live according to their own traditions while supporting them in determining the terms of their engagement with non-indigenous society.

As the recent history of the sedentarised Tswa and the Bongo illustrates, when such encroachments are not prevented there follows an inevitable process of cultural loss.

Although both groups maintain some egalitarian tendencies, they have also definitively abandoned the language, the rituals and many of the practices so central to their sense of identity as indigenous peoples. In parallel to this erosion of identity, there has been an erosion of the equality and freedom traditionally enjoyed by women and children in their society.

There has also been a dramatic increase in acts of violence committed against them, both from within and from outside their communities, particularly in urban settlements. In towns and cities all over the country, indigenous girls and women are victims of high rates of sexual abuse perpetrated by indigenous adolescents and men. There has been a similar rise in the level of exploitation, assault and abuse of indigenous people, and children in particular, by Bantu in urban centres. Ultimately, the root cause of this erosion of rights and increased level of abuse lies in the cultural, social and economic dislocation experienced by indigenous peoples as they succumb to unrelenting pressure to abandon their traditional territories, seminomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle and associated beliefs for a sedentary existence highly dependent on exploitative relationships with the majority population.

Underlying this situation is the context of pervasive discrimination inflicted upon indigenous peoples across the whole African continent. In the Republic of Congo, Bantu citizens and public servants deny the Tswa, Bongo and Mbendjele their rights on the basis that they do not recognise them as fully human. This discrimination foments a situation in which the physical and/or psychological abuse of indigenous children and women is normalised in all areas of their lives: their attendance at school, their recourse to justice, their access to healthcare, their labour relations and their everyday interactions in wider society. It goes without saying that efforts aimed at reducing – and ultimately eliminating – such pernicious discrimination against indigenous peoples in RC and Africa must be a priority for the implementation and protection of indigenous children’s and women’s rights.

Some cultural practices and/or concepts existing within indigenous communities also conflict with the human rights of children and women. Among these are the concepts that childhood ends at the age of puberty, the priority given to indigenous education over formal schooling 110

from the age of twelve, and the practices of marriage and pregnancy in early adolescence.

Strategies for improving children’s and women’s rights in these domains must be elaborated in the knowledge and understanding of both indigenous values and the socio-economic context in which they occur. For example, the practice of early teenage marriage and childbearing is firmly embedded in fundamental indigenous values regarding fertility, sexual reproduction and the respect of children’s autonomy. At the same time, the practice is a consequence of the socio-economic disadvantages faced by indigenous peoples in terms of poverty, lack of contraception, and short life expectancy. Values, practices and socioeconomic context are all mutually implicated. Addressing violations of rights requires interventions that are sensitive to all three factors.

It is also important to be mindful that an apparent denial of rights in one domain might nevertheless support a more encompassing right in another. The importance that parents attach to indigenous education over formal schooling for adolescents is an example of this.

While this practice clearly impinges on older children’s right to formal schooling it also upholds another fundamental right, namely that of indigenous peoples to perpetuate their indigenous way of living through the education of their own children. This practice also needs to be understood in the context of a school system that is currently inappropriate and even culturally destructive for indigenous communities. Indigenous children’s right to formal education needs to be fulfilled not simply by providing them with the opportunity to attend school but by providing them and their families with a form of schooling adapted to their cultural and economic reality and which upholds their identity, traditions and way of life. The provision of such innovative forms of schooling is a high priority for the future of indigenous peoples. It is an example of how addressing the rights of indigenous children can uphold the rights of all indigenous people.

This report has painted a detailed picture of the state of indigenous children’s and women’s rights in the Republic of Congo. It has identified the numerous and terrible ways in which they are abused and threatened both from within their own communities and (mainly) from without. It has also shown how certain indigenous values, beliefs and practices uphold children’s and women’s rights more successfully than do those of other peoples. The challenge for rights-based interventions is to protect and preserve these positive factors while addressing those negative ones. Naturally, this requires reference to international human rights frameworks aimed at protecting children and women, which, in turn, must be read alongside rights frameworks specifically designed for indigenous peoples. To a sensitive interpretation of these frameworks must be added a deep contextual knowledge of the communities whose rights are to be protected. Only through a combination of these factors can strategies be designed that build upon indigenous peoples’ cultural strengths in order to guarantee their rights, and especially those of children and women, as equal citizens on a national and global level.

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