Fatoumatta Jallow was a first year college student in The Gambia when she fell into the entrapment of ex-dictator Yahya Jammeh, whose obsession with beauty queens led to him personally financing many local and international pageantries in The Gambia. In most of these pageantries, Jammeh personally presided over them as “Chief Guest of Honour”. Yahya Jammeh would make his favourite picks from among the contestants and invite them to his mansion in Kanilai for a private party.

Jammeh’s personal gestures to finance the education of these young women led so many into his sexual predatory net, turning them into his prey and subsequently releasing them with pain and fear – pain from physical abuse and fear from speaking up against what they experienced. Fatoumata (Toufah) Jallow was just 18, pursuing a Higher Teachers’ Certificate in The Gambia when she fell victim to Jammeh. She would later become the first among Jammeh’s victims to speak out against what she endured within the walls of mansion housing the most powerful in the country.

At the first premier of the documentary held at Ebunjan Theater on Saturday, 12^th February 2022, Toufah Jallow took the audience through the genesis of creating the documentary “Justifying Survival”. The story follows lives of a number of victims and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in The Gambia, through personal testimonies of their experiences and those of their families, loved ones and colleagues.

“There are more #SGBV victims in Gambian society than those we saw at the TRRC. This is dedicated to them…,” she told the audience. Because of its sensitive contents, the premiering was divided into two: first, she brought together families and survivors in the same space to preview the documentary. Producing the work itself was not an easy task, considering the multitudes of protected witnesses she has to protect even from her own editors and co-producers. But to make it public, she would do a second premier at Alliance Francais four three days later an opened it to the public.

After speaking to the press about her rape by Yahya Jammeh, she would spend the next years running for her life as a refugee – from streets of Dakar to her asylum base in Canada. Now, she is telling her story and that of other victims, survivors and activists of SGBV in The Gambia through this documentary, “Justifying Survival”.

It features like Lt. Col. Mariama Camara, student Marie Mendy, activist Sukai Dahaba among ahost of others within the Gambian society. For example, the story of Sukai Dahaba, a popular political activist and staunch fighter for democracy through the women-led “Kalama Revolution” that sought to end dictatorship and free political prisoners of the United Democratic Party back in 2016.  When she was released, she was hardly identified by her young son due to the beatings and marks left on her face. She would suffer severe health complications afterwards and became evacuated by the TRRC to Turkey to receive medical treatment. Sukai was never broken in her fight and she is still unapologetic.

When Sukai saw herself on the documentary at Ebunjan Theater, she started sobbing in tears and began to walk out of the hall. She was held and consoled by Toufah and her activist friend, Fatou Baldeh, who also runs an NGO, Women in Liberation and Leadership. Such was the mood at the Ebunjan Theater, watching these stories roll on reels of the cinema projector for the first time.

“Aunty Sukai was the typical Gambian mum. She fought for the democracy we enjoy today but she paid with her body and liberty. She was violated for expressing herself boldly; she was unwavering and brave,” Toufah Jallow said of her.

In the audience were also Toufah’s parents and grandparents, nodding in agreement with her, as she took the stage and break her story down, word by word, to her audience.

Another subject of the documentary is late MariamaCamara, a Lieutenant Corporal of The Gambia Armed Forces who served her country in the State Guards Battalion. Mariama had suffered several rapes at the hands of the dictator, just to be murdered by his agents. Yet her death was made to look like a murder-suicide.

“It was unfair to paint her story like that,” said Toufah. “She was a soldier who was serving her country. To know that Jammeh showed interest in her, to try to marry her as a wife sounds all too familiar to me. She went into marriage just to escape the clutches of the dictator. She was raped, and became pregnant for Yahya Jammeh. And for that, she had to pay with her life, with a bullet in her head and her husband shot dead next to her,” Ms Jallow narrated.

Even when the Kaneleng women tried to fill the sorrow of watching these stories into fun through drama performances and songs, the emotions were glaringly seen in the audience. A performance by Bright Stars Entertainment against rape and SGBV, and another by both a raptivist and poet would not heal these emotional wounds.

Intermittently, speakers were invited to talk to related topics of rape, like Mariama Jobarteh, founder and CEO of Fantanka, a youth led-SGBV organisation advocating for safe sex. Mariama spoke on the topic, “Understanding Sex and Sexuality in SGBV cases”.

“The culture of silence in The Gambia is inter-generational: our mothers were trained by their parents to keep such acts secret. They too trained us to keep the same acts secret. Unless we start teaching our kids to break the silence, the cycle will continue,” said Fatou Baldeh of WILL.

To Toufah Jallow, “Justifying Survival” is meant to tell the story of these survivors and victims beyond the headlines. “Their lives are more than just a few-word news headline stories. It is a resistance to what the dictator and its media tried to paint their lives. It is an effort to bring their stories to live and refusing to be defined by the perpetrators,” Toufah maintained.