Khadijettou Mohamed Mahmoud describes her ordeal as victim of rape by a Polisario member

Sahrawi woman Khadijettou Mohamed Mahmoud has described her ordeal after she was raped by a polisario member when she was 18-year old.

The young woman, who was participating in a conference under the theme “Sexual violence in politics”, held in Düsseldorf, Germany, Thursday March 16, 2023, described the sufferings she endured after having been raped in 2010 at the age of 18 by Brahim Ghali, then Polisario’s representative in Algiers and current leader of the separatist movement.

Khadijatou, who worked as a translator in the camps from 2005 to 2010, had sued  Ghali at a Spanish court the same year.

She denounced before the conference the lack of support from society in general, as well as the guilty silence of the Algerian authorities who covered up this sexual assault.

Khadijettou highlighted her difficult but ongoing struggle to obtain justice in the courts of Spain, where she resides.

She then described how human rights are systematically flouted in the Polisario-controlled Tindouf camps as well as the appalling living conditions of the populations sequestered in these camps live, before denouncing the endemic corruption which prevails among the leadership of the separatist movement as well as the embezzlement of international humanitarian aid by these same leaders.

Khadijettou Mohamed Mahmoud ended her address by calling on German authorities to make more efforts to promote the rights of Sahrawi women and girls in the Tindouf camps.

The other speakers participating in the conference, held in the “Das Gerhart-Hauptmann-Haus” Foundation, included Ms. Sarah Lee Heinrich, President of the Federal Youth Office of the German Greens; Mrs. Franziska Brandmann, President of the Federal Office of German Liberal Youth; Ms Christina Kampmann, Spokesperson for Home Affairs of the SPD Parliamentary Group in the Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia; and Mrs. Tessniem Kadiri, journalist and presenter on German television.