Pioneering Congolese women took part in the struggle for DRC independence proclaimed on June 30, 1960. Others were politically active during the troubled post-independence period, marked in particular by the Mulelist rebellion and the secession of Katanga. These women leaders, often overlooked in accounts of anti-colonial protest movements, played an important role in reconciliation and peace-building initiatives. Here are just a few of the women who played an important role behind the scenes in the history of the DRC.
Marie José Sombo, “a black Eve “
Born in 1945, Marie José Sombo was already a radio announcer at Radio Léopoldville by the age of 16. A few years later, she became editor of the Congolese newspaper “L’Avenir”, the only black woman journalist of that era. During this period, the paper published a Thursday supplement called “Actualités africaines”. The editorial board included journalists Jean-Jacques Kande, Antoine-Roger Bolamba, Gabriel Makoso, Philippe Kanza, André Genge and Marie-José Sombo. In April-May 1956, when a delegation of 16 Congolese, including Patrice Lumumba, was staying in Brussels, Marie-José Sombo, author of avant-garde feminist columns, expressed her astonishment that “not a single black Eve was invited to be part of this delegation of visitors”.
Maria N’koi
In 1915, in western Congo, Maria N’koi, considered a powerful healer, led an anti-colonial insurrectionary movement, opposing a series of colonial constraints (taxes, forced benefits, etc.). According to legend, the young Maria N’koi was named after the leopards she surrounded herself with. She used medicines and made demands, pointing the finger of blame at the colonizers for the ills of the Congolese people and Congolese society. Against the backdrop of the First World War, Maria N’koi prophesied the defeat of the Belgians by the Germans. Her calls to oppose taxes and refuse forced labor drew increasingly large crowds, before she was arrested and deported by Belgian colonial authorities.
Léonie Abo
Wassis Hortense Léonis Abo, born in Malungu, Kwilu province, in 1945, joined the anti-colonial struggle against the Belgians in 1959, at the age of 14. That year, she was forced into an arranged marriage with Gaspar Mumputu, a union in which she was the victim of domestic violence. It was during this period that she discovered the political activities of the Parti Solidaire Africain, created the same year and fighting for the independence of today’s Democratic Republic of Congo.
Léonie Abo’s mother died in childbirth. This is how she came to be called “Abo”, a term meaning “Mourning” in the Babumda language. She attended elementary school in the village of Lukamba (1952) and secondary school at the Totshi missionary school, when she was baptized and renamed Léonie Hortense.
In 1957, she trained as an assistant midwife and pediatric nurse at Foreami (Fonds Reine Elisabeth pour l’assistance médicale aux indigènes du Congo belge), a training establishment run by Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. She was part of the first class to undergo this training.
Against her will, she was taken to a rebel camp in 1963 because of her medical knowledge. There, she met and married Pierre Mulele, leader of the “Simba or Mulelist rebellion” and former Minister of National Education in Patrice Lumumba’s government. She worked as a nurse and fought in the maquis, becoming an important figure in the insurrection. She held the position of head of the health service and rear-guard commander against the soldiers of the official army.
Léonie Abo remained at Pierre Mulele’s side until his assassination in 1968 in the city of Kinshasa. Held prisoner by Mubuto Sese Seko’s government forces, she was freed in 1969 and took refuge in neighboring Congo Brazzaville, until the fall of the Mobutu regime in 1997, before returning to the DRC.
In Mamadou Djim Kola’s film “Abo, une femme du Congo”, Léonie Abo, now 78, provides essential testimony on the colonial period and the insurrection in Congo DRC, from 1963 to 1968.
Joséphine Siongo-Nkumu
femme politique congolaise, Joséphine Siongo a été la première femme congolaise à siéger au conseil municipal de Léopoldville, l’actuelle ville de Kinshasa en 1956.
En 1957, elle a été nommée déléguée congolaise auprès de l’Union mondiale des organisations féminines catholiques.
Andrée Blouin
A great orator and outraged by racial segregation in the European colonies of Africa, Andrée Blouin was fully committed to the political struggles that led to the independence of Ghana, Guinea and the former Belgian Congo. Born on December 16, 1921, in the village of Bessou, in the Central African Republic, Andrée Madeleine Gerbillat, her real name, was the fruit of the union of Josephine Wouassimba, a 14-year-old Banziri girl, and Pierre Gerbillat, a French merchant.
After the independence of Guinea on October 2, 1958, where she campaigned alongside Sékou Touré, Andrée Blouin moved to the former Belgian Congo, where she joined the Parti Solidaire Africain (PSA) alongside Antoine Gizenga and became clearly involved in the fight for the independence of the DRC from Belgium. On April 8, 1960, Andrée Blouin created the “Mouvement Féminin pour la Solidarité Africaine” to mobilize Congolese women in the cause of independence on June 30, 1960. A great orator, she communicated her faith to the crowds and contributed to the victory, in the May 1960 elections, of the alliance between the PSA and Patrice Lumumba’s Mouvement National Congolais (MNC). Lumumba became the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the Congo.
Andrée Blouin, who had caught the eye of Patrice Lumumba, was appointed chief of protocol in his government in 1960 and wrote some of his speeches. During this period, she was nicknamed “The Woman Behind Lumumba”.
A few months later, after Patrice Lumumba’s assassination, Andrée Blouin was expelled from the Congo. She continued her pan-Africanist struggle in other countries where she found refuge, notably Switzerland and Algeria.
Andrée Blouin wrote “Mon pays, l’Afrique: Autobiographie de la Pasionaria noire”, an autobiography that depicts the untold story of a pioneer of revolution and feminism in a colonial society marked by segregation.
Andrée Blouin died in Paris on April 9, 1986.
Joséphine Swale Maya Kapongo
A native of Kisangani, Joséphine Swale Maya Kapongo was an early activist in the Congolese National Movement (MNC/L) founded by Patrice Lumumba, Cyrille Adoula and Joseph Ileo on October 5, 1958. A nurse’s aide by profession, she was a key figure in the MNC’s mainly male political bureau. Nevertheless, despite the high regard she enjoyed among her comrades, she was not selected to take part in the 1958 Round Table in Brussels, where Congolese nationalists went to defend the cause of independence.
Marie Kanza
Less publicized than her sister Sophie Kanza, the first female minister in the history of the DRC, and her brother Thomas Kanza, the first Congolese university graduate in Belgium, Marie Kanza is nevertheless one of the pioneers of DRC independence. The first black Congolese nurse in the Belgian Congo, she served as an intelligence officer in the movement fighting for national sovereignty and worked with a French lawyer committed to the Congolese cause, explains “The Founding Mothers. Pioneering for Africa’s Independence”. Marie Kanza hid the membership fees in her clothes and shuttled the money back and forth between Brazzaville and Kinshasa, sending it to the lawyer who was helping the Congolese from France.
Julienne Mbengi
In 1958, Julienne Mbengi created FABAKO (Femmes de l’Alliance des Bakongo), a women’s association linked to ABAKO (Alliance des Bakongo), Bas-Congo’s main cultural and political association headed by Joseph Kasa-Vubu, the country’s future first president. However, the organization was never recognized as a branch of the political party.
Louise Efoli
Louise Efoli wrote the second article ever published by a woman in the periodical “La Voix du Congolais”. In 1956, she highlighted the fact that Evolués men do not always live up to the ideals they claim to defend, and criticized the ambiguities of their rhetoric on women’s liberation.
A group of ten women
Furthermore, the document “The Founding Mothers. Pioneering for Africa’s Independence” indicates that a group of ten women fought clandestinely with the men. They belonged to different associations and political movements, but despite their differences, organized themselves to see Ghanaian President Nkwame Nkrumah, just after independence, under the Tshombé regime. After the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, some of the rebels had taken refuge in Ghana; these women, says the document, had gone to ask the Ghanaian president not to support the rebel movement, as their children were dying at the front. “Their message was so strong that the President agreed. In 1964, the Congo was not allowed to take part in the Organization of African Unity conference. They made another trip to Egypt to get Congo delegates admitted. To support their request and show their determination, they went on hunger strike, and the Congolese delegation was admitted among the others: Marie Therese Ilondo, Anna Kembe, Joséphine Maya Kapongo, Antoinette Kidawaza, Anne Mukanda, Marie Jeanne Feza, Veronique Kani, Emily Ekwekele, Marie Ofela & Victorine Njoli.
Véronique Kani was the first woman mayor of the city of Kinshasa. She has been appointed mayor of the Bandalungwa commune.
Victorine “Vicky” Njoli Lokenga was the first Congolese woman to obtain a driving license in the DRC, at the age of 21, and the first Congolese woman to drive a car. She obtained this license on January 25, 1955 at the driver training school in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), with great distinction, having passed all the tests. She had also launched a successful sewing business.
