Dorcas was only 13 years old when Rwandan rebels (FDLR) attacked Kasika-Mwenga, her home village in 2005. One of her sisters was killed in the attack and Dorcas was raped by two of the attackers, resulting in pregnacy. The situation worsened for her family when her father returned from working in the goldmines of Zibo and divorced her mother. Dorcas left for Bukavu to deliver the child. Because of her young age and size, the birth of the boy was a very painful and complicated delivery. Her life today is wrought with sadness and confusion over what has happened to her. Still nearly a child herself, she raises the boy with reluctance. "I have never been convinced that I must keep on living with this child," she says, "because whenever I look at him, whenever he cries, whenever he falls ill, whenever he asks for bread, sweets, or whatever, he makes me remember how I was unwillingly, painfully and foolishly impregnated and also remember unbearable pains I felt the day I delivered him, spent two months in hospital and today nobody helps me to take care of him. I do not know what he'll become."
With no other means of support, she is learning to become a seamstress at the workshop in hopes of being able to sustain herself and the child.