Rebuilding Peace at Home: Breaking the Cycle of Violence to Build Resilient Families in Burundi

Every day, more than 6000 people cross the Gatumba border between Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The majority are women involved in small-scale cross-border trade.
Agathe Minani is one of these traders. She begins her day at 5 a.m. to buy fruits and vegetables in Burundi before crossing the border to sell them to retailers in the DRC.

For a long time, she had faced life with an emotionally abusive husband. He would subject her to verbal abuse and psychological violence. Her home had become a place where she and her children no longer felt safe. It reached the point where she considered leaving her husband to return to her parents, an act regarded as extremely shameful in her family.

Her business had become a momentary safe refuge. She said that at the market she had a chance to interact with her peers and clients, smile, and experience moments of joy. At home, she received only insults and emotional abuse.

“While doing business at the market, many times I saw the sun setting and wished the day would never end, not because I hoped to earn more profit, but because I feared going back home and facing what my husband used to inflict on me,” she says.

Agathe felt the weight of the traditional, restrictive expectations for women’s roles in the home. When the abuse became too much, she eventually began responding in ways she herself thought were disrespectful.

“For a long time, I kept silent and never replied to my husband’s insults. But when I started giving proportionate replies, the noise between us would wake the neighbours. They often came to our house to reconcile us,” she says. “What saddened me the most was the shame in front of my children.” She says she will never forget how she prepared small gifts for her children to distract them from the verbal fights between her and her husband.

“In the neighbourhood, it is still considered normal for some men to beat their wives. In my case, the verbal abuse and other misbehaviours I was receiving were even worse,” she adds.

Gakiza Du Bois, Agathe’s husband, became known in the village for the abuse he inflicted on his wife. He now openly acknowledges and regrets his actions, which he attributes to cultural norms and peer pressure.

“My wife’s business requires her to leave home early and return late,” he says. “Early in the morning, she would prepare breakfast for our children. Before her return, the children would be hungry. But because I believed that in our culture no married man can cook, I refused to prepare food – even though there was food available.”

He recalls how his wife’s questions about why he refused to cook angered him. He could not stand being questioned by a woman. “In my mind, doing domestic chores, something considered a woman’s job, was like being submissive to a woman,” he adds. “It affected me psychologically as well. I remember refusing to eat after exchanging harsh words with my wife, simply because the food was provided by her. I would go to bed hungry.”

The conflict and distrust extended into every area of family life. Du Bois, who worked as a nursery school teacher, even refused to tell his wife how much he earned because he feared she would want to control how he spent it. “There was no peace in our home,” he said.

Their life started to change when they joined educational sessions organised by International Alert through its Mupaka Shamba Letu (“Our Border, Our Livelihood”) project, implemented in collaboration with local partners. It supports families to work through these challenges and rebuild trust and harmony as both a couple and parents.

Educational sessions enable husbands and wives to discuss gender equality, challenge gender stereotypes, promote positive masculinity, and support dialogue between couples.

Joining this process helped Du Bois and Agathe’s family foster mutual respect, shared decision-making, and nonviolent communication.

Their situation is not an isolated case. Gender-based and domestic violence is a common issue for the families of cross-border traders. With women able to earn money, their husbands are required to take on more domestic responsibilities. However, negative cultural perceptions and restrictive views on gender roles can often be particularly harmful for women traders.

When Agathe invited her husband to join these sessions, he declined at first but eventually accepted.

“My wife and others used to meet through the project. She told me that she sometimes felt anger because of my behaviour,” he says. After several sessions, he began noticing that their interactions had become kinder and their communication had improved. He credits the project with a significant change in their household.

Esther Furaha works with the Association des Femmes Rapatriées du Burundi (AFRABU), one of the local partner organisations in Burundi, and serves as the coach for participants at the Gatumba site. She explains that although the project focuses on women cross-border traders, including both women and men made it more effective and impactful.

“Once we involved the husbands of our female participants, awareness about GBV was no longer one-sided. When we trained only women, there was no tangible change in households with GBV cases,” she says.

Agathe and Du Bois say that once they reconciled and committed to ending GBV, their household was transformed. They began planning together and eventually opened a joint bank account. They jointly decide how to use their income, including for buying land and building a house. Du Bois now shares household responsibilities with Agathe – he cooks for his children and cleans the house when his wife is at work.

Today, the couple helps other families address their setbacks and participates in community events together. Their transformation has made them well known in the neighbourhood, and they are often called upon to help reconcile couples experiencing GBV. They are also frequently invited to share their testimony and advise men on ending gender-based violence. “We urge people to avoid gender-based violence because it brings only misery to families,” says Du Bois.