TOUFAH

An extraordinary story of personal struggle and triumph.

Toufah won a national pageant for young women in her native Gambia, which the President of Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, a notorious dictator, sponsored. He took an interest in Toufah, and summoned her to the State House on multiple occasions. During one visit, he asked her to marry him. Toufah wasn't interested in marrying a man many years her senior, who already had a wife, and whose reputation for violence was well known. The scholarship to a university of her choice, as the winner of the pageant, was the future she yearned for. Enraged by her refusal, Jammeh raped her, and she fled the country in a harrowing escape. She became determined to give voice to countless victims of sexual violence in Africa.

Toufah Jallow has told her story to multiple international news outlets, including the BBC and the New York Times. She has spoken before the United Nations, presented at the International Criminal Court at The Hague and given testimony at The Gambia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She heads The Toufah Foundation in support of survivors of sexual assault, and lives in Toronto, Canada.


Kim Pittaway is an award-winning journalist and editor, and the current Executive Director of the MFA Program in Creative Nonfiction at the University of King's College, Halifax.