THE woman stares back at you, her face friendly but with an air of no nonsense calmness about her. Her black skin glows under the lights and her arms are folded across her knees. She is relaxed but alert. It’s a beautiful portrait – but perhaps not one you might expect to find among the venerable, mainly elderly white gentlemen whose images adorn the hallowed halls of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
The portrait of Debora Kayembe is one of five new portraits commissioned by the Society to represent their commitment to diversity and the changing faces of the Society. A human rights lawyer in DR Congo, she was sent to eastern Congo to a territory occupied by Ugandan and Rwandese militia forces to investigate reports of massacres. She reached the conclusion that the entire war was a cover to enable the stripping of natural resources without paying any taxes. On her return to Kinshasa, she was targeted and feared for her life.
She came to the UK as a refugee, leaving her husband behind. Heavily pregnant, she arrived at Heathrow in 2005. Her English was marginal.