Anny Modi

Anny Tengandide Modi (born 2 January 1982) is a Congolese feminist and women's rights activist.

Early life Modi was born in Buta in 1982. Her father, a Zaire politician who raised his children without gendered expectations, died when she was 13 years old. As his death made Modi an orphan, she relocated to live with relatives in Goma, two months before the August 1998 outbreak of the Second Congo War. When she became pregnant aged 17, she felt her "life was over." Fearing for her safety, Modi's uncle subsequently sent her to seek asylum in South Africa.

Refuge in South Africa Modi lived in South Africa for ten years.

Advocacy in the DRC

Afia Mama After returning to Kinshasa, Modi co-founded Afia Mama (“Women's Health”), a non-profit youth-led organisation that provides professional development opportunities for women and girls. In addition, the organisation advocates against sexual violence and offers support to victims, including legal support, and works to reduce the stigma associated with AIDS in the region.

Ahead of the DRC's 2023 general election in December 2023, Afia Mama urged leaders to adopt a united message of opposition to political violence. When the elections were accompanied by reports of sexual and gender-based violence, Modi spoke to French television network TV5Monde, describing how women had been targeted along ideological and ethnic lines. In the aftermath, Modi, supported by a local Catholic chaplaincy, set up a women's shelter for victims of the event; she also tracked down some victims herself to offer them accommodation.

Other advocacy Since founding Afia Mama, Modi has advised DRC politicians and organisations including MONUSCO on improving the status of women in the country.

International work Modi became a manager and researcher of La Pépinière ("The Nursery") in 2015, a program supporting 15 female Congolese researchers to better understand the social and economic needs of women and girls in the country. This work was funded by the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom.

Speaking at a conference in Lviv in November 2025, Modi called for an end to the Russian occupation of Ukraine. She described herself as "deeply moved by the price Ukrainians [had] paid... defending their land" until that point,

Social views

Sexual violence in war Modi is a vocal critic of the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, describing the problem as "systematic" in the DRC. She has criticized patriarchal norms for reducing women and girls to representations of "the pride of the men they are with", sustaining an environment in which rape is a tool to humiliate the enemy during armed conflicts. In 2023, following reports of sexual violence around the DRC's general election, she observed that "political leaders, not having been forced to integrate women [into governance], do not feel the obligation to protect them either."