Violence against women must stop

Women during a procession along city streets to mark the first global campaign against rape and gender violence.Photo/HEZRON NJOROGE
Women during a procession along city streets to mark the first global campaign against rape and gender violence.Photo/HEZRON NJOROGE

Today is day two of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence Campaign. I couldn’t think of a better way to describe our societal acceptance of violence against women so I borrowed Nervous Conditions from Tsitsi Dangarembga.

Violence against women is not just a sign but is in itself a set of nervous conditions.

It is based on a mindset that gets a thrill from rape and murder, places less value on women, gives permission to violence, does not question it, teaches girls and women to anticipate it and accept it while at the same time elevating those that perpetuate it.

It would be foolish to imagine that we have not evolved in these conversations on violence against women.

But the more I think about spaces and dialogues that have shifted, the more I think of how violence against women has evolved and has become bolder in its manifestations. Even with the gains spelt out in our constitution, we witness the most bizarre forms of misogyny.

This year, the 16 Days of Activism Campaign continues the theme of “From Peace in the Home to Peace in the World: Let’s Challenge Militarism and End Violence Against Women!"

Militarism is a creation and normalisation of a culture of fear that is supported by the use or threat of violence, aggression, as well as military intervention in response to political and social disputes or to enforce economic and political interests.

There is an obvious rise in a culture that promotes and celebrates violence and impunity on violence against women. We have seen situations in Kenya recently where violent men occupying public offices are seen as heroes such as Kiderorization,

meaning to give a woman a good slap! Kukideroriwa (to be Kiderod) and the prefixes that come with it are all nervous conditions. They are all signs of a society that desperately choose violence as a means to domesticate women.

We have recently witnessed a number of bold nervous conditions and only because they have been reported in the media.

From the Kidero incident, to Mike Sonko’s insults and physical violence, to a woman delivering on the floor in Busia, Liz in Busia, Aisha in Wajir, the policewoman whose arm was broken by Bahati Member of Parliament, men boldly pushing for disempowerment of women under the banner of Maendeleo ya Wanaume and the media giving space to misogynists reporting justifying violence against women.

These are just a few examples. I dare say that numerous others go unreported, most of them unprosecuted and unpunished. All of these point to impunity and lack of accountability or a complete breakdown in mechanisms for prevention and response to violence against women.

Women’s bodies are often the loci of culture. The way we dress, where and how we speak, what we eat, who we look at, the spaces we interact, how and with whom we walk, and what time we walk are all used to justify violence.

Women’s bodies are not only used to define cultural practices but they have become culture itself. In the case of Liz in Busia, the police not only punished the perpetrators to cut grass they also punished Liz to mop the floor of the police station for being out late at night.

Unless we begin to see this as an unacceptable, abnormal way of being we shall continue to be a society that does not question the rape of our daughters in the name of culture.

There is a seriously problematic condition that places blame and shame on victims while aiding perpetrators to walk scot-free. In the much publicised case of Liz for instance, the police indicated that Liz did not immediately report that she had been sexually abused.

This does not justify non-action even if the matter is reported a year later.

The police were also expecting a witness to step forward and indicate that she was indeed defiled by six men and damped in a pit latrine. That kind of expectation is ridiculous given rapes do not happen on restaurant tables and in open air markets. It is a crime that thrives on violations in the private targeting the very core of a woman’s bodily integrity.

Rape can turn any powerful woman into a mute. In the absence of supportive reporting measures, a victim is likely to be intimidated not to speak.

The worrying trends in violence against women and attacks on women human rights defenders are a sign of how violence continues to be used as a tool to oppress, silence and even impose sanctions as part of controlling women’s bodily autonomy.

There are numerous cases of women subjected to harassment, defamation, intimidation and the threat of rape and murder for just standing up to defend the gains on women’s rights. These are symptoms of a profound crisis in our society.

These nervous conditions have a global trend which makes the theme of this year’s 16 Days of Activism still relevant four years after it was set out. The thing about use of aggression or threat of violence is that it elevates one form of hegemonic masculinity, makes it dominant thus becoming a threat even to men that do not conform to violent behaviour.

Even as we experience this pushback on gains on women’s rights globally, we also witness bold organising challenging the status quo. We remember the sex boycott in Kenya, the mothers of political prisoners stripping at Freedom Corner, and more recently Kenyan women hanging knickers on the fence of the office of the Inspector General to protest rape.

There has also been bold actions by artists in other parts of the world such as the punk group Pussy Riot, who were arrested last year after singing songs challenging the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Who would have thought that 53 years after the murders of the Mirabel sisters in the Domican Republic and their resistance as part of the Butterflies movement against the dictatorship of Trujillo, this would influence the world organising today in ending violence against women?

The Mirabel sisters were killed on November 25, 1960 and many years later, the United Nations adopted November 25 as the International Day to End Violence Against Women.

The 16 Days of Activism is a global campaign that happens annually. It is marked from November 25 to December 10. The day links matters of violence against women to the International Human Rights Day on December 10.

These dates symbolically link violence against women and human rights and emphasize that such violence is a human rights violation.

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