How to eradicate gender-based violence
Activists and Civil Societies mark 16 days of activism against Gender-based violence in Isiolo town on December 8, 2020. Sexual Gender-Based Violence has become a masked pandemic that most people in society, mostly the female gender, experience and are forced to remain silent about.
What you need to know:
- SGBV has become a masked pandemic that most people in society, mostly the female gender, experience and are forced to remain silent about.
- Women and girls are seen as the weak and the men superior.
- In most circumstances, the women are made to do all the household chores as housewives with no time to rest. Some are beaten by the men of the house.
Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) has become a daily reality for women and girls across the country. SGBV cases against them are increasing.
SGBV has become a masked pandemic that most people in society, mostly the female gender, experience and are forced to remain silent about.
Women and girls are seen as the weak and the men superior. In most circumstances, the women are made to do all the household chores as housewives with no time to rest. Some are beaten by the men of the house.
But they undergo all these and more hardships with nowhere to run. The men are always seen to be right and the women wrong and, therefore, nobody believes the latter.
That is worsened by the fact that people live in unpredictable times full of frustrations.
We live in a world where boyfriends and husbands go to the extent of killing their wives and girlfriends following a slight misunderstanding.
Anger
At times, the men get very infuriated for reasons known only to themselves but vent their anger on women.
For example, when a man cannot put food on the table due to the tough economic times, he blames it on the woman.
This becomes a channel for the man to release his frustrations and violence starts when the woman refuses to admit the ‘mistake’.
More to that, young girls are sexually assaulted by their close family members, such as uncles, who pretend to be good and caring towards them yet they have evil intentions towards them.
But when the mothers report such a case to the authorities, they are accused of being careless in raising their children. This demoralises them from taking action against the culprits.
In most circumstances, the cases are not reported to the authorities. Only a few women get justice in SGBV cases, which should not be the case as every woman deserves fair treatment.
Women are as important as men and should not be taken for granted.
Men should respect women for their very important role in society and family.
They are human, just like men, with feelings and emotions. Young girls should also be educated on their rights to prevent them from being taken advantage of.
The voice of women and girls should be heard and serious action taken against the criminals. President William Ruto recently appointed the adviser on women’s rights; hopefully, there will be no more SGBV cases against them.
Public awareness campaigns should be conducted to address the issue. There is also a need to organise forums to help, mainly, men in controlling emotions.
The government should urgently look into this matter and seriously protect women and girls from SGBV since they are more vulnerable to it than men.
Ngalaa Rehema Chuphi, Narok
