Hey Fred Matiang’i, you can’t police love

If ever there was a poorly thought-out policy, then banning police officers from falling in love with their colleagues ranks high. Office romance is not slated for death any time soon. Working from home may have put a dampener on love and it does not mean Cupid’s arrows have become blunt either. People who are meant to be in love will be in love. It is just natural.

Love triangle is nothing new or only confined within the police service. Kenyan police have targeted civilians who have posed a threat to a love interest and so have civilians revenged on the police deemed a threat to their relationships. Does it mean we should also stop police and civilians from falling in love for fear of ‘passion’ killings?

Neither is sexual harassment a problem only found within the police. It is an issue that is endemic in many of our offices, both private and public. You can find it in the lakes too with Lake Victoria women reporting cases of ‘fish for sex’. We have our own Harvey Weinsteins lurking in offices, ready to use their powers and privileges to exploit women.

Offices are hardly safe places for women. Four walls in any office give a false sense of security. They harbour pain, abuse, intimidation, and impunity as most perpetrators easily get away with sexual harassment and assault at work because there are no robust systems in Kenyan spaces to address the problem.

Personal experience

Harvey Weinstein, for those not familiar with the case, was a Hollywood movie mogul who used his power and wealth to harass and rape young women in the film industry over number of years until he was ousted in 2017. He is now serving 23 years in jail as a result.

Bill Cosby, legendary American comedian, was the first celebrity to be charged for abusing his position and assaulting and raping women during his celebrity days. Some of the attacks allegedly happened in his own dressing room at the studios where he worked. It is sad to note, but if public figures in Kenya accused of murdering women can go scot free, it would be difficult to expect those accused of sexual harassment and assault to be held accountable.

I am glad Dr Fred Matiang’i has been able to acknowledge sexual harassment as being a challenge within the police service. But I have news for him. It is everywhere. You can find gropers and rapists in schools, markets, matatu stages and offices. Trust me, I am a woman with my own personal experience on sexual harassment. It is worse than Dr Matiang’i thinks.

The hashtag #Metoo was used by women in the West to lend their voices to the silence on sexual harassment and assault. Thousands of women had harrowing stories to share on how they suffered at the hands of powerful men. They expressed pent up frustrations with a society that never believed them. #Metoo hashtag was barely a whimper in Africa.

It is hard to believe that there were no cases of sexual harassment to highlight inspired by the #Metoo movement. Perhaps African women have got so much used to being silenced and used as sexual objects with no accountability for perpetrators, that they saw no need in coming forward to share their stories.

The conservative attitude towards sex and sexuality in many African communities may not all be as healthy as it claims when it cannot give a platform to report deviant sexual behaviours.

Lack of evidence

Sexual harassment, assault and rape are issues that our societies still find uncomfortable to deal with. Coupled with that, the weak justice systems do not offer much protection to women, who are the majority of the victims of sexual attacks.

Many sexual abuse cases languish in court for so long and at times even thrown out due to lack of evidence. But is the issue about lack of evidence or how we fail to quickly package the evidence around sexual abuse matters? When lab tests take over a year to produce semen results, then the problem lies with societal models of collecting and processing evidence.

When we fail to corroborate accusations made by victims of rape and sexual harassment in a speedy fashion, we have vitiated the case before it even reached the courts. Some male officers have been known to send women away rather than deal with ‘women issues’ because they lump all complaints by women as nuisance and not worth their time.

What we need are guiding policies introduced on how men and women can relate respectfully in all spheres of life and not just within the Police or military. This should include platforms, especially at work where women can report sexual harassment without fear of intimidation.

We also need to hold to account those that abuse their powers to sexually harass women at their places of work and in the wider society. Most importantly, we must discourage a culture of silence. It causes the victims more harm than good.

[email protected]. @kdiguyo