Silencing the victim only helps abusers

Gender-based-violence

Alarm has been raised over increasing cases of sexual and gender-based- violence  during the Covid-219 pandemic

Photo credit: File

Scheaffer Okore: Silencing the victim only helps abusers

For those who may not know, the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an annual international campaign that begins on November 25 and runs up to December 10.

In this period, an organising strategy by individuals and organisations around the world to call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls becomes a global priority.

This year wasn’t different. In fact, it was the most devastating year for women and girls as Covid-19 prevention protocols, compounded and revealed how much gender-based violence festers in society.

Coronavirus

Gender-based violence increased drastically across the globe when women and girls got locked down with abusers as the world tried to corral the spread of coronavirus.

Glaring issues emerged as regards gendered violence, the chief one being the disbelief of victims of violence. Most – if not all – victims of gendered violence are hardly believed.

Data shows every time a woman or girl comes out to report or speak about abuse, they are vilified, subjecting them to double abuse.

Systems that allow this kind of violence are anchored on victim-silencing. The more victims are silenced, the more abusers get to abuse and get away with it.

This is why, if we are to engage in an honest systemic approach to protect women and girls and work towards ending gendered violence, we must start believing the victims. It is peculiar how being believed as a woman or girl who has been abused still remains a privilege that most do not have.

Sexually violated

A recent example of this is what happened in Lugulu Girls High School over the past week, where harrowing reports of girls who’ve been sexually violated while in school surfaced.

The girls had, according to the report, made endless reports on being abused, but they were not believed. So the abuse kept on until the brave girls decided to publicly protest and speak out on their lack of safety against sexual abusers within the school.

It is maddening that schools, especially boarding ones, which have had numerous complaints of not being safe spaces for female learners when it comes to sexual predation, still refuse to systematically engage on curbing abuse, starting from believing the victims.

Not believing victims is a direct way of telling abusers that they have space to be heard and that somehow, their decision to abuse is valid.

Not believing victims is equally accepting that there are certain circumstances where gendered abuse is legitimate, which is why gendered abuse keeps happening.

And lastly, not believing victims is allowing abusers to keep exploiting gaps within the socio-cultural spaces to abuse. It is the reason the horrific incidence of fathers who rape and make their daughters pregnant increases, as no one believes the girls.

All these must stop, and if this turbulent pandemic year is to teach us one thing, it should be that gendered abuse is a choice that abusers make because the rest of society refuses to believe victims.

The writer is a policy analyst. [email protected]