Meet Queentah, an online violence survivor leading mental health advocacy

Queentah Wambulwa was only 17 and still in high school when she met a man and fell madly in love. He was her first love.

Even though her family was not in support of their relationship, she stood her ground and defied them. Nothing would come in between their love, she vowed.

“My family felt that he was too old for me as he was 25 and had already completed his university education. This was my first relationship and despite my parents' misgivings, I was in love and trusted my boyfriend completely,” Wambulwa tells Nation.Africa.

After sitting her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exam, she was admitted to the Technical University of Mombasa. The distance could not kill their love. It only blossomed. His boyfriend was working and residing in Nairobi. They both came from the same village in Bungoma County.

Queentah says her boyfriend bankrolled her life. He took a furnished apartment and catered for all her expenses.

“Life was sweet and I was living a life to be envied by many girls. We would often travel back and forth to see each other, and exchange numerous texts, photos and videos over the phone when apart.”

However, things would take a dramatic turn when one day in 2018 she decided to pay her boyfriend a surprise visit.

“I found him in bed with another woman. I could not believe my eyes and it was hurting. I loved and trusted him so much. This discovery effectively ended our relationship, which was not an easy thing for me,” she says.

Nude photos

The betrayal by the man she considered the love of her life took a drastic turn towards the end of 2018 when her ex-boyfriend shared her nudes online. On that fateful morning, she could not at first figure out what the issue was. She woke up to thousands of notifications on her phone.

However, it shortly dawned on her that someone had published naked photos and videos of her in the local village Facebook group. These, she says, were photos she had shared privately with her ex-boyfriend over the course of their long-distance relationship, dating back to 2016.

And because the Facebook group members were friends, relatives, and neighbours from her village, it didn’t take long for the photos and videos to be shared with her parents.

“I felt deeply ashamed and devastated that I had let myself and everyone around me down. The guilt, anxiety, and worry overwhelmed me as the images spread on Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, and on local blogs. I didn’t know where to turn for help and contemplated suicide just to end the pain.”

Also read: Man charged with posting lover's nudes online

The ordeal saw her sink into depression. She also turned to alcoholism and drugs to “end my pain”. Things turned for the worse and had to be admitted to Kenyatta National Hospital for psychiatric treatment.

“Through the help of counsellors, I was able to heal and recover from the traumatising experience. As a result, I decided to become an advocate for mental health and wellness at the university and beyond. While on my hospital bed, I decided to do something about mental health wellness,” she says.

Girls for Girls

That is how Girls for Girls (G4G) Africa Mental Health Foundation was born. G4G Africa is a survivor-led organisation that provides trauma-informed psychosocial support to survivors, caregivers, adolescents and students in the coastal region.

She chose to rise from the ashes of guilt, shame and pain. The organisation has so far delivered psychotherapy programmes to more than 1,000 survivors and caregivers, especially on the Coast, and currently offering mental health and wellbeing to university students in the region.

This has been done through face-to-face interactions, physical group therapies, training of mental health champions in physical and online tele-counselling and in online platforms.

Queentah says that her organisation takes a holistic view of mental health, both in their approach, which considers psychological, financial, nutritional and social dimensions of life. Their delivery, she says, ranges from group therapy, one-on-one counselling and home visits, to judicial support.

G4G currently has 15 therapists. It creates safe spaces where survivors and caregivers can process their trauma and begin a journey of healing and recovery in a community of lived experience. Among the strategies she has been employing is the mobile therapy unit commonly known as counselling centre on wheels in Mombasa, Kwale and Kilifi.

She has been implementing the mental health campaign in partnership with Unicef, UNFPA, Ember Mental Health and Triggerise, among other organisations that assist with operations and capacity building. Besides mental health awareness, G4G Africa also works with adolescent girls and young women, child marriage survivors, sexual and gender based survivors and adolescents living with HIV.

Books

In addition to undertaking campaigns for mental health wellness through her organisation, she has also authored two books on mental health.

One of them is the book titled Self-care Kit to Mental Wellness, and based on her past traumatic affairs that resulted in anxiety disorder and depression, as diagnosed by her psychiatrist.

Queentah in the book shares her thoughts on mental health and how to stay sane. Her second book is titled Ultimate Mental Health Planner.

Besides the books, she also regularly does affirmation cards and reminders on mental health, which she usually shares on social media.

“My aim now is to make sure no one else has to face the torments of compromised mental health while I’m still alive. In this powerful kit, you will not only read about my journey through the valley of mental illness, but also the overcoming message guaranteeing you of your own victory,” she says.

As a result of her ordeal, she went back to school to study psychology and has since become a certified therapist. She holds a certificate in psychology and counselling from Amani Counselling Centre.

Legal loopholes

Queentah is currently the brand ambassador of UNFPA on body rights campaign. She champions the signing up of a petition that seeks to compel Parliament to amend cybercrime laws, arguing that the existing legal framework in Kenya falls short of addressing these crimes.

Even as her struggle for justice continues, she highlights a pressing issue, including the rise in technology-facilitated violence, among them non-consensual pornography, sextortion, cyberstalking, and doxxing, severely impacting victims emotionally and even physically.

And while other digital offences yield substantial penalties, survivors of online violence face barriers to justice.

“The Computer Misuse and Cybercrime Act of 2018 did criminalise the posting of intimate images without consent, but the penalties are insufficient. It's unjust that someone found guilty of music copyright infringement faces harsher consequences than those perpetrating non-consensual sharing of intimate images. This discrepancy undervalues the safety and dignity of women and girls in Kenya,” Queentah says in the petition.

The petition is calling on the National Assembly to amend the Computer Misuse and Cybercrime Act and the Criminal Justice and Courts Act to make perpetrators face a fine not exceeding Sh7 million.

Currently, anyone convicted of such an offence is liable to a fine not exceeding Sh200,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or to both.

The petition is also calling on Parliament to implement the Data Protection Act, 2019, which states: “Sexually explicit photos of individuals are sensitive personal data, and the subjects of such images have the right to request that any processing of such data cease if it is causing or is likely to cause serious harm or distress. If this legislation has been broken, the victim may file a lawsuit for damages and ask for an injunction to stop anyone from accessing the image.”

She highlights mental health stigma, high cost of medication and inadequate community interventions as some of the key challenges hampering wellness campaigns. The former model reveals dating after such a horrible experience became an issue but is optimistic that she will get the right person in the right home.

“I forgave my ex-boyfriend and my focus is to heal completely and expand my organisation to the 47 counties,” she says.

She has been recognised by Unicef, African Union (AU) and Ember Mental Health for her role in creating mental health awareness.

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