Jumat, 07 Agustus 2015
agains
Violence against women is an occurrence Thandie Newton,
actress and ambassador for One Billion Rising – a global initiative by
Eve Ensler, founder of V-Day to raise awareness about gender violence –
describes as “pandemic.” In Africa, individuals and organisations that
have long fought for the better protection of African women refuse to be
left […]
0 Comments
6Dec
Violence against women is a global endemic that cuts across
cultural, traditional, religious and socio-economic status. While
silence has often masked this grievous crime against women, African
women are beginning to speak out with one voice saying “enough is
enough.” In this three-part series during the 16 Days of Activism
Against Gender Violence,
mabgo
Japan, which has suffered its worst natural disaster since the Second
World War. An earthquake, tsunami and now a nuclear crisis is most
certainly a deadly combination. How do they navigate their way out of
this murky ground? A hard reality to comprehend because Japan, for a
very long time was the world’s second largest economy before it was
overtaken by China a few weeks back. In this time of national grief, the
world is still in need of Japanese technological products. If anything
has pained me, it is the suggestion that God is punishing the Japanese
and all the insensitive comments, post and tweets by stars and ordinary
people. Advice, a little sensitivity goes a long way. This could have
happened anywhere in the world. It is unfortunate that it happened in
Japan and to the Japanese. But this much I am certain of, the Japanese
rebuilt their nation after WWII, I have no doubt that same resilience
will serve them well once again. However, I would strongly suggest they
reconsider their dependence on nuclear energy because never again,
should we witness another Chernobyl disaster.
Recent Posts
- Friday, 18 April, 2014 In Conversation – Shiri Achu: “I’m Not Afraid To Create My Own Market”
- Monday, 31 March, 2014 Malangatana: The Visionary Matters
- Monday, 16 December, 2013 African Nomads Part I: Lola Akinmade-Åkerström and The Art of Travel Photography
- Sunday, 8 December, 2013 One Billion Rising: The African Way
- Friday, 6 December, 2013 African Voices Against Violence on Women Part III: Culture is No Justification for Domestic Violence
- Wednesday, 4 December, 2013 African Voices Against Violence on Women Part II: Domestic Violence is Not A Private Matter
- Monday, 2 December, 2013 African Voices Against Violence on Women Part I: Domestic Violence Is Not A Sexy Discourse
privare
Project Alert, five years ago we started advocating for an integrated
response to the issue of domestic violence and all forms of violence
against women. What I mean by integrated response – We are not medical
workers or social welfare officers. So what we did was to start a
partnership with relevant agencies like the women affairs ministry,
ministry of health, social welfare, and try to develop a data bank of
who is doing what and in what area for easy referral. For example, when a
case come to us, if it is a criminal issue like rape, we need to refer
it to the police. If we have an insensitive police officer that is not
responding to the issue, we have a problem there. If we have to go to
the hospital and if the victim does not get to see the doctor soon
enough to take a specimen and all that, you have problem. So we try to
partner with groups on that. But as an organisation, we have three main
programme areas – Research and documentation, human rights education and
support services programme, where we are dealing with victims, live and
direct. The support we give them is: counselling, legal aid, legal
advice and take up cases for them in court or in criminal cases where
they prosecute, we hold watching brief and then of course, we have the
shelter. All these are subject to availability of funds.
How can we continue to empower women to speak out because speaking out is the first step to recovery for the woman?
We need to continue with the work of sensitisation. You can never over flog sensitisation. You can not over-emphasise awareness creation and sensitisation. These days, more people are speaking out as a result of advocacy work done over the years. People are now mustering courage to become confident and speak out and say to themselves, if I speak out, help will come my way, which 10/15 years ago, that was not the case and that is why I think there is increased reporting in the fact that people are coming forward due to sensitivity to the issue. Mothers are calling for their daughters, sisters calling for their sisters and friends calling for their friends. So a lot of awareness creation is happening. And also, we need to bring up our girls to believe in themselves and their own capability, so that they can do things for themselves, not wait for a husband to come and buy them, cars. I once met a young lady who said she could not wait for her husband to come and buy her a car, why can’t she think she can take care of herself. So we need to empower our young girls to grow up believing in themselves and placing value on themselves, setting goals and striving. We need to invest in our girls because a lot of young girls have lost their self esteem because you see a lot of women, who allow someone else to define them. I mean someone tells you are stupid and you imbibe it. My 8-year-old, if you tell her she is stupid, she will tell you “I am not stupid, I am very smart and I don’t know if you are.” She stands up for herself. I tell her, keep speaking positively to yourself about yourself. Simples!
What is your message to women, who find themselves in violent situation?
Violence against women and domestic violence is at a huge cost to this country. If we put our ears to the ground and really investigate the deaths of women, with the exception of ill health, we will find that some of those sudden deaths were as a result domestic violence. So my message will be that – charity begins at home. For as long as there is no peace in the home, there cannot be peace in society. No young man was born abusive. It is what he has imbibed growing up that turned him into the violent creature he became. Environment makes people who they are. So we need to go back to the drawing board and get it right, right from the family. The family is the microcosm of the larger society. So we need to get it right from the home. We need to get it right.
Read Full Article: Domestic Violence: Its Not A Private Matter
How can we continue to empower women to speak out because speaking out is the first step to recovery for the woman?
We need to continue with the work of sensitisation. You can never over flog sensitisation. You can not over-emphasise awareness creation and sensitisation. These days, more people are speaking out as a result of advocacy work done over the years. People are now mustering courage to become confident and speak out and say to themselves, if I speak out, help will come my way, which 10/15 years ago, that was not the case and that is why I think there is increased reporting in the fact that people are coming forward due to sensitivity to the issue. Mothers are calling for their daughters, sisters calling for their sisters and friends calling for their friends. So a lot of awareness creation is happening. And also, we need to bring up our girls to believe in themselves and their own capability, so that they can do things for themselves, not wait for a husband to come and buy them, cars. I once met a young lady who said she could not wait for her husband to come and buy her a car, why can’t she think she can take care of herself. So we need to empower our young girls to grow up believing in themselves and placing value on themselves, setting goals and striving. We need to invest in our girls because a lot of young girls have lost their self esteem because you see a lot of women, who allow someone else to define them. I mean someone tells you are stupid and you imbibe it. My 8-year-old, if you tell her she is stupid, she will tell you “I am not stupid, I am very smart and I don’t know if you are.” She stands up for herself. I tell her, keep speaking positively to yourself about yourself. Simples!
What is your message to women, who find themselves in violent situation?
Violence against women and domestic violence is at a huge cost to this country. If we put our ears to the ground and really investigate the deaths of women, with the exception of ill health, we will find that some of those sudden deaths were as a result domestic violence. So my message will be that – charity begins at home. For as long as there is no peace in the home, there cannot be peace in society. No young man was born abusive. It is what he has imbibed growing up that turned him into the violent creature he became. Environment makes people who they are. So we need to go back to the drawing board and get it right, right from the family. The family is the microcosm of the larger society. So we need to get it right from the home. We need to get it right.
Read Full Article: Domestic Violence: Its Not A Private Matter
private
Violence against women is a
global endemic that cuts across cultural, traditional, religious and
socio-economic status. While silence has often masked this grievous
crime against women, African women are beginning to speak out with one
voice saying “enough is enough.” In this three-part series during the 16
Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, I will be sharing interviews
with three women from Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria as they talk about
their fight and quest to ensure the safety of African women who find
themselves in abusive situations. Meet Nhlanhla Mokwena, executive
director POWA (People Opposing Women Abuse), South Africa. She tells us
why domestic violence is not a private matter.
Belinda:
There is a video on your website for one of your campaigns from three
years ago – ‘The Neighbours’. Can you tell me the story behind that
video?
Nhlanhla Mokwena: The story behind that video is that POWA was trying to send a message to South Africans to say domestic violence is no longer a private matter but a matter for all of us to address. So you can no longer keep quiet when you hear a woman screaming, she might need your help. That video was to show South Africans how they respond whenever they hear about domestic violence. As you can see, the video was put in one of the complexes to show people how they respond and to see their reaction towards violence against women. On the first day, this guy is playing drums and there is a lot of noise and the complex residences are able to quickly go to his door and say you are making noise. They even have a petition and you see how they mobilise and advocated for the noise level but when they heard screaming, glass breaking and a woman’s voice in terms screaming, what they do? Nothing! So it was just a mirror to say let’s look at ourselves and look at our reaction when it comes to violence against women. We are able to mobilise quickly when it comes to other issues but when it’s violence against woman, we turn a blind eye.
Given the work POWA has been doing through the years, what are the root causes for domestic violence and what are some of the reasons that make people keep quiet within South Africa?
The root causes we feel as an organisation is the patriarchal society and the inequalities, especially in terms of how we raise the boy and girl child. I mean in terms of patriarchy, South Africa is a patriarchal society based on our cultural and religious beliefs. South Africa puts a main person (the man) as the head of the family, which means the woman is the subordinate and during a time when men are feeling that women are progressing and women have more opportunities now in terms of job opportunities and business, you find that a lot of men, when they feel that that power they used to have due to the constitution and due to women development is slipping, they feel threatened. For some of them, the only way they can regain that power is by inciting violence or by scaring women and children because our levels of violence are very high among women and children. As an organisation, those are the things that we have come to understand as the root causes of domestic violence or even rape because our levels are also high when it comes to rape. But we can say we have a good constitution and very progressive laws but our statistic in terms of dealing with these issues are not decreasing, they are increasing. In terms of the silence, what causes women not to speak out is fear of the perpetrator but also fear that society does not believe that they are being raped or abused or society is actually blaming the victims in terms of what is happening to them. If you are a married woman, you cannot air your dirty laundry in public. So that is why the advert is about saying it’s no longer a domestic matter, it’s a scourge in our country and we cannot be silent when it’s happening to our neighbour.
People are saying as an organisation you have been in existence for such a long time, don’t you think it’s about time you address men and we are saying as an organisation, we have not even dealt with this issue or the women, the status of women has not changed for us as POWA to take on the issue of men but we do work with organisations in terms of them dealing with men to end the scourge of violence against women. And you know, a lot of women’s rights organisations are struggling when it comes to funding and we are struggling because violence against women is not like your sexy thing people want to invest in. We are struggling with funding to provide the needed services. We are also struggling with funding to develop creative prevention programmes. We feel that we really need to invest in prevention programmes. If we are saying we are going into schools, we have to start at Grade One and it should be a one year programme. How are we going to measure our success if we don’t have programmes that are invested in our young ones and how are we going to measure change if there are no programmes addressing parents at home because I cannot have a programme at school but the very same child is going back home to an abusive environment. Will my intervention at the school level make a difference? No, it won’t, because while I’m dealing with the child at school, youth club and playground, I also have to deal with their parents. We have always been saying the different socialisations of the boy child to the girl child are also some of the causes because boys grow up to understand they are the better sex. The world is out there for them to do whatever they can do. The girl is out there to be submissive and act like a lady. So if we have parents who still believe in that, it’s very difficult to actually say we will raise a nation of boys and girls, who take each other as equal and who respect and love each other because a man knows that if I slap her, I’m actually slapping myself.
What are the current stats in South Africa when it comes to violence against women in South Africa?
Statistics show that internationally, one in 6 women are in an abusive relationship. In South Africa, it’s about one in four that’s in an abusive relationship and it’s very scary. In terms of research, we do not have one body that is collecting statistics. The national crime stats are collected by the police and you will find that you will be told that violence against women is decreasing but there are also problems with our justice system. People are disillusioned with the system; the cases take a very long time. Someone can be raped today (2013) and you will find out that the perpetrators are going to be tried next year. What this does is make the victims tired. You will find victims become so pissed off because it’s a year later, sometimes, two or three years later before their case is heard. By that time they are angry and leave it and had rather come to an organisation like POWA to talk about their problem and begin a process of being able to cope with the trauma because there is no healing in such a matter. Survivors will tell you I think I will feel better when perpetrators are booked and convicted. In other words, if a survivor does not experience that, she is traumatised forever because what she wanted has not been done and other survivors will say I don’t want to go through the court because ‘I feel like I’m being raped again and I have to prove myself’ because the burden of proof is on the survivor. She has to prove what time it happened, whether she said no or yes…these are things victims have to deal with. Since the burden of proof is on her and because she has read it in the newspaper about how the justice system is not working, she ends up deciding ‘I’m not going through that.’ I won’t put myself through that. I won’t traumatise myself. I would rather focus on myself by getting either counseling or writing about my story about what has happened to me.’
Why are still ashamed to talk about domestic violence?
It’s like why are we hanging our dirty laundry in public and have people say how can you do that? Could you not have resolved that somewhere else rather than bringing whosoever you spoke to into this and shaming our family? You are shaming our clan or you are shaming our society. It’s difficult to come out, even in middle class South Africa; women had rather go to a private psychologist and a private lawyer. They don’t come to POWA because they feel ashamed and the stigma – their counterparts, people who are in the same social standing as them are not receptive. They will be judging and saying how you can complain about domestic violence when you have such a nice car and such a beautiful home and your life is so good.
What role you think patriarchy, culture and tradition play when it comes to violence against women?
You may find that a woman in South Africa, in the rural area may never even know about her right. She does not know about the constitution, she doesn’t know there is a domestic violence act and it’s in the culture of society where you have to respect your boyfriend or husband, what will happen? Who she will go to? The elder of the clan and when she gets there, if the chief is a person who believes in patriarchy, obviously, that woman will never see a day where her case is resolved accordingly. Either the husband or boyfriend can go speak to the chief and they discuss it among themselves and they say you must stop doing this and he goes and tells the woman you must not go to the chief all the time when I slap you around…it’s a minor thing. We now have the traditional court bill which is under discussion in South Africa and we are hearing that these women in the rural areas do not have access to services like POWA. So if you are going to give the chief a law which will give them the authority, because at this point in time, they have that authority but it’s not a law, if we do formulate the authority to give them the law to preside over such issues, what is going to happen to women in those particular villages? It will make things worse. Though we have the constitution and all these laws, women in the urban areas are oppressed by their own culture and society and you may find in a particular area, people practice a certain religion but because it’s a small community in an urban area, women in those parts of the country are unable to speak because its about shaming this very nice community of people who we think should be behaving well. So if it does happen that there is domestic violence or they are abused, due to their religious beliefs, these women are not speaking out. When you go to churches, you hear people preaching the man is the head of the family, the woman is the neck. The head cannot turn if the neck is not strong. Why? We should be advocating that men and woman are both human beings and they both have equal rights and have a right to be protected equally. So if our young ones can get an opportunity to grow up equally in society. NGOs and civil society organisations cannot be developing programmes to deal with children without programmes that not dealing with adults. Otherwise, we will never win this battle. We look forward to the day when our girls and boys see each other as equal.
How strong a case can you make against the perpetrator when the victim has a voice in comparison to when they don’t because they have been so mentally battered?
I think it’s important for the survivors to have a voice. When the abuse happens, start documenting because it’s important and you can also get someone outside the house to document for you, so that when the time comes to face your family, culture or society, you are not coming with just the one incident, you are coming with a whole lot of other incidents where you were documenting things and even telling a friend who was also documenting it. By teaching women to speak out either by keeping a diary or telling someone, that will help when the time comes to speak out and you have evidence. We found that women take 10-15 years to actually leave abusive situations. So if they are documenting those incidents with a particular friend or someone they talk to, you find they build a strong case.
What support mechanisms do you use to support children caught in abusive homes?
We have schools programme and we go into school to talk to children and as POWA we deal with children from grade eight upwards but there are a whole loot of other organisations that provide services to primary school children.
One of the MDGs is ending violence against women, is that dream feasible given the current state of things?
If we have incidents of a mentally ill girl being raped and the perpetrators record the incident and the video goes viral, we still a long way to go. We need to work together as a society and as a continent and say you know what, this is a problem. It’s un-African and this is how we are going to deal with it together. In South Africa, we have the 365 days campaign but we find that government in terms of marketing the programme is only during our women’s month and during our 16 days of activism against domestic violence and we are saying we really need to take this plan and start using it as the 365 days plan. So that it’s not only during those calendar month campaigns but daily. There are programmes that look at intervention and service provision concurrently and I think there are also organisations that are now saying yes, we also need to start looking at working with boy children and men. We need comprehensive programmes that will address this issues and the biggest thing is to ensure the laws are implemented. As long as criminals enjoy impunity and the burden of proof is on women who have been raped and assaulted, what happens? So it’s important that the law sends out a strong message.
What is your message to women who deal with these issues as to what to do?
The biggest message is that when a woman says ‘I’m being abused,’ men and women and in the particular community take a stand and say ‘we are a loving and caring community; we are not going to allow this to happen.’ Let good men stand up and say brother what you are doing is wrong. And women say sister, what’s happening to you is wrong. We will work with you and support you. Let other women not judge women who speak out. Let us forget our cultural beliefs and let us just respect one another as human beings. It cannot be culture when we hurt one another.
Read Full Article: Domestic Violence: Its Not A Private Matter
Belinda:
There is a video on your website for one of your campaigns from three
years ago – ‘The Neighbours’. Can you tell me the story behind that
video?Nhlanhla Mokwena: The story behind that video is that POWA was trying to send a message to South Africans to say domestic violence is no longer a private matter but a matter for all of us to address. So you can no longer keep quiet when you hear a woman screaming, she might need your help. That video was to show South Africans how they respond whenever they hear about domestic violence. As you can see, the video was put in one of the complexes to show people how they respond and to see their reaction towards violence against women. On the first day, this guy is playing drums and there is a lot of noise and the complex residences are able to quickly go to his door and say you are making noise. They even have a petition and you see how they mobilise and advocated for the noise level but when they heard screaming, glass breaking and a woman’s voice in terms screaming, what they do? Nothing! So it was just a mirror to say let’s look at ourselves and look at our reaction when it comes to violence against women. We are able to mobilise quickly when it comes to other issues but when it’s violence against woman, we turn a blind eye.
Given the work POWA has been doing through the years, what are the root causes for domestic violence and what are some of the reasons that make people keep quiet within South Africa?
The root causes we feel as an organisation is the patriarchal society and the inequalities, especially in terms of how we raise the boy and girl child. I mean in terms of patriarchy, South Africa is a patriarchal society based on our cultural and religious beliefs. South Africa puts a main person (the man) as the head of the family, which means the woman is the subordinate and during a time when men are feeling that women are progressing and women have more opportunities now in terms of job opportunities and business, you find that a lot of men, when they feel that that power they used to have due to the constitution and due to women development is slipping, they feel threatened. For some of them, the only way they can regain that power is by inciting violence or by scaring women and children because our levels of violence are very high among women and children. As an organisation, those are the things that we have come to understand as the root causes of domestic violence or even rape because our levels are also high when it comes to rape. But we can say we have a good constitution and very progressive laws but our statistic in terms of dealing with these issues are not decreasing, they are increasing. In terms of the silence, what causes women not to speak out is fear of the perpetrator but also fear that society does not believe that they are being raped or abused or society is actually blaming the victims in terms of what is happening to them. If you are a married woman, you cannot air your dirty laundry in public. So that is why the advert is about saying it’s no longer a domestic matter, it’s a scourge in our country and we cannot be silent when it’s happening to our neighbour.
People are saying as an organisation you have been in existence for such a long time, don’t you think it’s about time you address men and we are saying as an organisation, we have not even dealt with this issue or the women, the status of women has not changed for us as POWA to take on the issue of men but we do work with organisations in terms of them dealing with men to end the scourge of violence against women. And you know, a lot of women’s rights organisations are struggling when it comes to funding and we are struggling because violence against women is not like your sexy thing people want to invest in. We are struggling with funding to provide the needed services. We are also struggling with funding to develop creative prevention programmes. We feel that we really need to invest in prevention programmes. If we are saying we are going into schools, we have to start at Grade One and it should be a one year programme. How are we going to measure our success if we don’t have programmes that are invested in our young ones and how are we going to measure change if there are no programmes addressing parents at home because I cannot have a programme at school but the very same child is going back home to an abusive environment. Will my intervention at the school level make a difference? No, it won’t, because while I’m dealing with the child at school, youth club and playground, I also have to deal with their parents. We have always been saying the different socialisations of the boy child to the girl child are also some of the causes because boys grow up to understand they are the better sex. The world is out there for them to do whatever they can do. The girl is out there to be submissive and act like a lady. So if we have parents who still believe in that, it’s very difficult to actually say we will raise a nation of boys and girls, who take each other as equal and who respect and love each other because a man knows that if I slap her, I’m actually slapping myself.
Women in a POWA workshop. Image courtesy of POWA
What are the current stats in South Africa when it comes to violence against women in South Africa?
Statistics show that internationally, one in 6 women are in an abusive relationship. In South Africa, it’s about one in four that’s in an abusive relationship and it’s very scary. In terms of research, we do not have one body that is collecting statistics. The national crime stats are collected by the police and you will find that you will be told that violence against women is decreasing but there are also problems with our justice system. People are disillusioned with the system; the cases take a very long time. Someone can be raped today (2013) and you will find out that the perpetrators are going to be tried next year. What this does is make the victims tired. You will find victims become so pissed off because it’s a year later, sometimes, two or three years later before their case is heard. By that time they are angry and leave it and had rather come to an organisation like POWA to talk about their problem and begin a process of being able to cope with the trauma because there is no healing in such a matter. Survivors will tell you I think I will feel better when perpetrators are booked and convicted. In other words, if a survivor does not experience that, she is traumatised forever because what she wanted has not been done and other survivors will say I don’t want to go through the court because ‘I feel like I’m being raped again and I have to prove myself’ because the burden of proof is on the survivor. She has to prove what time it happened, whether she said no or yes…these are things victims have to deal with. Since the burden of proof is on her and because she has read it in the newspaper about how the justice system is not working, she ends up deciding ‘I’m not going through that.’ I won’t put myself through that. I won’t traumatise myself. I would rather focus on myself by getting either counseling or writing about my story about what has happened to me.’
Image Courtesy of POWA
Why are still ashamed to talk about domestic violence?
It’s like why are we hanging our dirty laundry in public and have people say how can you do that? Could you not have resolved that somewhere else rather than bringing whosoever you spoke to into this and shaming our family? You are shaming our clan or you are shaming our society. It’s difficult to come out, even in middle class South Africa; women had rather go to a private psychologist and a private lawyer. They don’t come to POWA because they feel ashamed and the stigma – their counterparts, people who are in the same social standing as them are not receptive. They will be judging and saying how you can complain about domestic violence when you have such a nice car and such a beautiful home and your life is so good.
What role you think patriarchy, culture and tradition play when it comes to violence against women?
You may find that a woman in South Africa, in the rural area may never even know about her right. She does not know about the constitution, she doesn’t know there is a domestic violence act and it’s in the culture of society where you have to respect your boyfriend or husband, what will happen? Who she will go to? The elder of the clan and when she gets there, if the chief is a person who believes in patriarchy, obviously, that woman will never see a day where her case is resolved accordingly. Either the husband or boyfriend can go speak to the chief and they discuss it among themselves and they say you must stop doing this and he goes and tells the woman you must not go to the chief all the time when I slap you around…it’s a minor thing. We now have the traditional court bill which is under discussion in South Africa and we are hearing that these women in the rural areas do not have access to services like POWA. So if you are going to give the chief a law which will give them the authority, because at this point in time, they have that authority but it’s not a law, if we do formulate the authority to give them the law to preside over such issues, what is going to happen to women in those particular villages? It will make things worse. Though we have the constitution and all these laws, women in the urban areas are oppressed by their own culture and society and you may find in a particular area, people practice a certain religion but because it’s a small community in an urban area, women in those parts of the country are unable to speak because its about shaming this very nice community of people who we think should be behaving well. So if it does happen that there is domestic violence or they are abused, due to their religious beliefs, these women are not speaking out. When you go to churches, you hear people preaching the man is the head of the family, the woman is the neck. The head cannot turn if the neck is not strong. Why? We should be advocating that men and woman are both human beings and they both have equal rights and have a right to be protected equally. So if our young ones can get an opportunity to grow up equally in society. NGOs and civil society organisations cannot be developing programmes to deal with children without programmes that not dealing with adults. Otherwise, we will never win this battle. We look forward to the day when our girls and boys see each other as equal.
POWA: People Opposing Women Abuse
Are there laws that address with violence against women?
We have the Domestic Violence Act and we also have the sexual
offences act. Those are specific to domestic violence and rape. You find
that these are good and progressive but the implementation on the
ground is where the challenge is– if I present myself at a police
station and I say I have been raped and the person I see has never read
or had any sensitivity training regarding sexual offences, how do you
think that person will treat me? I might get a very compassionate
police man who is passionate about these issues but if it’s someone who
has never heard about the law and does not even have the courtesy, the
Ubuntu courtesy of treating someone as a human being which is a simple
principle where you don’t even need to read the law, you simply say I
can listen because a crime has been committed and I’m going to do my
best to take down this statement and make sure this woman has access to a
doctor. If I cannot deal with it, I’m going to speak to an organisation
to assist you. Then it’s important that at the front desk, people treat
you right. By the way, we are not saying all South African police are
badHow strong a case can you make against the perpetrator when the victim has a voice in comparison to when they don’t because they have been so mentally battered?
I think it’s important for the survivors to have a voice. When the abuse happens, start documenting because it’s important and you can also get someone outside the house to document for you, so that when the time comes to face your family, culture or society, you are not coming with just the one incident, you are coming with a whole lot of other incidents where you were documenting things and even telling a friend who was also documenting it. By teaching women to speak out either by keeping a diary or telling someone, that will help when the time comes to speak out and you have evidence. We found that women take 10-15 years to actually leave abusive situations. So if they are documenting those incidents with a particular friend or someone they talk to, you find they build a strong case.
What support mechanisms do you use to support children caught in abusive homes?
We have schools programme and we go into school to talk to children and as POWA we deal with children from grade eight upwards but there are a whole loot of other organisations that provide services to primary school children.
One of the MDGs is ending violence against women, is that dream feasible given the current state of things?
If we have incidents of a mentally ill girl being raped and the perpetrators record the incident and the video goes viral, we still a long way to go. We need to work together as a society and as a continent and say you know what, this is a problem. It’s un-African and this is how we are going to deal with it together. In South Africa, we have the 365 days campaign but we find that government in terms of marketing the programme is only during our women’s month and during our 16 days of activism against domestic violence and we are saying we really need to take this plan and start using it as the 365 days plan. So that it’s not only during those calendar month campaigns but daily. There are programmes that look at intervention and service provision concurrently and I think there are also organisations that are now saying yes, we also need to start looking at working with boy children and men. We need comprehensive programmes that will address this issues and the biggest thing is to ensure the laws are implemented. As long as criminals enjoy impunity and the burden of proof is on women who have been raped and assaulted, what happens? So it’s important that the law sends out a strong message.
What is your message to women who deal with these issues as to what to do?
The biggest message is that when a woman says ‘I’m being abused,’ men and women and in the particular community take a stand and say ‘we are a loving and caring community; we are not going to allow this to happen.’ Let good men stand up and say brother what you are doing is wrong. And women say sister, what’s happening to you is wrong. We will work with you and support you. Let other women not judge women who speak out. Let us forget our cultural beliefs and let us just respect one another as human beings. It cannot be culture when we hurt one another.
Read Full Article: Domestic Violence: Its Not A Private Matter
belida
Violence against women is a
global endemic that cuts across cultural, traditional, religious and
socio-economic status. While silence has often masked this grievous
crime against women, African women are beginning to speak out with one
voice saying “enough is enough.” In this three-part series during the 16
Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, I will be sharing interviews
with three women from Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria as they talk about
their fight and quest to ensure the safety of African women who find
themselves in abusive situations. Meet Josephine Chukwuma, founder and
executive director of Project Alert on Violence Against Women, Nigeria.
She tells us why we must never use culture as an excuse for gender
violence.
Belinda:
Different people have different things they are passionate about. Why
did you decide on the issue of violence against women as an area where
you could make a difference?
Josephine Chukwuma: I got into what I’m doing based on the environment I grew up in, the environment around me and what I kept seeing – it seemed as if there was a huge tolerance for different forms of violence against women. And I could not deal with it. I kept questioning it and I said to myself, this is what I want to do. I had a lot of questions growing up as an African woman. A lot of why, why, why as I saw things happening all around me especially after a neighbour’s husband died and I saw the way the widow was being treated, a roommate in university, who goes out on a date and comes back with a black eye, a cousin who was in an abusive marriage and does not want to speak out. So all of these things, I kept asking why and what’s going on? This was one of the reasons I guarded my independence very fiercely. I come from a loving home and my father trained all his girls, six of us. So imagine the irony of coming from a loving home and going into a society where you are made to feel like a second class citizen by actions and inactions. That was a shocking thing for me.
Would you say we are at a stage where violence against women is so culturally ingrained and we are using culture as an excuse for bad behaviour?
It’s an excuse. It’s just a justification and its people using it to justify their actions and I tell people at any opportunity I have – I’m an African woman, I was born in Africa, the easiest denial Africans want to hold on to is come on, we are Africans. Don’t copy Europeans, their culture is not ours. I say there are certain things in life, whether you are Asian, European or African, one thing is constant, human life is scared. Every human being has rights and everyone is entitled to human rights. I say to people between culture and human rights, human right takes preeminence. I mean culture is made/created by human beings. We make culture and should be open to changing it. Culture is not static, culture is very dynamic. So, when there is a conflict between culture and human rights, there is no doubt that human right takes preeminence over culture. People hide under the guise of culture, tradition and religion just to perpetrate all these acts and try to get away with it. They are justification, they are not reasons.
Why are we still silent about domestic violence?
First, I would like to say the issue of silence is rooted in culture and the whole idea that this is of the private and public domain. Africans, though now it is changing, we are raised to be ashamed of certain things outside and that’s traditional. Unfortunately people are doing certain things shamelessly now, they do shameless things but they don’t want people to talk about it. I have a problem with that because in traditional society and honestly speaking, I remember when I was growing up in Lagos in the 70s, I had an aunty who the husband used to beat and this particular aunt was very close to my dad and my dad loved her so much and they were first cousins and we loved her too. She got married to this abusive man and hardly a week will go by that she will not run to our house with a torn top and some little bruises to her face and I’m like what is happening and what is going on here? She will mention the guy and my father will say she should come in and she is not going back to him. For me, that is citizen’s response by giving her shelter. I say this because some years ago, when we wanted to start our shelter, people were saying shelter is a foreign thing and asking if it is because ‘you went for your masters in the Netherlands and you are trying to import it?’ I told them I was not trying to import anything, we have always had this. The only difference now is that I’m making it formal because we had it informally, whereby the extended family system used to look out for every member of the society. In traditional society, if a man rapes a little girl, you walk naked in the market square. If you beat your wife, the other women will boo you and tell you to go and beat a fellow man like you and stop using your power on this woman. These things were there. We are all very faceless in the city and most cases of extreme domestic and sexual violence occurs more in the cities. Maybe in the villages, maybe they are not talking much but from what we see on the ground and hear, we see and hear most of these from the cities because of the faceless nature of the city. Silence has been used for a very long time as a weapon to further perpetrate acts of sexual and domestic violence. The whole issue of stigma and poor response because let’s face it, if you are victimised or I am victimised, I will only feel courageous to speak about my victimisation if I know that structures are there to respond positively to my situation. What is the point of further going to open my wound if I know you are to going to put iodine and plaster on it for me? What’s the point because the primary victimisation is the act itself. The secondary victimisation is the blame and the shame. Silence explores situation and in Nigeria, we have been having horrible cases of domestic violence and horrible sexual abuse of young girls and even children and that’s because we are not talking about it and that’s because the first step towards solving a problem is admitting that there is a problem. When you drag the problem underground, you allow it to develop a life of its own. People say it is an economic issue. I say no, it is not about economic issues. It’s all about impunity and people tolerating that a woman is a play thing. News about women is nothing. When a woman is attacked and acid is poured on her, no one says anything but when man is attacked, heaven wants to fall. Of the 300 plus cases we have had to deal with, about 75 to 80 percent are little girls below the age of 14 (7, 3, 4, 6 and 2 years old children) are being violated and people talk about the way they dress. How would a little girl like that dress to attract an old man. Are we to start dressing our little in long trousers and skirts?
Is it fair to say that domestic violence and sexual violence is on the rise against women in Nigeria?
I may not be able to say that. I like to play it safe. If you say it is on the rise, was there a baseline study done at some point that says five years ago, there were five reported cases but now says five years later, there are 20 reported cases. Unfortunately, there was never a baseline study.
In terms of root causes, people have different reasons but in Nigeria, what are some of the root causes?
I think it’s more of patriarchy. The patriarchal structures we have guide the socialisation in the ways girls and boys are socialised. Boys are socialised from a young age to feel you are the man, you must be strong, and you cannot be doing this and that. While the girl is told you are a girl, you need to be a woman, come on get into the kitchen or you don’t talk like that. It starts that way and even in families, you find that the boy is growing up and feeling that he is superior to his sisters. Boys are socialised to be aggressive, its like, you see what you want; you go get it and all that. While the girl told, you need to be a lady. It is only a few of us that grow up to fly over that and refuse to be constrained but a lot of people grow up in that. So it is the socialisation, the patriarchal structure, the manipulation and misinterpretation of religion. Same with culture and these are the various structures we need to first deal with. We must look at the economy and finances but for me, that explanation is too simplistic to say it is because of the economy. If it is because of the economy, why do rich men and comfortable men beat their wives? It should only be the poor people doing it but we still have a lot of impunity with rich men who beat their wives and girlfriends, and say there is nothing you can do about it. Who are you going to report me to? The Inspector General was my classmate; you are wasting your time. The Commissioner is my friend, I play golf with him. Impunity has become the order of the day. So it goes beyond the order of economic reasons. Yes, economic reasons come in at some point but it is not the main cause.
Does Nigeria have a domestic violence bill in place?
We do in some states. As activists, in Nigeria, what we have been using and still using to a large extent, is the criminal code because the criminal code is operational – we have two different codes, the penal code for northern Nigeria and the criminal code operational in southern Nigeria. The penal code is guided by sharia law for the Muslim north. The criminal code is for the predominantly Christina south. In the criminal code we have various laws on various forms of assault – indecent assault, grievous bodily harm and all that. So this is the law we have been using but the problem with this law is that it is criminal in the sense that if a wife uses this law, the husband could go in for up to 7 years. If the law is to be enforced to the latter, which I don’t have a problem with that – if you don’t have a problem hitting me, I don’t have a problem locking you up. But due to the family situation, the extended family system and the fact that a lot of women are hugely dependent on their husbands and so the next thought is yes, she will go to the police but when the police want to arrest the husband, she will say I didn’t want you people to arrest him. I just wanted you to talk to him because the family is on one side threatening her and saying you took our son to the police, you want them to lock him up. Okay, let them lock him up and let us see how you will come back to us. Then she stands there thinking about feeding the children, their school, the house and she throws her hands and legs up and gives up. To try and respond to the extent of this criminal nature, Project Alert and some other organisations, years ago came together and put a bill together on domestic violence and with the support of UNIFEM, now UN Women, and some support from the British DFID and more, we did some advocacy work around 12 states of the federation and submitted that bill to 12 state house assemblies and this was like 6/7 years ago but out of this 12 state house of assemblies that we submitted this bill to, which is a domestic violence bill, I am sad to say only four passed it – Lagos state, Cross River state, Ebonyi state and Jigawa state. The rest, it never saw the light of day. Of the four states that passed it, it is only in Lagos that we are trying to implement that law. In Lagos state, there is a domestic violence law. At the federal level, a coalition of NGOs under the name Legislative Advocacy Coalition on Violence against women, we came together about 10/11 years ago to try and put together one big bill that will try to cover every form of violence against women, be it physical, sexual or psychological, harmful traditional practices, neglect and abandonment and all the things women suffer from in the home situation. We tried to do that and we put together this very beautiful bill but to date, that bill has not seen the light of day at the federal level.
In terms of changing mindset, how challenging a task is it?
Attitudes are about the most difficult to change in people but not impossible. People are so set in their ways and so for us as Project Alert, in the last 2/3 years, we have not given up on older people (laughs) but we are trying to start them young. We are thinking of and have started going into schools with these issues, so that they grow up with the right frame of mind because a lot of people are already set in their ways. While we are trying to slam such people into prison, let us try to save these young ones little by little.
Belinda:
Different people have different things they are passionate about. Why
did you decide on the issue of violence against women as an area where
you could make a difference?Josephine Chukwuma: I got into what I’m doing based on the environment I grew up in, the environment around me and what I kept seeing – it seemed as if there was a huge tolerance for different forms of violence against women. And I could not deal with it. I kept questioning it and I said to myself, this is what I want to do. I had a lot of questions growing up as an African woman. A lot of why, why, why as I saw things happening all around me especially after a neighbour’s husband died and I saw the way the widow was being treated, a roommate in university, who goes out on a date and comes back with a black eye, a cousin who was in an abusive marriage and does not want to speak out. So all of these things, I kept asking why and what’s going on? This was one of the reasons I guarded my independence very fiercely. I come from a loving home and my father trained all his girls, six of us. So imagine the irony of coming from a loving home and going into a society where you are made to feel like a second class citizen by actions and inactions. That was a shocking thing for me.
Would you say we are at a stage where violence against women is so culturally ingrained and we are using culture as an excuse for bad behaviour?
It’s an excuse. It’s just a justification and its people using it to justify their actions and I tell people at any opportunity I have – I’m an African woman, I was born in Africa, the easiest denial Africans want to hold on to is come on, we are Africans. Don’t copy Europeans, their culture is not ours. I say there are certain things in life, whether you are Asian, European or African, one thing is constant, human life is scared. Every human being has rights and everyone is entitled to human rights. I say to people between culture and human rights, human right takes preeminence. I mean culture is made/created by human beings. We make culture and should be open to changing it. Culture is not static, culture is very dynamic. So, when there is a conflict between culture and human rights, there is no doubt that human right takes preeminence over culture. People hide under the guise of culture, tradition and religion just to perpetrate all these acts and try to get away with it. They are justification, they are not reasons.
Why are we still silent about domestic violence?
First, I would like to say the issue of silence is rooted in culture and the whole idea that this is of the private and public domain. Africans, though now it is changing, we are raised to be ashamed of certain things outside and that’s traditional. Unfortunately people are doing certain things shamelessly now, they do shameless things but they don’t want people to talk about it. I have a problem with that because in traditional society and honestly speaking, I remember when I was growing up in Lagos in the 70s, I had an aunty who the husband used to beat and this particular aunt was very close to my dad and my dad loved her so much and they were first cousins and we loved her too. She got married to this abusive man and hardly a week will go by that she will not run to our house with a torn top and some little bruises to her face and I’m like what is happening and what is going on here? She will mention the guy and my father will say she should come in and she is not going back to him. For me, that is citizen’s response by giving her shelter. I say this because some years ago, when we wanted to start our shelter, people were saying shelter is a foreign thing and asking if it is because ‘you went for your masters in the Netherlands and you are trying to import it?’ I told them I was not trying to import anything, we have always had this. The only difference now is that I’m making it formal because we had it informally, whereby the extended family system used to look out for every member of the society. In traditional society, if a man rapes a little girl, you walk naked in the market square. If you beat your wife, the other women will boo you and tell you to go and beat a fellow man like you and stop using your power on this woman. These things were there. We are all very faceless in the city and most cases of extreme domestic and sexual violence occurs more in the cities. Maybe in the villages, maybe they are not talking much but from what we see on the ground and hear, we see and hear most of these from the cities because of the faceless nature of the city. Silence has been used for a very long time as a weapon to further perpetrate acts of sexual and domestic violence. The whole issue of stigma and poor response because let’s face it, if you are victimised or I am victimised, I will only feel courageous to speak about my victimisation if I know that structures are there to respond positively to my situation. What is the point of further going to open my wound if I know you are to going to put iodine and plaster on it for me? What’s the point because the primary victimisation is the act itself. The secondary victimisation is the blame and the shame. Silence explores situation and in Nigeria, we have been having horrible cases of domestic violence and horrible sexual abuse of young girls and even children and that’s because we are not talking about it and that’s because the first step towards solving a problem is admitting that there is a problem. When you drag the problem underground, you allow it to develop a life of its own. People say it is an economic issue. I say no, it is not about economic issues. It’s all about impunity and people tolerating that a woman is a play thing. News about women is nothing. When a woman is attacked and acid is poured on her, no one says anything but when man is attacked, heaven wants to fall. Of the 300 plus cases we have had to deal with, about 75 to 80 percent are little girls below the age of 14 (7, 3, 4, 6 and 2 years old children) are being violated and people talk about the way they dress. How would a little girl like that dress to attract an old man. Are we to start dressing our little in long trousers and skirts?
Is it fair to say that domestic violence and sexual violence is on the rise against women in Nigeria?
I may not be able to say that. I like to play it safe. If you say it is on the rise, was there a baseline study done at some point that says five years ago, there were five reported cases but now says five years later, there are 20 reported cases. Unfortunately, there was never a baseline study.
In terms of root causes, people have different reasons but in Nigeria, what are some of the root causes?
I think it’s more of patriarchy. The patriarchal structures we have guide the socialisation in the ways girls and boys are socialised. Boys are socialised from a young age to feel you are the man, you must be strong, and you cannot be doing this and that. While the girl is told you are a girl, you need to be a woman, come on get into the kitchen or you don’t talk like that. It starts that way and even in families, you find that the boy is growing up and feeling that he is superior to his sisters. Boys are socialised to be aggressive, its like, you see what you want; you go get it and all that. While the girl told, you need to be a lady. It is only a few of us that grow up to fly over that and refuse to be constrained but a lot of people grow up in that. So it is the socialisation, the patriarchal structure, the manipulation and misinterpretation of religion. Same with culture and these are the various structures we need to first deal with. We must look at the economy and finances but for me, that explanation is too simplistic to say it is because of the economy. If it is because of the economy, why do rich men and comfortable men beat their wives? It should only be the poor people doing it but we still have a lot of impunity with rich men who beat their wives and girlfriends, and say there is nothing you can do about it. Who are you going to report me to? The Inspector General was my classmate; you are wasting your time. The Commissioner is my friend, I play golf with him. Impunity has become the order of the day. So it goes beyond the order of economic reasons. Yes, economic reasons come in at some point but it is not the main cause.
Does Nigeria have a domestic violence bill in place?
We do in some states. As activists, in Nigeria, what we have been using and still using to a large extent, is the criminal code because the criminal code is operational – we have two different codes, the penal code for northern Nigeria and the criminal code operational in southern Nigeria. The penal code is guided by sharia law for the Muslim north. The criminal code is for the predominantly Christina south. In the criminal code we have various laws on various forms of assault – indecent assault, grievous bodily harm and all that. So this is the law we have been using but the problem with this law is that it is criminal in the sense that if a wife uses this law, the husband could go in for up to 7 years. If the law is to be enforced to the latter, which I don’t have a problem with that – if you don’t have a problem hitting me, I don’t have a problem locking you up. But due to the family situation, the extended family system and the fact that a lot of women are hugely dependent on their husbands and so the next thought is yes, she will go to the police but when the police want to arrest the husband, she will say I didn’t want you people to arrest him. I just wanted you to talk to him because the family is on one side threatening her and saying you took our son to the police, you want them to lock him up. Okay, let them lock him up and let us see how you will come back to us. Then she stands there thinking about feeding the children, their school, the house and she throws her hands and legs up and gives up. To try and respond to the extent of this criminal nature, Project Alert and some other organisations, years ago came together and put a bill together on domestic violence and with the support of UNIFEM, now UN Women, and some support from the British DFID and more, we did some advocacy work around 12 states of the federation and submitted that bill to 12 state house assemblies and this was like 6/7 years ago but out of this 12 state house of assemblies that we submitted this bill to, which is a domestic violence bill, I am sad to say only four passed it – Lagos state, Cross River state, Ebonyi state and Jigawa state. The rest, it never saw the light of day. Of the four states that passed it, it is only in Lagos that we are trying to implement that law. In Lagos state, there is a domestic violence law. At the federal level, a coalition of NGOs under the name Legislative Advocacy Coalition on Violence against women, we came together about 10/11 years ago to try and put together one big bill that will try to cover every form of violence against women, be it physical, sexual or psychological, harmful traditional practices, neglect and abandonment and all the things women suffer from in the home situation. We tried to do that and we put together this very beautiful bill but to date, that bill has not seen the light of day at the federal level.
In terms of changing mindset, how challenging a task is it?
Attitudes are about the most difficult to change in people but not impossible. People are so set in their ways and so for us as Project Alert, in the last 2/3 years, we have not given up on older people (laughs) but we are trying to start them young. We are thinking of and have started going into schools with these issues, so that they grow up with the right frame of mind because a lot of people are already set in their ways. While we are trying to slam such people into prison, let us try to save these young ones little by little.
balida otas
Scary Times, Uncertain Times…
The world is spinning in a cyclone of uncertainty. From revolutions to natural disasters to continuous political upheaval. Let me start in Ivory Coast, where the political deadlock continues and there is no solution in sight! It is hard to take sides the more I learn about Laurent Gbagbo. I am not saying Alassane Ouattara, was not robbed but the meddling by France and the UN is making it hard to take a stance from a personal point of view. So, this is where I say, France needs to mind its own business. Ivory Coast is no longer a colonial nation and France needs to recognise and respect its sovereignty. I am shocked to learn Quattara is not an Ivorian if that is what Gbagbo representatives is implying/claiming. Nevertheless, the people of Ivory Coast should have the final say in this matter, let them go back to the polls. It may be costly but the current situation is even more costly, especially if the country is tethering on the brink of a civil war by the continuous violence. If there is salient point to take from this, Africa and African nations need to get out of the victim mentality. I am dead against imperialism of any sort but being a victim will not cut it anymore. It is time to sort ourselves out. It is time for Ivory Coast to fix up and France needs to realise a mutual relationship of respect, partnership and investments is most welcome.
teat
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After much consideration and thought, I have decided to stop posting links to blogger. This is to amalgamate all my work and web presence in one place and ensure that I am giving due care to my writing. Nothing has change in terms of work or quality of writing. In fact, it will continue to get better :)
For all future articles, reviews interview, please go to: BelindaOtas.com
For all future articles, reviews interview, please go to: BelindaOtas.com
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