GBV talk at UON St Paul’s Catholic University Chapel Prolife meeting

27^th November, 2014. I travel from Thika to Nairobi for the St Paul’s University Chapel Prolife meeting to discuss GBV issues. The meeting is to start at 8.00pm and it truly does. University students are good at keeping time especially when they have exams looming.

Due to the exams, we are few and I am bit worried that the meeting may not have the fire that I anticipated it to have. I could not be more wrong.

Tamana, the chair (you remember that nigga, the one who had an intimate relationship with photoshop) is chairing the discussion. Everyone speaks with passion all the way from Sliza who kick-starts the discussion to Bob Iguanya who closes the discussion that would have gone on and on were it not for time. And the ball gets rolling. The sexual harassment perpetrators are demonized by all and sundry. We all express scorn for the inhumane acts rocking the country.

But what seems to be the hot debate is why now? Why now and not back in the 1990s when our mothers wore nice sexy miniskirts. Reasons are given ranging from indecency in dress code, decay of the moral fibre and we rumble on and on that way. However, some guy somewhere says that men are lacking something. Why does a man who feel infuriated by a micro-mini strip off a lady even her pantie and goes on to grope her yet all he wanted was the mini-skirt? Why are women in swimming pools, in athletes’ sports clothes not stripped?

It was argued that today’s man feels insecure. Women have been so much empowered with education, financial freedom, information and technology. They are modern. However the man is still the same old goat that he was 10 years ago. He has not changed and he sees things the way he saw them a decade ago. He still wants to be the patronizing patriarch who roars and the woman trembles. Now that the woman has become more empowered and is an equal, he is threatened. To feel superior than the lady, he strips her. He embarrasses her. Stripping and sexual assault are acts to dominate over her, to trample, to steal and destroy her dignity and pride as a woman. The man has inferiority complex and he hopes that humiliating the weaker sex will uplift him.

Other issues raised during the meeting included:

-          You see a woman dressed in a bad skimpy skirt but you want to go for the panty yet what irked you was the skirt. You are infuriated by the indecency, strip the woman and leave her for nakedness. You do not allow her to squat.No, you want her to spread the legs so that you can see what she is trying to conceal with her hands.

-          Women need to dress for the ocassion. Be aware that there are human dogs on the roads

-          Our mothers in the 1990s used to wear sexy mini-skirts and rocked afro. But they were never stripped. We do not stripe those in swimming pools or athletes yet they wear scantily.In Turkana and other marginalised places, women are bare upwards. No youtube. No whatsapp. No stripping.

-          The world is hostile. Men are hostile. The girl child should be extra vigilant on how she wears .

No need for women to carry weapons like pen knifes to wade off strippers. Otherwise, security will be breached. Problem needs to be nipped straight from the bud.

-          There is need for awareness campaign on the negativity of GBV, as individuals and even as groups.  During these 16 days of  GBV sensistization, talks should be held; in rooms, group meetings and if possible hold walks or peaceful demonstrations on the same. The 16 days activisim may create a wave that turns one person from a Saul to Paul.

-          Need for talented youths to use their talents for the good of the society. Writers write. Graphic designers design really nice stuff on awareness. Thespians do skits and poems and arrange to have avenues to showcase their performances.

-          Social media regulation. It is causing e-violence. We should know that we are not journalists. There is a professional code of conduct with journalists; they do not post the pictures of victims. Hitherto, no TV station has shown the naked women. Why? They are professionals; they know what stigmatizes the victim. So they avoid it like a plague. But we the local guys don’t know this. We video record and whatsapp everything. We are all journalists. We want to be seen as the people who had the news right from the source. However, we fail to realize the stigmatization we are causing on the victims.