Has violence against women and girls become a norm? Not a week passes by on social media and the internet without reports of girls sexually violated or women physically abused. I recently came upon a news alert on social media that had my stomach churning. Citizen TV Kenya reported that a 17-year-old girl from Meru had been defiled, and her eyes gouged out at Meea Forest. Surprisingly, a simple search on Google will show you several news reports of girls from ages 4 to 16 who have been raped, and their eyes gouged out, and, in some cases, hands chopped off. These cases have been reported mostly in Kenya and India, but violence against women and girls happens globally, albeit others go unreported. Having identified that violence against women and girls is common, brutal, and damaging, society needs to address its root and structural causes to end it.
Violence against girls and women is a prevalent human rights violation that hinders gender equity and equality. Ending violence against women and girls starts with preventing it from happening in the first place by addressing its root and structural causes. Countries such as Kenya and Uganda have no proper systems to report and prosecute domestic violence, making it easier for women and girls to suffer and die at the hands of men. Sexual and physical abuse are types of violence against women and girls, but others include psychological, emotional, and economic violence. In Sierra Leone, economic violence is rampant among women as some men bar their wives from working while other men have totally abandoned family maintenance to their wives. Types of violence against women and children are wide and diverse, but their root and structural causes are almost always similar.
Understanding the root and structural causes of violence against women and girls increases knowledge that can help society alleviate this problem. The United Nations notes that violence against women and children is rooted in gender stereotypes, social norms, and gender-based discrimination that enhance the cycles of violence. Violence against women and girls can not only be addressed by providing support for survivors of violence but also by preventing violence before it even occurs. These structural and root causes protect perpetrators of violence against women and girls while putting the victims in harm’s way.
Gender-based discrimination facilitates violence against women and girls as it promotes unequal access to determinants of peace and safety. When girls and women face gender-based discrimination, they cannot access housing, good quality healthcare, unemployment, and education, which places them in vulnerable positions. In Nigeria, girls seeking education have experienced violence in the hands of the militant Islamist group Boko Haram. In 2014, this militant group attacked and kidnapped 100 girls in a government secondary boarding school in Chibok, Borno state, Nigeria. Unequal access to these determinants of peace and safety creates conditions where violence occurs, causing girls to miss education and experience physical and sexual violence. Gender-based discrimination makes it hard for women and girls to acquire good quality healthcare and education, ensuring they easily face violence.
For example, In El Salvador, women are afraid of seeking medical help when having complications in pregnancy as they are accused of attempted abortion, which is punishable by up to 50 years in prison. These women need a healthcare sector that will take their health issues seriously during their pregnancies without medical professionals dismissing them and assuming they are terminating their pregnancy. Society also needs to be educated on prejudices that automatically have them assuming that women having complications in their pregnancy are attempting abortion. Punishing pregnant women who seek medical help denies them good quality healthcare and allows society to create conditions for women and girls to be unjustly persecuted, denounced, prosecuted, and imprisoned.
Social norms deeply embedded in society, systems, and institutions also create sustainable conditions for violence against women and girls to thrive. Social norms are collective social expectations of appropriate behaviour for women and girls. It is essential to note that these appropriate behaviours are shared beliefs and unspoken rules that women and girls are expected to follow without question. Women and girls who do not adhere to these social norms are often sexually or physically assaulted and accused of bringing the violence upon themselves due to their ‘wayward actions’. When a husband physically or sexually assaults his wife for cooking late or having a side hustle, the violence is justified by social norms and seen as a means to discipline a ‘stray wife’.
In some communities, social norms are so deeply ingrained that women support barbaric acts that set the basis for violence against women and girls. For instance, Fulani women in Mauritania view ‘wife beating’ as an act of honour as they take pride in being beaten by their husbands. Salimata, a woman from Mauritania, was told by her mother to walk with pride because she is the daughter of a woman whose husband broke her hands. In this society, domestic violence is not frowned upon but is seen as an act of love and accepted practice. These incidences show that social norms convey the idea violence against women and girls is normal and acceptable, especially if they do not adhere to society’s shared beliefs and unspoken rules.
Social norms are closely linked to gender stereotypes that increase the perpetration of violence against women and girls. Gender stereotypes such as all women should become mothers, and women experience violence because they are dressed ‘provocatively’ enhance sexual and domestic violence. Girls and women who do not become mothers are not valued as human persons and experience violence and abuse from men who find them uncompliant. The bodies of girls are often seen as goods that should be married before their value depreciates. Still, even girls who submit to gender stereotypes and get married are likely to experience abuse perpetrated by the husband or the society. In cases of sexual violence such as rape, it is common to see society shift the blame to the actions of women and girls to justify and promote male sexual entitlement and abuse. Gender stereotypes not only enhance the male perpetration of violence against women and girls but it also stigmatizes those who have experienced sexual violence as the survivor is blamed for the abuse.
It is clear that prevention is a key step to stopping violence against women and girls because it occurs. Understanding the root and structural causes of violence against women and girls is pivotal to eliminating violence completely. The task is immense but critical and will require the joint efforts of societal bodies and systems. Political systems need to be committed and invested in implementing laws that address gender-based discrimination. In turn, social systems should invest and work with organizations that dismantle social norms and gender stereotypes, which enhance multiple forms of violence women and girls face daily. Prevention will ensure everyone all over the world stops thinking violence against women and girls is normal.
This is a really eye opener and I hope many including policy makers will get the information, and Learn to implement the laws aimed at protecting the girl child.
Also, am so glad you made it clear it starts with us! Violence against women and girls can never be normal!
This article is an eye opener against the injustices that face girls and women across the globe, and very informative
#WritAfricaChallenge
You are to blame! Tracing the root of violence against women and girls
This article has been very insightful and relatable. I have enjoyed reading it. Why?
The author – Osongo Akinyi says, ‘’Not a week passes by on social media and the internet without reports of girls sexually violated or women physically abused.’’ Here in Kenya, we haven’t had proper systems to report and prosecute domestic violence, making it easier for women and girls to suffer and die at the hands of men.
I have spotted at least three billboards on my way to work. Stop Violence Against Women. Sometimes I ask myself, how effective are they? Do people take the message seriously? In case there is an emergency, do victims or witnesses call the HOTLINE number? Do the attackers feel threatened? In my opinion, we should have more than just billboards. We need to have conversations around it. On our radio stations and TV commercials. Learning institutions should be at the front row in educating learners and having meaning debates on how to end violence against women and girls. Awareness should be heightened. More often than not women who face violence tend to push it under the rug, making it hard for them to seek medical help or even finding a safe space.
Akinyi pointed out something that caught my attention. Fulani women in Mauritania view ‘wife beating’ as an act of honor as they take pride in being beaten by their husbands. Salimata, a woman from Mauritania, was told by her mother to walk with pride because she is the daughter of a woman whose husband broke her hands. In this society, domestic violence is not frowned upon but is seen as an act of love and accepted practice.
Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. Martin Luther King, Jr. Violence can never and will never be an act of love and acceptance.
Social norms and gender stereotypes just to name are some of the factors that fuel and ‘justify ‘violence against women and girls.
Understanding the root and structural causes of violence against women and girls and how we can prevent it is pivotal to eliminating violence completely. The task is immense but critical and will require the joint efforts of societal bodies and systems. Political and social systems should invest and work with organizations that dismantle social norms and gender stereotypes, which enhance multiple forms of violence women and girls face daily.
An article published last year on The Conversation, an academic media website had a lot of information on violence against women in Kenya. Here are my two take away:
1. What’s being done to address it, and is it enough?
Under the sustainable development goals (SDGs) all countries, including Kenya, committed to end all forms of gender-based violence by 2030.
In June 2021, Kenya adopted a gender-based violence indicator in the government’s performance monitoring framework. This will ensure that the enforcement and implementation of gender-based violence laws and policies are tracked. With this commitment, the government has also allocated additional resources to prevention and response.
Gender-based violence recovery centers are being established in all major hospitals in the country. Moreover, gender desks in police stations have been established alongside civil society organizations, such as the Coalition on Violence against Women and the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya.
2. How must domestic violence in Kenya be addressed?
Addressing domestic violence requires a coordinated and multi-sectorial approach that involves all sections of the society.
The enforcement and implementation of laws and policies related to gender-based violence must be improved. This includes training of the police, and those who provide medical and legal support for survivors of physical and sexual violence.
More advocacy and capacity building is required for law enforcement agencies as well as institutions that implement the national policy on gender-based violence.
Men, boys and community leaders must be sensitized on the rights of women through community mobilization activities by the community health volunteers, women groups and civil society organizations. Women and girls must also be educated on their right to be free of violence and shown where, and how, to seek services if it does happen.
If effectively set up, such crucial and important steps could help strengthen efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, help people deal with the aftereffects of violence, and help make sure perpetrators are brought to justice.