WE CAN End All Violence Against Women

As the world marked The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on 25^th November and ushered in the annual 16 days of activism against gender violence last year, I found myself reminiscing and reflecting over my various interactions towards a society free of violence against women…a society that upholds women rights….a society that cherishes gender equality and social justice… The We Can End ALL Violence against Women campaign and movement, popularly dubbed WE CAN is one particular interaction that has so far made an indelible mark. So much that it continues to shape my ideological and practical perspectives on matters violence against women, women rights, gender equality and generally social justice.

Beyond the seemingly very aspirational goal, WE CAN message was neither new nor any different from what I was accustomed to. The uniqueness lay in the ‘out of the box without necessarily leaving the box’ approach, the packaging, the delivery, the innovation…WE CAN was unorthodox, free of your usual rights activism/NGO jargon and way of doing things, yet refreshingly simple, practical, inclusive and engaging. WE CAN amazingly and ‘effortlessly’ took the message home with amazing results to boot! I still marvel at the impact more than five years after the campaign went ‘cold’ in Kenya.  

WE CAN was based on feminist analysis and human rights frameworks. It acknowledged patriarchy as the root cause of violence against women and rights based approach as only legitimate framework to address women rights and priorities. It espoused violence against women as violation of women’s basic rights and women as equally entitled to equal rights, dignity, respect, freedom and safety in society. However, Rather than the ‘usual’ reactive approach it took a proactive approach. It was devoid of the often divisive feminist language, argumentation and ethos of militant rights activism, reference to standardized theoretical ideologies underlying violence against women and hard-hitting anti-patriarchy rhetoric. Instead, it focused on two very basic, subtle yet clear and hard hitting messages, that, ‘women are no less valuable than men’ and ‘violence against women is unacceptable’.

WE CAN offered a new way of calling a spade a spade without calling it a spade. While it subscribed to the widely accepted and official UN definition of violence against women (“any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life”) it chose to make reference to ‘violence against women’ instead of politically correct ‘gender based violence’ and to define the former as a unique subset of the latter that requires specific response. Rather than make reference to extreme and vile forms of violence it referred to the level of everyday violence and manifestations of inequity to simplify the complexities of violence against women and trigger recognition of the various aspects of the violence.

WE CAN recognized that many forms of violence against women are intertwined with cultural, ideological and/or religious identities. However, rather than engage in blame games and or ‘sterile theoretical debates’ which only ‘tend to invoke strongly protective instincts’, it focused on peoples lived experiences of violence to demonstrate that the violence affects everyone. Rather than depict women as powerless victims and name and shame men as perpetrators, women were presented as powerful masters of their destiny and men as capable of ending violence against women.  

WE CAN strategically focused on domestic violence. The underlying rationale was that most forms of violence against women happen within the home and/or intimate relationships, many forms of the violence are accepted, tolerated and justified by society and subsequently are ‘unseen’ and viewed as inevitable, normal and a reality of life. When homes ‘normalize’ violence it becomes ‘normal’ in families, communities and the society. Women will never be equal in their public lives until they are equal in their homes and families.

All in all, WE CAN was premised on individual and collective capacity and responsibility to prevent and end violence against women. The overarching message was clear…

If we really want to end violence against women WE CAN........

We must choose to raise our voices to oppose violence against women.

We must choose not to split hairs about violence against women

We must take notice of and speak out about all forms of violence against women

Our voices and actions together have POWER to prevent and end violence against women!

 WE CAN made it possible to imagine and believe that a world where relationships between women and men are based on mutual respect, non-violence and equality and women and men enjoy equal rights  is possible! WE CAN surely choose to package our messages and deliver them in a manner that gets them home! 

Consensual Defilement My Foot!

It was a sigh of relief when MPs thwarted the ill-informed, scandalous, attempt to ammend the Sexual Offences Act to reduce the age of consent from 18 to 16. That the contentious ammendment with very grave implications was ‘hidden’ in the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Ammendment) Bill 2016 and made it to the floor of the house amid loud contestations is an indictment on its proponents and movers and belies their real motivation.

Lest we forget, the Sexual Offences Act was a product of a long protracted struggle marked by many false starts, disappointments, half-hearted compromises, gains, losses…

Agitation for a specific sexual offences legal framework started in earnest in the 1990s, by women and child rights organizations. It was prompted by endemic sexual violence particularly against women and girls amid a weak inadequate legal framework and the need for reform in line with international standards. Public protests, petitions, public interest litigation and networking culminated to the initial Sexual Offences Bill which was drafted in 2004 by the Juvenile Justice Network, comprised of 16 women and child rights NGOs. The Bill sought to consolidate laws relating to sexual offences, to amend or repeal existing laws, to bridge legal loopholes and to provide new laws for ‘new’ sexual offences. The Bill was presented to the then AG, Amos Wako on 15^th September 2004 for tabling in Parliament as a government bill. It was never to be, despite the AG’s recognition and expression of need for the Bill and vigorous and unrelenting advocacy and lobbying efforts.   

The Juvenile Justice Network then teamed up with nominated MP, Hon. Njoki Ndung’u, who introduced the Sexual Offences Bill in Parliament in December 2004 as a private members motion. Despite misgivings from a section of male MPs about some envisaged provisions, the motion was passed in April 2005. A revised version of the Bill was published in August 2005, but it was time barred when Parliament was prorogued for the constitution referendum. The Bill was republished in January 2006 then withdrawn prior to debate in Parliament to allow for consensus and attendant revisions. The ammended Bill was published in March 2006. It went through a highly polarizing debate but was eventually passed with amendments in July 2006. The Sexual Offences Act came into force on 21^st July 2006. 

Unambiguous definition of consent age, subsequent criminalization of sexual activity below 18 years, gender neutrality and minimum sentences were some of the hallmark gains of the Sexual Offences Act. As an informed and active participant in this struggle, I was scandalized by the bid to roll back the gains in the fight for rights and safety of children, both girls and boys. Am still lost and yet to come to terms with what the push to lower the age of consent from 18 to 16 sought to cure and what is so urgent about 2 years that would justify making such a drastic change in a law that we fought so hard for. 

Some quarters chose to confuse with useless legal jargon, making reference to ‘age of consensual defilement’ to push the agenda for reduced consent age. Seriously!???Defilement means one person is too young to legally consent to sex, it can only be an antithesis of consensual sex. I care less that there are jurisdictions that have set the consent bar as low as 13years. Our lived reality is definitely worlds apart. Whatever the case may be, what capacity does a 16 year old have to appreciate and effectively manage the biological, physiological, social and economic consequences of their ‘choice’ to have sex? With the ammmendment as was, how would we have ensured protection of 16 year old girls from 45-year old sex predators, or from being trapped in early marriages following consensual abuse? It is outright irreconcilable that we can entrust 16 year old boys and girls with such potentially life-changing decisions yet we cannot entrust them with the responsibility and rational decisions that comes with a national ID, a Driving Licence or a voter’s card.

   

Some arguments rightfully cited existence of consensual sex among minors. It was said that ‘many younger children are engaging in sex’… that ‘it is wrong to prosecute teenage boys for having sex with their girlfriends’…that it is more of a moral than a legal issue…that it is foolhardy  to legislate morality. It was further claimed that ‘too many boys are in prison for sexual crimes’…..with the actual facts rarely featuring in the ‘legally informed and well thought out analyses’ beyond citing ‘Romeo and Juliet’ laws in other jurisdictions. While consensual sex by minors is a reality that we may have to live and deal with, it must never be allowed to be synonym or directly proportional to defilement or rape. Challenges with addressing morality issues and prosecuting sexual offences by teenagers must never be used as a justification to make such a drastic change in the law.  

The ammendment ostensibly sought to protect against unjustified victimization of teenage boys. Narratives were told of parents taking advantage of the Sexual Offences Act to have their young daughter’s boyfriends jailed for defilement or rape. While this is not far-fetched, once again the actual figures to demonstrating the scope and magnitude of the problem were missing in action. Given the probable circumstances, the need to protect the boy child and/or deal with conniving parents cannot be over emphasized. However, it must never be at the at the expense of the girl child!     

The Sexual Offences Act was relentlessly labelled punitive to young men and minors, with seeming calls for different treatment of sexual offences on account of age of perpetrator. How different is an 18 year old sexual offences offender from an 18 year old robbery with violence or murder offender? Is the latter treated any different because they are 18 and their victim is 17? Why should it be different for sexual offences? The pro-ammendment arguments ‘conveniently’ avoided highlighting that the Law as is provides for convicts that are minors to be sent to borstal institutions for a maximum of three years. The gender dimension, where victims and perpetrators of sexual offences are largely female and male respectively, was also largely ignored. The bottom line is that sexual offences are crimes like any other crimes in our statutes, an 18 year old is an adult and three years in a borstal institution is no comparison to the lifetime trauma that survivors of sexual offences often have to live with.  

Its good riddance to the attempts to make it legal for 16 year olds to engage in sex!