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Beatrice Tonhodzayi-Ngondo
The period we are in is known as the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence (GBV.) The days were set aside to intensify calls against all forms of gender-based violence worldwide.It is an international campaign that starts on November 25 with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and ends on December 10, Human Rights Day. The campaign seeks to raise awareness on gender-based violence as a human rights issue at local, national, regional and international levels.

But beyond those who read newspapers, follow on-line discussions, listen to the radio and watch television; does everyone know about the 16 Days period and what it stands for? Does our commemoration of the day as a country help us appreciate the negative effects of GBV?

Do we even know what GBV means and spells? Daily, we wake up to reports of yet another little girl having been raped.

We wake up to reports of women who have to drag their husbands or partners to court to compel them to look after their own families, including their own wives and children?

We have around us today women who are denied the chance to go and work or study.

We also have women who have resigned themselves to a life of being cheated on.

Yes; there are women who have been perennially cheated on ever since they got together with the men in their lives. They are since resigned to it. For what do we call it; when we have well to do and accomplished women saying; after their husbands impregnate yet another woman; “I am not surprised. He does that all the time.”

When we have our successful women supporting their husbands in court when they are being accused of sleeping with minors, what are we saying?
When we have big names in the arts going to court accompanied by their whole clans to refuse their own children, what are we saying?

When we have women physically fighting other women over a man and being taken to court for such actions, what does this show?

When we have children under 18 being married off by their very own parents and society does not see anything wrong with it, what are we saying?

When we have fathers raping their own little girls, what does this say about us? How much longer are we then going to allow older and rich men to abuse little girls while we look aside because as a society we feel the children deserve what comes to them because they love things?

Just recently Makanaka Wakatama came under attack for daring to say she learnt the hard way that child marriage is wrong.

What noise this created as society felt she had no right to say so. They were convinced she deserved it. As far as they are concerned, ainyanya kuda zvinhu.

When women verbally abuse their husbands to the extent where the husbands will commit suicide; what does this say?

When we have men and women committing suicide because they cannot handle the infidelity of their partners; surely this means something.

When we have women dying because the very man who promised to love them decide to batter them instead; what are we saying? But even more worrying; when we have perpetrators of rape such as those who raped and murdered little Tsitsi Stacey Mujoma in Rugare still walking the street years later as well as the killer of the late Monalisa Chinomona still walking free today; what are we saying?

How do 16 Days become relevant when the levels of GBV continue to rise? Or is it that it actually becomes more relevant? At least in this period attention is actually paid to the evil that is GBV. At least there is an opportunity to highlight what GBV is and the negative impact it has on our society. Daily women are being denied certain rights because they are women. Daily we have women failing to dress as they want because someone believes they should not dress that way. It is for educating people who are so offside that we need 16 Days.

We have little girls being married off because some in our society do not see anything wrong with having a Form Two pupil as someone’s wife. When girls and young women are forced into situations because of their vulnerability which is a direct result of their gender, they are actually being violated.

For that, we need this period, our 16 Days.

Poverty itself, which has seen many young and mature women of this country not being able to fend for themselves, is one of the problems that continues to result in girls and women having their rights violated.

When a woman is not able to determine when, who with and how to have sex; there is always that danger of being exposed to harm and disease.

An HIV activist was sharing recently about how rape is not always about one having their clothes torn off, being pushed and shoved, but how it is also about being denied money in the home, being verbally abused, being emotionally traumatised and yet after all that, being expected to sleep with the same man who would have refused to provide and care for you.

We have to understand what violence means for us to deal with it. As long as we do not fully appreciate what GBV is, we will stand aside while a woman shouts at her husband daily until he collapses and dies due to stress. We will watch while a couple beat each other to a pulp because as far as we are concerned ‘it is private.” We will rebuke a daughter-in-law for reporting our son to the police yet she will be getting beaten. We will laugh when a man speaks out about being beaten at home and yet we have laws against that. That is why we need these 16 Days. We need to educate ourselves and each other that it is wrong to perpetrate violence against each other based on gender.

Violence of any type is wrong and must be abhorred by us all for a difference to be felt.

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