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Ruth Butaumocho Managing Editor
The gender discourse has for years centred on women and girls, who have historically been disproportionally affected by all forms of sexual violence.

That perception – which is not far from the truth – has its roots in patriarchal social structures, and gender ideologies, where women were often at the receiving end of all forms of violence and could not protect themselves.

It was against such documented forms of violence against women that the term “gender-based violence” was coined to bring attention to the underlying gender inequalities that underpin “violence against women” and sexual violence.

When the narrative was taken up by the global women movement, it actually became a sensation.

Rightly so.

It meant that violations against women could now be addressed, with the right attitudes, resources and goodwill.

The long and sustained campaign across the globe resulted in authoritative international policy documents that spoke to all forms of violation against women.

From the inaugural global meeting on women held in Mexico in 1975, the message that reached my community, kwaRwanga, right in the heart of Chiweshe, never lost its meaning. It came out hard and clear that women had to be protected against all forms of violence and discrimination.

As the issue gained mainstream media attention, boys were naturally relegated to the safe zones, with little or no education being offered on their welfare.

Last week the nation reacted with horror to the news of a 40-year-old Harare woman, who sexually abused her employer’s 10-year-old son and deliberately infected him with HIV.

Memory Makore, a mother of five from Zvomuya Village under Chief Mangwende in Murehwa, who has since been slapped with a 25-year effective sentence, had sexual intercourse with the minor on two occasions before the offence was discovered.

The nerve-racking sexual assault numbed several people, who for years denied the existence of boy child sexual abuse, which was often brushed off as nothing but mere “isolated untraceable, and peripheral incidences”.

Far from its shocking implications on the future of the boy, the incident also brought to the fore the need to change the narrative of sexual assault, and raising the awareness bar to include the boy child.

In the last 10 years there has been an increasing body of evidence pointing to the prevalence of sexual violence against boys; a clear demonstration that their sexual victimisation is significantly higher than initially presumed.

While Zimbabwe has been battling to deal with the problem of sodomy, the nation was yet to come to terms with the upsurge of women sexually abusing boys, or even men. Such cases  bring a new dimension to gender-based abuse.

The rapid increase in aggravated indecent assault by women calls for a critical look into how the concept of sexual violence has been presented, articulated and understood by our society.

It would be important to critically look at the long held narrative of power dynamics that heighten the vulnerability of girls as the major subjects of sexual abuse, without necessarily looking at other power dynamics that create a conducive environment for both boys and men to be abused in equal measure.

Taking advantage of her position of power, Makore, who was the guardian of the 10-year-old boy and acting in loco parentis, abused that privilege and violated the child who was in her custody.

The abuse could have gone on for years, had an alert Faith Kumula noticed the anomaly of events of a particular night, when Makore sexually abused the boy again.

Such incidences have become rampant, if media and courts reports are anything to go by. Sadly, more such cases go unreported because some of the victims become slaves of patriarchal definitions of what it means to be a man, ultimately compelling them to deal with sexual abuse on their own.

That burden of hegemonic masculinity, where men are not supposed to show “signs of weakness” often condemn male victims of sexual abuse into years of silent suffering, and sometimes right up to death, for fear of societal shame.

The same paranoia must have gripped several male rape victims in 2011, who despite having been violated by a gang of female rapists chose to lie low, instead of giving evidence to the police of their harrowing experiences.

The serial gang-raping of men by women a few years ago and the recent abuse of the 10-year-old boy point to a growing problem of male sexual abuse that should not be wished away.

There is need for a paradigm shift to ensure that society does not continue to view men as perpetrators and women as victims.

Yes, a large proportion of women and girls continue to be victims of sexual assault, but it is within the same spirit that awareness campaigns should broaden the gender and sexual victimisation narrative to include the plight of the boy child.

It is not too late to take heed and correct the gender narrative that still regard boys and men as safe from all forms of sexual assault from women.

Being a victim of sexual assault is not determined by gender. Pretending that male sexual violation is not something that society should worry about fails both men and women, further fuelling the problem which can be curbed.