 Good evening and thank you for joining us on Y250's updates. And tonight on our show, we talk about gender-based violence. We try to see what can we do to curb our GBV. We try to see how do we bring in men to make sure that we break the pattern of gender-based violence. We also try to look at the causes and the forms of gender-based violence. We're also going to try and look at the milestones that have been made so far in different countries on making sure that there are no cases, or at least the cases that have been there have reduced in the recent years. And to help us talk about this topic tonight, we have Dr. Ziba Wako, who is a researcher on gender justice at the School of Education, University of Bristol in England. And also, she has a trainer on personal development for women and girls. We also have Emmanuel Benson, who is a Nigerian scholar, a businessman, and a civil engineer. We also have Mary Ojoang, who is a very usual person in our panel. And she's a patron for WOSWA, and also the director for Women Affairs Republic and Liberty Party. You can be part of this conversation by sharing your views and comments on our social media platforms. That is on Y254, channel hashtag Y254 news. My name is Patricia Murioki. Let us get into the discussion. So thank you very much, guys, for really sharing the time and having the time to come and talk about this, Dan. This is a very sensitive issue. We've had people talk about it. It has been talked about. We've seen changes. But today, we'd like to dig deep and look at different countries. How are they doing? And my priority tonight will be Nigeria, because we have someone from Nigeria talk about it here. We're going to talk a little bit about Mexico. We had someone from Mexico was to join us, but apparently she did not manage. And also, we have Mary. So we're also going to sample cases in Kenya. So to start off with you, Dr. Ziba, for someone out there getting to here this time for their first time, can you define for them what is gender-based violence? So gender-based violence is any form of attack, any form of defamation, any form of punishment that is perpetrated to a human being. However, the gender-based part of it means that it could be either perpetrated towards a man or towards a woman. OK. So what are some of the causes? What would you say a man or a woman to hit the other, to torture the other, to torment the other, whether it's emotionally, whether it's physically, or whether it's economically, Mary? What are the causes of GBV? It's social constructions. We are surrounded in environment and culture, whereby it's believed that certain roles are for certain people. For instance, women have specific roles in African society. So they believe that if women who are aggressive and try to break the patriarchal systems, they believe it's high time to stop these women. And in the process of trying to stop these women, that's where conflict comes in. And in my opinion, men feel like this issue is a conflict between men and women, women trying to compete with them, which is absolutely not true. So we have issues whereby both men and women abuse each other. But recently, the highest case is on men abusing women. I want to bring Emmanuel in. And it's very good that we have a man in the panel tonight. Why do you think most men go for violence? Why do most men argue that, oh, I thought beating would fix the problem. I thought that maybe abusing this person, whether it's verbally would fix the problem. Why would you say men rush for violence? Sometimes the reason why men violently abuse their spouse or something is because of most of them are not educated, you understand? If they're educated, they'll know that there are better ways to handle a situation other than hitting the person. And most of these men have also been abused. You know, we grow up in a, when you find a man growing up in an environment where his parents or the society feel that for them to correct or help him to learn something, they have to learn it, they have to help him by hitting him or beating him or something. He grows up in that mentality and then he uses it against anyone that he feels he wants to pass knowledge to and it's wrong. So gender-based violence affects one in three women worldwide regardless of social or economic status. And in Mexico, we have 10 women, where 10 women are killed every day. We're talking about every day. So if you amount this number, it gives you a very big figure. So why do you think that in Mexico, there is this high rate of gender-based violence? Again, if it's perpetrated against women, then it could be, as Emmanuel said, the men have grown up in an environment where violence was rife. You know, it was happening maybe every day. Also, there could be other reasons. There could be social reasons. So for example, men go out, drink, come back. You know, they like to be macho. You know, they want to be known as, you know, my wife can't talk back to me. It could be as a result of, you know, maybe not having self-esteem. Because sometimes that could be an underlying reason for men to assert their authority over women. It could be a power thing. And that's linked to patriarchy again. So, you know, we live in societies where most of our countries are patriarchal. And it comes down from, it evolves from the post-colonial or the colonial rule. So now we're trying to adjust and balance the genders and try to see if there are things we can do to maybe re-educate, you know, re-educate mindsets and maybe show people that there is another way. So Mary, in Warsaw, you represent, you try to make sure that you fight gender-based violence in campuses. Because apparently we have, you see, most of the times we assume that GBV is only in married couples. But we also have university students who have gone through gender-based violence. So how, what milestones have you made so far? Okay, first let me start by acknowledging there is gender-based violence, a lot of it in learning institutions. Universities, high schools, primaries. And girls are affected from as young as five years to as old as maybe 70 or more. And I have to confess that also we are working and we've made milestones towards countering gender-based violence. Last year, during 16 days of activism on gender-based violence, we managed to engage, then this years, was Ambassador Amina Mohammed. And we are currently working on sexual exploitation policy for learning institutions in Kenya. So I think that's a step. And every now and then, we have female students reporting to our office in Warsaw about their cases. And that shows that we built a kind of trust between us and the students. And they feel we've been doing enough because they still report. Which is the highest form of violence? Because we have sexual, we have physical, we have economic, we have emotional. Which is the highest form of violence that is reported to your by the university students. How are the students? I have to say physical violence and social is kind of rating at the same. And currently that is on our eyes is cyber violence, cyber gender-based violence. I receive those cases at least 10 in a day. Which is a higher gender? Yeah. High gender bringing the complaints. Is it female or male? Female students. Rarely do I receive cases of male students reporting. But whenever we're doing a joint forum, they raise the questions, why are you always empowering women? And these women again, sometimes they abuse us. And they raise the question of asking them, what do you do when you're abused as a man? Don't sit back. It's not a women issue. Gender-based violence is our issue as both men and women. And we need to give solutions to it. As I've said earlier, we have different forms of gender-based violence. We have sexual, we have physical, we have harmful traditional practices. We have emotional, psychological violence. We have socioeconomic violence. When you look at the other three, someone can understand when they're being sexually abused. Someone can understand when someone is physically abusing them. Someone can understand when they have to go through a certain traditional practice because people term it as probably a rite of passage or something that is supposed to happen. But how now can someone know that I am going through emotional abuse and I need help? And it's the time for me. It's the high time for me to speak out. Dr. Zeba. Can I backtrack a little bit? So sometimes abuse happens to, yes, both genders. Sometimes it's to children. And they don't understand. They don't understand when it's going on. They don't understand what it is. And they don't know how to deal with it. To your question, how do we know about mental and emotional abuse? It's hard because you find that, and I use women as an example. So they are being abused, maybe verbally. And they see it as part of, one, they could see it as if they deserve it. Or they see it as, well, it's what happens anyway. It happens to other people. Why can't it happen to me? Sometimes they don't even rationalize it. So it's the norm for them. It's normal. Do you see what I mean? So sometimes it takes someone else to say it and point it out. And they may not even acknowledge it at the beginning. So it's something that is developmental. It takes sometimes months, sometimes years. And then suddenly the penny drops. And you think, hang on, I can't take this anymore. Or this person shouldn't be talking to me like this. Then other times it results in maybe stress. You get health issues. I've heard that sometimes you have some parts of your body react to certain kinds of stimuli that you receive externally. So that could happen. They could end up with some illness or the other. And then when the doctor investigates his trace back to the fact that there's something mental or emotional going on. So Emmanuel, we talked about men also being on the receiving end of violence, whether it's sexual, whether it's physical or emotional. What do you think we can do to have men speak out? We, for us to not have men suffer in silences because they are scared that if I speak about it, how is the society going to view me? People are going to think that I am weak. How do we push the men? How do we bring in men to speak about their experiences as far as gender-based violence is concerned? First of all, I'm happy you said something. You know, there's a stereotypical view to when a man speaks out of being gender-based and abused or something. You understand? They look at him as weak. They look at him as it is something that really happens. You understand? I was researching one time on this. I noticed that for men, there was another thing that was terminated, it was called the silent crisis. So now, even people are being educated that before we were men, we were just human beings. We were all human beings. We have blood flowing in our veins. We have emotions. We have feelings. Men cry. Men have feelings, you understand? So we can also come out. We can also complain, you understand? Now we have to educate them. We have to create social platforms that are going to be friendly, you understand? We have to also educate the society so that society will be able to view it as this person is a human and needs help, and we need to help the person. And it also starts from a very tender age because men that go through sexual abuse, most of them, if you check statistics, are people that are younger people, like from five, you understand? You see them being abused by their aunties and stuff like that, and they don't get to say anything. So if they are early education, not just face and focusing on daughters, or if they are early education for men to sons and all those kind of stuffs, it will help them to be able to come out. OK. So in Kenya, a recent study found that 32% of young women aged 18 to 24 years and 18% of their male counterparts reported experiencing sexual violence before the age of 18. Gender-based violence reduces the bargaining power to negotiate safer sex. Stay on treatment or remain in school. So Maria, I want to bring you in on this. What do you think? We've seen different organizations come up to fight for the rights of women, to also fight for the rights of men who have gone through gender-based violence. But what do you think can be done more, apart from this? OK. It is sad when my colleague, Rene, she is not here. She was presenting on cases of gender-based violence in Mexico. And her case study was on children. It pains me a lot when she talks about the challenges and how these children are abused. And that means in Kenya it's not an exemption, because my recent work focuses on rescuing young girls who don't really understand what gender-based violence is from violence. And from my own analysis, mostly these girls may not speak out. And they need somebody to bring them to light on these issues. So when we're focusing on gender-based violence, I tend to believe it's more important to create more platforms for younger generation, make people understand that even children are victims and not victimize the victim's father. There is a pure strategy of reporting gender-based violence. Let's not make this victim double report. Once the statement is taken once, let it be used in other platforms where evidence is needed to counter violence on women and girls. We're going to be taking a very short commercial break on Y254. Don't go far away. We'll be right back. Y254, imagine. Y254, imagine. Thank you for staying with us on Y254 News. And if you're just joining us tonight, we're talking about gender-based violence. And so far, we've talked about the forms of gender-based violence. We've talked about what could be their causes. And before we went for the break, Mary was talking about she brought in the aspect of how gender-based violence affects children. So you can be part of this conversation by sharing your views and comments on our social media platforms. That is on Y254 channel, hashtag Y254 News. You can also tweet me at Patricia Muriwaki one. So before we went for the break, Mary brought the issue of children. And I wanted to bring you in Dr. Ziba and ask you, how does gender-based violence affect children? Whether it's a child who has been abused or a child living in a home where there is abuse? It has long-term traumatic effects. Children tend to not know how to verbalize. They don't understand the emotions they go through. They don't understand what's happening to them. So and sometimes some children can sense that this is wrong, but they don't know how to say it or who to say it to. So these are the different ways that it can affect them. Further down the line, they could, if it's developed, they could tend to abuse others. So they could become bullies in schools or they could mentally abuse other people. Some children grow up to become narcissists. So there are different ways it could affect them. And the thing is it needs to be nipped in the butt before they actually grow. Children need to be encouraged and taught how to defend themselves and how to speak out when things like this are happening. So we've talked about GBV being something that affects both men and women, but we've seen in recent cases that it mostly affects women. So Emmanuel, how do we bring in men in the fight against gender-based violence so that we break the pattern of what is happening? Whether we're talking about a man being abused or a woman being abused. How do we speak? How do we create the awareness and bring in men on board to make sure that this does not happen again? OK. Now, I think we'll use social media platform, you understand? Another thing again, I think we should target the youth because we are leaders of tomorrow, you understand? We have to change those evil stereotypical views they have about women, you understand? We have to change some cultural laws, you understand? You don't bring a woman to come to your house and then you feel she's your maid or your help, you understand? She's there to complete you, you understand? So you're not supposed to tell her it's not compulsory that she does, she washes your clothes, carry you on her head or do whatever, you understand? She's supposed to do it out of love and you're not supposed to hit her or go violent against her when you notice that she's not doing your will or something, do you understand? So if you can target, if you can start a social media platform against that will help comb this or if you can target the youth that are going to be leaders of tomorrow, you can help clean their mindsets, you understand? And then when they grow up to become men or when they grow up to be in the position where they have spouses, when they have in a relationship or something like that, they know what to do, you understand? Yeah, thank you. This is whereby people later in life speak about how they were abused when they were children. And then the sad part about all that is that I told my mom but she did not understand it, she thought I was lying. Most parents don't take it seriously. So Maria, I want to bring you in on this issue because you're a parent. What do you think parents should do? If my child comes home one day and tells me, mommy, this happened, mommy, this person touched me in a certain way. How can parents deal with certain issues to make sure that they do not assume something that really will affect their child in the long run? As a parent, it hurts when a child comes and tells you, maybe she tells you signs of her being abused and the question of who did it comes first. And most of these children, a few cases are done by adults, where we see adults raping young children. But violence also prevailed among the children themselves. Her agent could abuse her, touch her private parts, or even go as far as maybe abusing her, calling her bad names. But you see these kids keep reporting. She comes to you and tells you, you know, mommy, Joseph did this to me. He called me something. But sometimes parents tend to assume and say, what did you do? For me, honestly, my daughter comes and reports to me that somebody did anything to her. The first thing I'll ask her, what did you do? Where were you? If she was in school, I'll ask her, did you report to the teacher? So she knows whenever somebody violates her in school, the first person she runs to is a teacher. Then I'll ask her, what did the teacher do? I'm already planting in her. Whenever you report any case of violence, action must be taken. So I know sometimes they lie. They'll tell me all the teacher beat her or him. But I know it's not the case. But up to now they know if I report, the teacher must take action. But this brings to my curiosity, what if the teacher doesn't act? She comes home and tells me, yes, this person beat me, called me this, or violated me in any way. I reported the teacher and the teacher did nothing. And I do follow up with the teacher, by the way. As a parent, if a child, as young as three, four, five counsel reports to you that another child or even an elder person abuse them in any way, verbal, emotionally, or even physically, take action. Look for that person, hey, being a parent man, it's tough. Look for that person, deal with them, make them understand you don't mess up with my girl. And by doing this, I tend to believe when we plant the police in these young girls, as they grow, they grow to be activists. And know exactly, this is wrong. Whenever somebody touches my private parts, I have to report, and action must be taken. It's tough for parents, by the way, it's not easy. First of all, consume the fact that your child is being abused. Even imagine in itself that your child is a victim of abuse. And what about, and they fear to talk about, because other children will stereotype them and victimize them further. And they may even fear losing their peers. So sometimes they may not speak about it, but you can see the way she relates, she will first detach. She will go silent if she's an active child. These are child signs to show you something is really wrong. And for me, I keep on telling my daughter, if you feel that she or she is too much on your end, you don't have to be her friend or his friend. Just get a new friend. So it's tough for parents, but we are trying. As we wind up, the Zaneshwa Vagalu was bullied and abused, verbally abused by actually people around the same neighborhood. And the last thing these guys did, they put acid on her face. This girl is now writing a letter pleading her government to let her take away her life. So how do we, how can now the law come in? And these people got in, they got out on bail and all that and they kept on threatening the lady. As we wind up as a researcher on gender justice, what more does the law enforcement need to do to make sure that when such cases are reported, the culprit has, let's, I don't want to say punish, but there is a term that, the best term that I can use that these people are punished, that they do not go back to the same society and go to meet the different people. So that's why they get away with it, because the laws are there, but they are not being utilized, they are not being enforced. So governments, institutions, policy makers need to ensure that citizens are protected by enforcing the law. That's the first thing. Second thing is that, again, there should be provision for services, counseling services, health services, treatment services, because when people live with trauma, it destroys lives. It doesn't just destroy the life of the victim or the person who's been abused, it destroys the life of the abuser. It destroys the fabric of our society. So we need to be very careful with that. Okay. Thank you very much, guys, for finding the time to talk about this. We have November as the 20th day of activism on gender, 60 days of activism on gender-based violence. Make sure that you talk about it, make sure you share something and be on the forefront on making sure that we end gender-based violence in this country and also in the world. Thank you very much for being with us tonight. My name is Patricia Murioki. Two of you say also very good night.