 Welcome back to Why In The Morning right here on Y-2-4-4 channel as you can find us across all our social media handles at Michelle. Ashira Iso, you can find me across all my social, if it's Wednesday, it's Woman Crush Wednesday. And in this particular segment, we dive into the strength of a woman. And I have in studio none other than Jerry Mwingi, who is a co-founder and executive director of OCQMS. So our topic of discussion, we are looking at the gender-based sexual violence. So we all know that violence against women and girls is one of the world's most pre-violent human rights violation. And that is why we need to have this conversation. And in studio, as I said earlier on, I am joined by Jerry Mwingi, who is the co-founder and executive director of OCQMS. Hi, Jerry. Hello. How are you doing? I'm very well. Thank you. Thank you very much. How are you doing? As well as it can be. All right. So tell us more about OCQMS and where it all roots and form and how you started the organization. OCQMS, as you are well aware, is a Swahili word for do not be silent. Absolutely. And OCQMS was founded by myself and my friend, my co-founder, Stella Kachina. When we started OCQMS, the idea behind it was to bring around the sensitization, the awareness about gender-based violence, what to do in case it happens to you and that kind of a scenario. So we started as a Facebook page to bring sensitization, because especially we started last year formally, we were doing it individually. But formally as a registered organization, we started last year. We felt that there was a need to talk to people, especially young girls, and women who are going through certain issues. Remember last year, there was a lot of women that died. Actually, on the count, had 139 women who died due to femicide, and femicide is being killed by your lover or husband or spouse here. So we felt there was a need to just talk to people and just bring across that love doesn't have to hurt, and you can always have an option of living instead of staying. So it started as a sensitization and awareness campaign. What you didn't know is that it would grow to become an organization that rescues women, houses, victims, I mean, survivors of domestic as well as sexual violence, as well as actually do rescues and rehoming. That's actually an amazing initiative there. I would like to find out from a personal level, have you engaged or have you been in a situation whereby you've been exposed to violence that rooted to you wanting to speak out for the violated people in society? They say one in every three women in this country will go through as some sort of GBV, that's an acronym for it. And yes, in my past, yes, I have been. What was your experience like? Do you mind sharing that? What was my experience like? I was married pretty young. We had no business, both of us getting married to each other. We were both young. I was much, much younger. And yeah, as it is prone to be when, you know, you were not ready to get married or you're not in a position where you should have gotten married, there was a lot of domestic violence. All right. Yeah. What would you say that's looking back right now, would you identify the couple of red flags that she saw in this particular part of yours at that particular time? Let me say this. If somebody hits you the first time, run, sister, run. Don't even look back. There is no changing these people. The idea that I stayed because I thought, ah, you know, it isn't so bad. It's not like as bad as other people, you know, it's maybe once every three months, maybe once a year. But let me tell you, it culminated in me losing part of my hearing. So yeah, so they don't change. They may change for a season. So the first red flag is the minute even raises his hand. That is the minute you should work. Don't wait for what is eventually going to come. If you can't take your things, I'll take your baby and just run. Did you feel like you lost a part of you and that you had to recover? And how long did you take you and what was the process that you went to just find yourself? Healing is a gradual, it's gradual. You would think you're healed. I mean, it's been over 10 years and I often think I'm healed. And then I'm often times I'm really, really hungry and yes, I've gone through therapy and I've gone through the healing process in order for me to be able to actually help other women. Of course, I've had to work on myself and work on my anger issues. I mean, eventually even got married. So that should tell you a lot of the process that I went through, but it's a gradual process and you should give yourself time. Just like your mourning, you know, divorce and separation is equivalent to almost losing somebody. The only difference is that this person may occasionally pop up in your radar. You may actually see them and you may actually even have a child with them. So there's that constant reminder. Yes, exactly. All right. So let's take it back to when it comes to the family side aspect of it whereby people just get into relationships for probably the wrong reasons because, you know, if you fell in love and all that, then maybe you were involved with a manipulative person, a narcissist and actually don't know all these red flags that are coming or popping up. So what would be your advice for, you know, these young people will get into early relationships? The thing with these people is that you don't know. You know, when you're getting into a relationship, it's colored, you know, you're coming in with expectations. You're coming in thinking it's going to be rosy. One of the things that you should look out, there are different forms of abuse. There's emotional abuse. It doesn't always have to be about just being physical abuse. There's emotional abuse. There's financial abuse. When you're getting into this relationship, look, is it a healthy functional relationship? What boundaries do I have? Does this person allow me to be myself in this relationship? Because in a relationship, if I'm outspoken and all of a sudden your friends are telling you, why do you, what happened to you? Why are you shrinking? Why are you changing? A relationship should be about you flowering. You've ever seen how a flower looks like. You know, it's a bud and it's closed up. And if this relationship isn't opening you up and being, you being the person that you're meant to be, then are you really in the right relationship? That should be one of the red flags. Does this person tell you, this is what you're going to do? This is how you're going to dress? This is what you're going to, this is the place you're going to be? This incessant phone calls. Somebody's always checking up on you. At first it sounds like love, like, oh my God, my girl loves me so much. No? Check. Does it really love you or is it monitoring your movement? What do they say that's men are possessive and it's just a way of just... No, we need to stop that conversation of men are, men are not. This person is, stop saying men are, you know that gives people the excuse to get away with things because we put it in a certain way that men are, men are not. This is a person, this is an individual and an individual level is doing this. Don't use this as an excuse to let him get away with manipulating you or taking control of your life. And then there's another angle, whereby you involve the person and they put you in a pedestal and then moment later you are not as good as they think you were, then they dismiss you. Now that is a problem, I'm not good, I don't want to be adored because like every other human I have an Achilles heel and I'm bound to fail, what happens if I fail? Then when you fail and you fall down and you realize I'm just human, what happens? It's in that way and you become vulnerable and then you start beating me, yeah. So how does inequality lead to gender based violence? Let's look at it this way, actually that is the main course of GPV. If, let's say for example you are the person, say in this example a man is the basic provider of everything, that means he has the keys to everything that I need, also in terms of just look at how inequality works, we live in obviously an equal world, right? And if I cannot be able to provide for my kids and provide for myself and I'm stuck with somebody because this person provides for me, not because we love each other, not because there is anything left, this person decides I am a burden. What happens to you? You probably feel like you need to stay because there's no way out. That's it. You lose your own humanity, you lose your own person because you need to be with this person for things that you cannot be able to provide for yourself. If let's say you give everybody an equal platform, that even if today I walk out or the man walks out and I walk out, I can still be able to take care of myself the same way even if no other person was there. Girls need to be given a platform to be able to be the people they need to be. Alright. Whatever mindset should then be changed in terms of the kind of union that we have that if I'm getting married then you know I can forego whatever I was interested in, my interest probably was working. First of all, as society, we need to stop looking at marriage as though it's an achievement. Okay. It's not an achievement. Is this something that happens? Like you are friends, you are not friends. It is not the end of life or the beginning of life. Marriage is just what it is. It's a good thing if it is healthy and functional. Because I get it that the fact that society expects you at a particular age, you're supposed to graduate, get a job and then get married. Get children. Get children. Yes. You see, we need to stop normalizing the fact that not everybody wants children, not everybody looks at getting married as that is the ultimate thing. It's a good thing when it works. It's a beautiful thing. But what happens in this particular society where we don't have functional working marriages, a lot of them, what are we telling our children? We are telling our children that we are telling girls that the only thing that they need to aspire to is marriage. Tell your girls to aspire to be scientists. Tell your girls to aspire to go to space. Tell them they can be mechanics. Tell them they can be anything that they choose to be, including being a wife if that is the ultimate goal. But tell them that there is more to life than getting married and being a baby-making machine. Yeah? There is more to it. There is more to it. Can come and be like you, a newscaster, can be like me, an activist. There's so many things a girl can aspire to be and change the world while at it. But if the only thing somebody is doing is, let me finish school, hara-kara-kara, and I get and I go ahead and get married. And then what happens if that marriage fails? Where does that leave that person? But if this person has something else that they have set aside to be and long to be married just comes to just compliment and supplement their existence, not become their whole, you know, everything that they are. All right. Allow me to take you back on the aspect of healing, right? During the time where COVID was just hitting us in the country, then there was the lockdown. Most people got locked down with different people because when we talk about GDP, it could be from even our family members, it could be from partners, it could be from friends, right? And you experience a sort of balance from the type of DBV that you mentioned, verbal, physical. Then what comes of healing? What is the process of healing looking like? First of all, with COVID, COVID brought a lot of cracks that are actually in society, in marriages, at homes, in everywhere. It means we actually, as I said, functional, functional working families, with it, it brought a lot of cracks in relationships. So therefore, to mend these cracks where you're already angry, let's say again, in an equal society, you're frustrated, you have no job, there's no money coming in, therefore you're prone to maybe violence, whichever verbal, whatever violence that is there. Then obviously you hit this person, or in case it's a child, happens at a lot of child during this season, we're also molested. The healing process now for these people depends on individual to individual, as I keep on saying all the time, we need therapy as a nation. We need a lot of therapy. Healing has to come with a self-realization and actualization that I am not okay. I need to start working on my inner person. You ever meet people who are just angry and you're wondering what is the problem You know, it's a small thing and it becomes, and this person, if you actually look at them, they still have a lot of process that they need to work on their inner self. Because they were hurt, maybe as a child, maybe as an adult, you don't know. But most of these people who have been in violent situation, you'll find, for example, this person comes from a violent background, maybe they saw their mother being beaten, they grew up not understanding what was happening. And then, even as a person now, this person becomes equally violent. Let's look, let's go back to the Destiny Rescue Center, right? Let's look at the kind of activities that you guys do at U.S. Kimia, that actually promote the fact that GBV is not actually allowed. What are a couple of activities that you actually out there and doing as an organization? One of the things that as an organization is run at home, it's a halfway home. It's not like a children's home or anything, we are a halfway home for women and children who have been through GBV. So for us, it's women who come into the home with their children. They are maybe escaping the domestic situation at home. So they come in, we have counseling, we have therapy. For the kids, we have music therapy, we have art therapy, we have play therapy. They also, every morning, 9 to 12, they have regular classes where they can just learn English and masters to keep their minds occupied, not think about the things that went on at home. We also have yoga and meditative walks. Okay, that's very interesting. Because I've heard you mention a couple of arts for the children. So how do you penetrate to the children? Because it's different from an adult. An adult will just pick up their hat and they'll tell you what they've been going through. But how do you penetrate to the children to get them to get what they've been going through? With children, it becomes easier when you use things like art. And you just give a kid a paper and crayons and you help them to just color their world. And from there, the counselor can actually look at what they are coloring. The darker it is, that's how you learn. Depending on what the kid is coloring, how they are viewing their world. If they're drawing into dark lines, you know, dark colors, blacks, dark blues, dark browns, then you know that their world is not bright. A child whose world is okay will tend to gravitate towards brighter colors. But a child who gravitates toward darkness means their views have been colored by what they have seen. All right, and how do you get to run the organization in terms of finances? We are self-funded. We have an M Changa number that Kenyans normally give to us, especially on Facebook. That's where people know us from. So we normally people donate to us without. All right, you could just mention the Facebook page so that people can... Our page is called Usikimiya. Usikimiya. Yeah, both on Facebook and on Twitter. All right, on Instagram? Yes, we also have Instagram, Usikimiya. We're just not as active. All through, yeah. Very quite simple that people can easily access. All right, so let's talk about the safety of the survivors and also how can people reach out if they have an emergency. What do you mean the safety? The safety of the survivors in terms of where they are. Is this like a place where the measures that you've taken so that they... They can feel safe. Exactly. Again, as I said, our half-way house is a safe house. It's actually considered as a safe house. Because it actually asks you the location you're like... No, we don't give you the location. We actually come and pick you up if you need to be admitted to the safe house. One of the things is you need to have an OB from the police so that it is not that you are missing. We had a very big issue last week so that you're not considered as a missing person. We recommend that you actually... No, actually, one of the conditions is you need to have an OB from the police where you have stated your case and you have reported that you are a survivor of domestic violence or sexual violence. And if you've gone to hospital, we require documents. Most of the times, the women we have and the children have gone through either of these. And we participated in taking... Actually, from here, I'm actually going to pick someone. We go to hospital and then report the matter. And then now we take them into our home. All right. How often do you get the calls? Many, many times. Let's give it an approximate, like, in a period of a month. Ah, let me just give you in a period of a day. Okay. Let's forget about a month. I get between 10 to 15 calls a day. In a day? Wow, it's a lot. It's a lot. Some could be just wanting advice, counseling, or they need to go to hospital. All right. Before we even look at the government and what the government has done in order to rescue the survivors, the victims, that is, in that aspect of GBV. Let's go back to, on a personal level, what can we do to just prevent and bring out the spoken awareness that is in GBV? We need to stop hiding. We need to stop hiding these issues. You know your friend is getting hit. You know that you're getting hit. And we keep on covering it up. I know so many people, myself included, that used to say we've been hit by a door or I fell down the stairs or this and this thing. Reach out to someone. There's help out here. Reach out. I mean, that's very important. Stop hiding, stop covering it up, stop, you know. Tell someone what you're going through. Why is there shame in violence? And you are actually the victim. Yeah. Why is the... That feeling that you are the victim. Yes, that's what we're trying to break. It's the taboo of silence that surrounds GBV. Because it's always made... This is one of those things in life that you are the person who's been perpetrated upon, but you're the person who's always made to feel like it's your fault. Because with normal, you know, it's not working. Must be your fault. Why were you being beaten? You see every person say, when you're in Chapa, why was she hit? She must have done something. No. Even if a thief comes and drops you of your necklace, what did you do to make the thief come and grab it? You did nothing. But somehow when it comes to issues of GBV or even rape, would there be people asking, what was she wearing? Why was she passing in a dark place? We need to stop. It's called victim blaming. And we are very good at it. Because as you said, when you began, you say that GBV is a widely accepted crime. It's a socially accepted ill. We are okay. I mean, see, we always cover it, especially here. We always say, two people that cover themselves in unblanket. I wouldn't be involved. You cannot be involved. If people hide, you get shamed. Because they also forget there's something called trauma bonding where you're, you know, this is your husband. This is somebody you've been intimate with. Somebody you have children. It's not just easy at all. You just pick your bag and go. You probably pick your bag, he'll come, he'll talk to you. He knows you. He knows you suit your soft spots and he'll come back. And then people get mad at you for going back. They forget this is a process. I will remove you. I'll even take you to a shelter. I will stay with you for the three months. You'll go through the mandated counseling and there's a chance that you'll still go back to your abuser because you are intimately tied together. I watched an interview with Rihanna when the time she was physically violated. And she said it took her seven times before she left. Yes. It's approximately the correct number of times before you have to leave. Seven good times. Yes. Wow. It's a lot. It's a lot. But again, as I said, this is why it's called intimate partner violence. Not just domestic abuse. It's intimate partner violence. It's somebody you are intimate with. Somebody you know, you love, you have a bond with. You've bonded with this person. So it's not easy. It's not like a job that I can resign. We'll go start over all over again. Exactly. This is somebody that you leave and then you regret immediately. You're like, wow, I've done the wrong mistake. This person knows you. Knows your deepest, darkest secrets. Knows your innermost person. Your weak points. Yeah, weak points. He knows how to talk you into coming back. And then, of course, there's a societal expectation. You're supposed to be married, or you're supposed to be in a relationship, or whatever. Or he also, this person also looks like I'm a good man. Or he also looks like I'm a good woman, in case of where these things happen. And nobody really, really, people are like, what are you talking about? Hi, but Nani is such a good provider. And so on and so forth. So there's always a society pressure. All right. So how can you guys find your own social media again? And also the emergency number they can call? Our number is 0718-158-400. That's simple. OK, probably. Please repeat that number again. 0718-158-400. All right, thank you very much. And Jeremy, co-founder and executive director of OCCIM. Thank you for creating time to be with us today. No problem. You're welcome. All right, so guys, that is the conversation on GBP. Make sure don't keep silent. There's not any form of embarrassment when it comes to violence. Pick out and make sure you look out for yourself and your loved ones. So we'll be right back on more on why in the morning. So make sure you stay tuned.