 Why 254, imagine? Thank you for staying with us on why 254 news updates. And tonight our topic is beautifully broken and we are talking to Pauline Juma who is a rape and gender-based violence survivor. I'm also talking to Emma Karitu, a counselling psychologist. Thank you very much guys for really finding time to come and talk about this sensitive topic with us tonight. And starting with you Pauline, first of all my apologies for the ordeal that happened to you but as I can see right now with a smile on your face I can really call you a survivor. So would you share your story, a brief background on how the ordeal happened? I was only 16 years, a very naive girl in Form 3 and I had a best friend. She just had a baby when I was in Form 1 and she was in Form 2 and I didn't know I was just, I was just growing bitterness in her because I was the one helping her in everything after the mother chased her. So one day on October 11th she decided to organize a, I don't know if what she wanted was a gang rape, I don't know whether she just organized for her brother to teach me a lesson but yes it happened, I was gangraped with, one was the brother and three other men that I don't even know where they came from and it was a painful moment for me because I was just 16 and I was threatened not to speak out and just looking at this man one by one taking away my virginity, taking away my innocence, taking a shutting down all my dreams that was the worst moment of my life. Okay so after everything that happened, did you share with someone, did you open up to your parents, did you open up to a friend about what had happened to you with the intentions of getting help? First I would say they threatened me, they threatened me not to speak out and I couldn't even share it to my parents because I was trying to protect my parents and another thing speaking out for people is not easy because the society that I was living to this date even when I speak out to some people I am still a victim and they treat you as a victim, they try to make you feel that it is your mistake so speaking out for me at that time was not an option I spoke out to my father and I made sure my father couldn't tell anyone I just threatened my father that if you dare speak I am going to take my life away. Okay so for you I am not going to bring Emma into this whereby this is someone who has gone through a very ugly ordeal in their lives and they can speak about it in someone and they can get help from people who are going to share the pain with them but most people, most rape victims do not speak out we are also talking about gender based violence most victims do not speak out so the issue is now as a counselling psychologist how do we motivate these people or what strategies do we put or how do we deal with these people to motivate people to always find the need to speak out regardless of the stigmatization regardless of what is going to happen how do we push these people to be able to share their stories with the intention of them getting help Thank you so much Patricia it's a pleasure to be here once more and what my dear sister here experienced so sorry about that it's a very traumatizing experience actually it's post traumatic stress disorder and for most victims they find it so difficult to talk about it in fact I'm happy that she was able to do it because you have so many people living with that because they feel guilty some of the emotions that they go through that they feel guilty maybe I should have done something about it they start regretting but the number one thing that I would want to tell people is that it is not you to blame it is not you to blame it was just an incident but now people will start there's a lot of myths about rape some people will say it's because of the way you dress it is because of the way you present yourself but if you look at rape most of it is your gender based violence most of it is done by people who are very close to you people that you trust people that you don't expect to harm you so that is why majority higher percentage of the victims are abused by very close people so that is why I want to tell you that anybody out there who is a victim number one don't blame yourself number two you need to seek help because what happens when you are raped your mind sort of blocks and you can easily go into depression if you don't go into depression you can go into anxiety disorder which is not good for your health so if you don't talk about it you are blocking you are not able to get help so what is very important is to identify a person that you can trust I like the way she says that she trusted her father so we need to know in our circle in our family setup you hear somebody that I know if I tell Patricia this she is going to die with it and then of course now it is a role of the person you are confiding in to now talk to you that you need to get help because you see I don't know so it is important that even as much as you are getting somebody that you trust to talk about it is also good to seek therapy because you can say with it for so long and the way she says she was a virgin at only 16 years number one her brain is still developing number two this is her like a brother because it is her friends this is family and then number three she didn't expect that that would happen to her so it is a very traumatizing experience and somebody needs to talk about it so that you get it out of your system but it is also a loss I don't know if you can have a session on loss and grief but people think when it comes to loss it is only loss through death but now for victims of someone is taking away your innocence you are taking away your innocence you feel like you are damaged goods you feel so unworthy so worthless, so hopeless you cannot address it you can easily go into depression Pauline you have talked about that you shared you shared the story with your father most people after such an experience their perception once man is going to change their perception once man is going to to be affected if I would ask why did you choose to go to your father and talk to him about it her not your mother her dad is a girl so I from the time I was young my mother is this tough woman you will never see her breaking but my father was this man it was easy to see my father breaking and I knew very well if I tell my dad I just told him because I knew in one way or the other this man would tell him Pauline did this and this and I knew very well at one point I was going to break down I made sure he is not telling anyone because I just took I took the medical reports packed very well in my bag and left for school so the moment I told my father it was after I was given a suspension from school that is when I told my dad this and this is what happened to me and I don't want you to do anything about it because it is one month already no one is going to listen to me I knew very well no one is going to listen to me because even everyone at the school at that time had their own perception of what is wrong with Pauline they didn't know what was wrong with Pauline but everyone had their own perception and at that moment I just wanted it that way I just wanted people to believe what they wanted I know what is wrong with me I told my dad and that's all having gone through such a moment you've talked about being suspended from school you've talked about a point came whether that heavy revealed any information that you'll give him you're going to take away your life did you at any point during all this time attempt suicide I attempted suicide two times when I was in school during that moment around from October to November 22nd that is when I was suspended from school I attempted suicide two times and I just wanted to end it all being the first born of a family being in your community everyone is looking at you everyone had their own dreams for you this girl will be an engineer this girl will be a journalist this is the next star in our society and then all of a sudden you're breaking down you're failing your exams I just told myself this is the end of it all and I tried attempting suicide by hanging myself in the dormitory and the second one I tried to take a chemical from the laboratory and I think at that point the school was afraid okay so how do we because tonight we are trying to talk about how you were able to beat all these things so how did you overcome the depression what pushed you, what motivated you to be like it might have happened to me but I think it's time now that I pushed myself it is time that what gave you that strength to want to move on to want to become better regardless of what happened to you something so funny at this point I don't know what prevented me from committing suicide when I was 16 17 because at the age of 19 I went through worst GPV and you see it's just three years and through everything I have gone through I was picked up I didn't know I was going through depression it's now when I know whatever I was going through was depression but when I was young I didn't know because trust I just knew things are happening in my life and they are hard but whatever keeps me moving I think it's the hope that I've always had and it's my mother being that my mother is there and she's doing the worst kind of jobs for us to survive I always look up to her when I was young until when I was 22 when I started when I told myself I am going to start a foundation and a lot of people up to this point I don't know the reason why I started that foundation because a lot of people are saying I want to start a foundation just to make money I want to start a foundation maybe to use these girls but the reason, the deep inside where I started that foundation because I want to raise a 16 year old Pauline I want to raise I want to see in those children what my life I could want it to be We're going to talk more on the foundation but now let me bring Emma Emma now we're talking about she has to share a story about how she had suicidal thoughts but she managed to not commit suicide but now there are people living around rape survivors gender-based violence survivors or victims how do now these people around us get to identify our problem and know how to help us without dealing with it as a way that the victim or the survivor is going to feel attacked I like what Pauline did that's a kudos for you it's good to be without hope I think most people would be gone by now but the fact that she could push herself it's a compliment on her side so what happens with depression or rather people who goes through post traumatic or a traumatic experience there are those they normally withdraw so there are those symptoms of depression where somebody can withdraw so what I can tell the society if you know somebody but you know Patricia is a very vibrant girl then all of a sudden there is something wrong with her like the way she is saying no one is in school and she was going through so it's important that we work together to spread their awareness so that people are aware of certain experiences what are the likelihood what are the likelihood results number one is the psychological effects which now we've talked about depression she's talked about suicidal thoughts then there's also anxiety then there's also now withdrawal so you withdraw from everything that you used to enjoy doing so it's the responsibility of all of us to watch out on each other if I see Patricia lost interest in things they want to isolate they withdraw they want to be on their own they lose their appetite they don't want to dissociate they dissociate a lot so somebody isolates themselves a lot and just want to be alone they no longer are interested whether it's cool at that tender age that was so terrible because at that time you were so vulnerable because you were a young girl so it's a very traumatising experience so it is up to us to watch out on those symptoms and then after that we talk to the victims we tell them by the way you don't have to feel guilty about it because one of the what most of them do is self blame maybe I should not have been there maybe it is me to blame maybe I encouraged it that is the number one reaction that they have you know what it has happened but now how do we move forward and now we start telling them you can actually be a champion I'm a believer of nothing happens without a reason like now maybe I'm not saying that she was good you went through it not forbid but maybe now you will not be helping those many girls who are going through it and it is not only girls even boys are raped if you look at it it's mostly very close people and what I can talk to I want to talk now to the young college college school girls please for those dates they raped it actually I have like 3 clients I am working with writer on rape date because you think this guy is my friend we have gone up together in the same class but they tell you let's go out then they put a drug on your drink so what I would tell them also don't take any drink if you go to the washroom leave that drink or carry your drink to the washroom because you will come back you dragged the next thing you find yourself naked and something has happened to you so some people don't even know but like I had a client who said I just woke up in the morning and I saw what happened to me so you have to be very cautious I live in young men it's only that GBC mostly affects women but even boys even boys go through the same be very cautious on our environment on how we do stuff so that you are very cautious and then your instincts God has given us instincts you can feel some danger coming so when you listen to your instinct you can actually avoid it but if you are not able to avoid it it happens to you just be careful and seek for help Pauline when did you start speaking when did you start sharing your story when did you start sharing my story last year and what pushed you what is your intention as you put your story out there what intention do you have I believe a story is power to me by speaking out I just want to tell someone out there you can still come out of it and most of the times they speak out through writings and it's only a few people who really understand my writings and last year the doctors told me I am going through depression and they just told the doctors this is what I am going to do I am not going to take those depressants I know the source of my depression and I am going to write it out and every day I could wake up and just write a story about myself through a poem and the moment I write there is how I could let go because I was not brought up as a girl who just trusted people so much around me the fact that it is two incidents you are 16 this happens you are 19 you are going through GBV and then you are going back to society that is casting you because I could walk almost 100 meters and what I could hear is just people calling me names people just telling me how they are disappointed with me how I have let them down how I am not even I don't even feel ashamed I don't even take care of my mother you see all these things I really made me just like Akansla said I really know how to seclude myself from people and just writing it out and having these two three friends that really trust in me and they always read through the lines and call me that is what has really kept me maybe just to add Patricia what is very therapeutic because one of the things that we encourage people to do write when you write you are releasing those emotions so as much as she didn't see Akansla that writing on itself is therapy and then also the issue of there is something that she has mentioned there is something that she has mentioned about why is it skipping my mind when I remember I will come back to it but that writing is very very therapeutic when I remember the other point so now for you Pauline having gone through gender based violence you were in an abusive relationship and all these things happened to you at a very young age now I want us to talk about most people most women or men because men we don't only talk about women being abused we also have men who go through the same most people tend to stay in a relationship regardless of whatever that is going through regardless of what is happening there and still hope that one day things are going to change for you what motivated you what made you live when time came for you what made you live I was not just beaten one day and they decided to walk out I was in an abusive marriage for a relemic relationship for around one year because when I was six month pregnant this man squeezed my stomach to a point I started bleeding I was six months pregnant but I just went back and one day he is going to change because this is what happens with abusive people they don't really show you they are abusive they will first bring you close make you comfortable to a point that you will lose everyone around you and then they know when I am going to beat you up you are not going to tell Pauline because you in your mind you think Pauline is against my marriage and that is what happened to me and so the day I decided to walk out it was after I have gone through so much and my mother was my mother knew it all but my mother would just look at me and tell me one day when you are tired of falling from the stairs you will just come back and I am your mother I will accept you a lot of times especially women women don't walk out of a violent relationship because where will she go after that and the fact that the society we have this mind that sometimes we think of people so much and we forget about ourselves at that time I was only 19 just a form 4 dropouts I didn't have any certificate and I am telling myself the same society that wanted me to be a journalist I am going back to the society with a child and the society at first the society really judged me I have been judged so bad with my society so now Emma how do we now make these things kusna it's about creating awareness to society to make people understand that just because you thought marriage must work you don't have to stay for a marriage but you are risking everything about yourself just because you told that you cannot speak about because people are going to label you and hold those things how do we push this message out there and make people be open and willing to help people when such things happen to them number one very important thing we need to understand that a victim is not somebody who expected it to happen to them but what happens the society really stigmatizes especially in our African culture we really stigmatize but in the West they will talk about it so openly and then also in our culture we are pro marriage so if you are in an abusive relationship and you are thinking as she has said people worry so much about the external factors but imagine people don't worry about what people will say because at the end of the day people will talk during the day they will sleep at night so whether you do good or bad people still talk then your story will come so number one your safety first first I am addressing the victims number one is your safety if you feel this relationship is not good for my safety it is important that you do something like advocating divorce but I am looking at your safety is it really safe for you what are the consequences you can get a sexually transmitted disease you can get HIV you can get other there are so many over 100 types of sexually transmitted diseases you can lose your life and especially if you have children what happens to your children so when you start thinking of the consequences so I always said if you think of the consequences in an abusive relationship what are the consequences of staying on in this kind of relationship I am going to cut you short a little because time is not on our side and I really want Ema to give us just brief just tell us about Ego's modeling foundation why did you come up with this foundation Ego's modeling foundation just like I first said it was a therapy for me because I was introduced to modeling and modeling really assisted me and really pushed me behind just walking on that run we made me lose everything and in January 2018 I approached my two friends and told them this is what I want to do and I want to teach these girls the skill modeling is a skill and through modeling I teach children how to speak out, teach children how to understand their rights and to me I just wanted to see a child and when we grow we have a lot of dreams and a lot of times these children tell me I want to be a lawyer what happens to us when we are 20 years so our main dream is to just make these children dreams come a reality and the skill that we use is modeling just walking, cut walking and just throwing off everything and just learning how to speak out thank you very much guys for really finding time to talk about it and Pauline thank you very much for sharing your story I am sure that through your story someone out there is going to be motivated to rise up, to dust off and feel that you may have given me a reason or you may have put me down for a day but I can rise up again so thank you very much guys for really tuning in and listening to us tonight that is what we hand for you tonight my name is Patricia Moriokin do have yourself a very good night