Day 5 16days Activism against Gender-Based Violence

By Rosaline Akah Obah 

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a pervasive and global violation of human rights where this crime is often hidden because of the disgrace, dishonour, and shame perpetrated upon the victim. Women remain silent and decide not to report this crime because the perpetrator is often their domestic partner.

Many women and girls who are raped are forced to leave home, because of the perceived shame for their families. Displaced, without support networks and with no access to protection or livelihoods, many are forced into prostitution.

Rose Akah Obah, anti GBV activist

Now here are some beliefs that we need to stamp out: justifying violence against women based on the notion that it is legitimate for a man to use violence against a woman; excuse violence by attributing it to external factors such as stress or proposing that men cannot be held fully responsible for violent behaviour for example, because of anger or sexual urges and also trivialise the impact of violence, based on the view that the impacts of violence are not serious or are not sufficiently serious to warrant action by women themselves.

In addition to these, community or public agencies minimise violence by denying its seriousness, denying that it occurs or denying that certain behaviours are indeed violence at all; and shifting blame for the violence from the perpetrator to the victim or hold women at least partially responsible for their victimisation or for preventing victimisation.

#StopGBV

#StopVAWG

#Women4Women

#SistersKeeper

#GIDICOM

#SilencedNoMore

#NeverAgain