By Aisha Yesufu
Violence is not gender based, it is power based and the moment we get to understand this we would be set in ensuring those who have been made vulnerable today and seen as victimes are removed from that level of vulnerability. We must be deliberate in ensuring that no one gender is viewed as weak and made to become automatic victim. Let us look at the girl child, how well have we protected her from birth or even before birth? How well have we ensured that she was simply a child and not girl child? How well have we ensured we have not made her feel inadequate because of the gender she was born into? How have we ensured that she is seen as one with rights in her house and not as one to be tolerated? These might seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things but indeed this is where it all started. It started from the homes where the girl child was expected to have different set of rules than that of the boy child. This is where many were unknowingly labelled with the tag of victimhood that have followed them for life and ensured that they are constantly at the receiving end of violence.
This years theme “Orange the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect!” puts the mandate on us all to take action and ensure we stop this violence meted out on those who have been set up to be victims even by those who were meant to protect them. What we have done over centuries of conditioning is to make some see themselves and be seen as victims. There has to be equity in families and amongst children. There has to be equality and respect. Everyone must be conditioned to know they are as important as anyone just as anyone is as important as they are. In that way there is no one handed the victim label and expected to accept it with humility.
Before we orange the world, we have to first of all orange our homes. We have to ensure we have homes where no one person is made to be vulnerable, or a victim. Let us again look at the girl child who grows up having violence meted on her from her childhood. It is seen as normal for her brother to beat her whether older or younger. It is seen as okay for her to be the one to stay back and do the chores in the house while her brothers were free to go do other things that they wanted to do. She was made to be seen as less than human and one anything can be done to and this conditioning has followed her into adulthood. When we all begin to Orange our homes and create spaces where violence on anyone is seen as an aberration and not to be condoned it will spill over the world and the orange will have the opportunity to shine gloriously.
The darkness from the homes where there has been years of dark institutionalised abuse is overshadowing the orange that is bursting to be set free.
We all have to fund respond, prevent collect. We have to ensure that there is same access to opportunities. We have to ensure no child is left behind so we do not have adults who are seen as victims and made to be at the receiving end of violence.
Educational and economic powers are key to ensuring no gender is seen as one on whom violence can be unleashed on with impunity. We must ensure that access to education and opportunity is made available to all. We must ensure that there is level playing feed for all so that a vulnerable group is not brutalised by another because of the power imbalance.
A simple illustration of the violence that arise from power imbalance is in the repeated and often ignored violence meted out on young domestic workers who are often minors. We have watched with horrows as these little children have been brutalised in the most horrific manners by their employers who are sometimes even relatives. These horrific acts of violence are perpetrated by women who more often are the ones at the receiving end of violence and this more than anything tells us that violence is not really gender based but power based and a distorted power system with no repercussions for bad behaviour leads to impunity of unrestrained violence.
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Aisha Yesufu is a Nigerian Activists
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