Violence of any kind does not only dehumanise both the perpetrator and the victim, but also has extremely adverse effects on many other aspects of the victim’s being. Any form of violence, apart from the dangers it poses to the victim’s physical health – sometimes even fatal - especially when perpetual, also has hugely detrimental effects on the psychological health of the victim.
There is one form of violence that is wrecking havoc, with a viciously firm grip on the planet, gender based violence. The United Nations defines gender based violence as any form of violence that targets individuals or groups of people on the basis of their gender. It further points out that gender violence includes such sadistic acts as rape, psychological abuse, sexual slavery, forced impregnation, prenatal sex selection, female infanticide, differential access to food, health care and education as well as genital cutting, incest, sexual abuse, child and forced prostitution and economically coerced sex.
It is common knowledge that the majority of the victims of gender based violence era girls and women by the mere curse of their birth.
Unfortunately, it is women who are the backbone to the development of any community, be it the family, village or country. It is for this reason that the world at large, through numerous declarations by governments, has agreed that gender - based violence, which is mostly relatively continuous for the victims as it is perpetuated mostly by people they are frequently in contact with, is detrimental to development. Victims of gender based violence are mostly at a health risk, often rendered incapable of effectively engaging in activities to advance themselves, their families or communities and consequently, their countries.
The case for the complete elimination of this barbaric behaviour cannot be overemphasised. Governments have harnessed multi - sectoral approaches to ending gender based violence in increasing awareness of its existence and ensuring that the health, education and criminal justice systems take the problem seriously.
The problem solving process always has to start with identifying the root cause of the problem. Gender based violence is deeply rooted in gender imbalances, which in turn affect the way the two sexes relate with each other. Violence against women or girls has more to do with men’s or boys’ attitudes towards women or girls and vice versa than anything else. Central to the problem is the social orientation in our societies of children in gender relations.
The prevailing attitudes on gender relations, which have the female gender mostly playing second fiddle to males in our cultures, are developed in a person’s mind from as early as two years of age, as the child observe and subconsciously learns from the world around it how the two sexes relate or rather have to relate.
These attitudes shaping our behaviour towards each other as boys, girls, men and women are in a large part formed with the help of the society’s perceptions of gender relations. As deplorable as it is, the world’s cultures in one way or the other contribute to the existence and subsequent prevalence of gender based violence by, in more ways than one, enforcing the perception that women are inferior to men. Almost everybody in society who has an influence on these children’s development in any way at any point of the children’s development, be it parents, leaders and even teachers are equally to blame.
For instance, in academic circles, despite stressing that every human being is an individual, girls or women are described and consequently expected to be sentimental, feeble, passive and talkative where as boys are described to be complete opposites of what the girl or women are. These for example are some of the gender perceptions that welcome us into the world straight from birth. The child is observing how women are treated by men and how the women react to this type of treatment all along believing that a woman is inferior to a man, cannot and does not have to do better than a man and that domestic abuse is part of married life for a woman where she just has to persevere, suffering in silence and not speak out if she respects herself, husband and family.
Why does it not bother us that much to hear a parent whose son has come second to a girl in class, as a way of motivating him to do better next time telling the child to never let a girl beat him again or to hear even a teacher, telling male students they do not deserve to be called boys if they perform worse than girls? Rarely will you see or hear people trying to correct that. As such, the boys are inevitably growing with relatively less respect for girls or men, as they have for themselves and their fellow males, treating girls or women with little or no dignity at all in their entire lives. On the contrary, with this type of orientation girls or women are having relatively much more respect for boys or men than they have for themselves or their fellow girls or women.
Why is it uncommon to hear of men in the workplace sexually harassing their female juniors in exchange for favours but it is rare to hear of a female boss doing the same to male juniors? Why does a well educated and equally if not much more affluent than her husband, apart from wallowing in tears, do little if anything when she hears of or even catches her husband cheating on her, yet it is a totally different story when it is the other way round? Even the society’s condemnation in this situation is always different; the woman is severely ridiculed even by her fellow women if she is the one guilty unlike when it is the husband.
With this all these occurrences around us, why then do we wonder when women are not demanding to use protection when having sex with their partners - risking their lives, cannot lobby for more resources for their children’s education in their family or are failing to speak up against violence they are suffering at the very hands f the people they are supposed to trust?
If in our upbringing we were to be learning that apart from the physical differences that exist between the two sexes, we are equal in all the other aspects, would it be difficult for a well to do husband married to a poor woman to treat her with respect and dignity?
The biggest lesson of all in gender relations as we grow up is that a man is and always has to be superior to a woman and when it is otherwise, it is a serious crime. This is what men or boys, women or girls alike, are learning to be the definitions of masculinity and femininity, creating more breeding ground for even much more pervasive relations between the two genders. Gender inequality being a cultural problem, where boys and girls start learn about the distorted way they have relate to each other from a very tender age and grow with these perceptions and attitudes being reshaped and refined until they die, it is clear the fight against gender based violence is no mean fit.
Much as the world agree that education can play a decisive role in dealing with gender based violence, not much is being done to utilise this opportunity. Perceptions one holds or attitudes he she learns from a very tender age, having them being reshaped and refined throughout his or her life, are not easy for anybody to change. This is why for a country to build a good nation it has to start teaching its people the attitudes, skills and knowledge it needs the nation to have, when they are as young as possible. For this reason, the world at large cannot afford to overlook the role formal education can play in helping eradicate gender based violence. It is more than apparent that gender based violence is much more of a behavioural problem than anything else and there is no more effective way of changing bad behaviour or instilling desirable behaviour in a nation than through formal education.
If the fight has to be expedited and eventually won the educational intervention should not only be in the students extracurricular activities, in the form of empowering girls in the school, and making sure that text books no longer use those terms or descriptions of people that are gender insensitive or just making sure that male socialisation does not steer boys away from intellectual pursuits, it has to be more than that. It is high time, gender inequality and gender based violence was taken into the classroom if those attitudes and perceptions on gender relations persistent in our society and fuelling violence against women are to be changed.
As the children learn about the truth on gender relations, get out of the classroom and preach the same, believing and living the same as they grow, the whole world will learn the same that men and women are equal save for the biological and physical different which exists and have to be used in complimenting each other’s efforts in bettering their families, their surroundings and ultimately their nation.
It is only through formal education that women will learn to stand up and speak out against any injustice they may suffer at the hands of their male counterparts and men will learn that their physical prowess is there to protect their women with whom there are equal in all the other aspects and deserve to be treated with the same respect and dignity they expect from the women with which the men treat their male counterparts.
It is only through formal education that gender inequity will be shown the door, ushering in gender equality among the two sexes thereby ending gender equality and most significantly will gender based violence be dealt with decisively creating a conducive environment for development.
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