Otula Owuor
16 July 2007
opinion
Nairobi — If Africa had the courage and capacity to arrest and try all those who have killed, raped and maimed the daughters and mothers of the continent, huge concentration camps would be required in at least 20 countries stretching from Cape Town to Cairo and Dakar to Djibouti.
The worst-hit nations are those associated with internal and cross-border conflicts. They include Chad, Central African Republic, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia where animosities run deep despite a common language and religion.
Then there are those, like South Africa and Kenya, where rape is a major component of violent crime. Indeed, at the end of April, national and international media quoted South Africa's President Thambo Mbeki pleading with the public to expose those who rape and abuse women and children.
In Kenya, data from Nairobi Women's Hospital indicate that it handles about 18 rape cases, including babies, daily. Still, women and children are targeted, killed and maimed in the merciless politico-religious conflicts between governments and militants in North African States such as Algeria.
In West Africa, gang rape became illegal in Liberia in December, 2006. It is a glimpse into the hell in which women and girls lived during the country's internal war. Africa's ability to tame killers and rapists remains minimal. And this evidence is there for all to see - groups such as Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, rebels in the DRC and Janjaweed squads in blood-soaked Darfur region of Sudan are finally being lured to negotiate after failed military operations.
Despite horrifying tales of mass murder and rape, some rebel leaders defy extradition requests by the International Criminal Court. Apparently, governments fear such moves could stop delicate negotiations. Apart from ineffective military operations, some states are also headed by leaders with a bloody past.
However, the cruelty of the male species are not exclusively African, at least according to Prof Joseph Karanja, a leading gynaecologist and lecturer at the University of Nairobi's Medical School.
"Contrary to what many may assume, rape and killing of women and children is not part of African culture. In the traditional society, warriors never targeted, maimed, killed or raped women and children," Karanja told a recent East Africa media workshop on violence, women and reproductive health organised in Nairobi by the Population Reference Bureau of the US.
According to Karanja, management of survivors of sexual violence nowadays includes surgery to repair ruptured birth canals and rectums, provision of appropriate anti-retrovirals and other drugs against sexually transmitted diseases. Patients are counselled and doctors gather basic technical evidence that courts of law routinely require.
However, poorly trained combatants, including adolescents, roam Africa's forests and arid regions with an outdated military doctrine of war, wine and women. The evil extends to some UN peacekeepers who have been accused of sexually abusing Congolese girls.
In Europe, the violent breakdown of Yugoslavia included raping the enemy's daughters, wives and mothers. In Kenya, fingers are also pointed at some of the security personnel hunting for rebels in the fertile Mt Elgon region where conflicts over land ownership and endless livestock rustling include rape.
A leading gender activist and MP, Ms Njoki Ndung'u, who was declared the UN Person of the Year for initiating the 2006 Sexual Offences Act, says violence is on the rise because of moral degradation in society.
Apart from criminal activities and evils in conflict zones, violence and other threats to women's reproductive health, including early sexual activities, get even more complex when it comes to domestic violence.
Declining economic fortunes resulting in men's dependence on their spouses exacerbates the violence women are subjected to and it gets worse with the belief that men must instill a sense of discipline, says Dr Mary Amuyunzu, a medical anthropologist in Nairobi.
However, attitudes, including myths and superstitions that result in forced female genital cuts targeting mothers aged 45, will not just vanish overnight.
Overcrowding and small room sizes in slums can be linked to socialisation of children into early sexual activity especially for females, says Amuyunzu. Apart from serious injuries, there are sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, that are directly linked to violence against women.
HIV infection rate reaches at least 13 per cent among women and nine per cent among men, according to the Ministry of Health's statistics. Amuyunzu teamed up with Botswana's Minister for Health, Ms Sheila Tlou, and Ms Maggie Mbakaanyi, the Assistant minister for Education, in an online discussion focusing on 'Ending Impunity for Violence Against Women and Girls'. It was organised by the International Women's Media Foundation.
Lawyer Josephine Omwenga says police prosecutors are not given the tools to win rape and defilement cases and the cases are legal minefields. Crude outdated methods that require detection of semen hardly help when condoms are used. It gets worse when traumatised and terrified children are required to identify rapists. Often, judges claim that their hands are technically tied even when the truth seems obvious
Mr Kennedy Otina of the Men for Gender Equality says men do not want their sisters, daughters, mothers, grandmothers and wives to be raped, but this is nowhere in their minds when they perpetrate the barbarism on others.
The writer is the editor of ScienceAfrika.org
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