by Munyale Kwabe
So recently, there have been a lot of talks surrounding domestic violence and I think it’s my civil right and duty to talk about domestic violence as much and frequent as I can. I know most of us have seen what is going on Twitter but just for the sake of those that are unaware I would explain. There was a case of domestic violence between a guy and his girlfriend and she narrated the whole event in her.
Now she didn’t originally share this story but apparently the guy who was her boyfriend took it to Twitter to tell his side of the story. Then came the comment from a tweep (Twitter handler), saying that in cases of domestic violence, we should always as “What did she do?” Meaning, what did the girl do deserve the beating.
In other words there are some behaviors that warrant beating and if the girl warranted the beatings then its ok. No. Hell no. I can’t still believe that in 2019 we have to address issues like this. I can’t still believe that with globalization and self-awareness we are still putting conditions for domestic violence.
This caused so many outrage and responses that if I am being totally honest, made me throw up a little. People justifying domestic violence around the world with culture and religion. Someone went as far as to say that ‘women need to be taught how to behave sometimes’. Really??? Then who is in charge of beating men who don’t behave well???
I always tell people that when the subject of sexual or domestic violence comes up the foremost issue in discussions is that people are always tying them to religion or culture. These are social issues and should be addressed as such. Take for instance armed robbery. You cant ask the victim of an armed robbery “why were you there?” or “what did you do to the robbers?”. So why should the case of domestic violence be any different? We all get angry and we all get upset. That doesn’t give us the right to beat anyone we see or the person we are frustrated with. Beating someone is also known as Assault, which is a crime. So this is what you need to know about domestic violence:
- You can always walk away from tensed situations.
- You don’t need to hit or beat people to get your way.
- Try not to give abusers more room to abuse you.
- We are all flawed humans and no one holds the trident to what is right and wrong. So don’t let anyone convince you that they hit you because you were wrong.
- Remember, if someone claims to love you, your wellbeing should be his or her top priority. So when he/she hits you, they don’t love you.
Another major problem is that when we try to address issues with women, we first see them in their gender and not as humans. You forget that this is someone’s daughter, sister, wife, mother etc. It’s so easy to put her in context and say ‘women are just like that’, when addressing her flaws.
We need to rise as a society to speak against domestic violence because one day, you might be the one needing the voice of the people.
Say No To Domestic Violence.
Photocred: VideoBlocks
