It takes a village but what happened?

Madam,

Families must stop protecting perpetrators in the family, because by protecting the perpetrator, you neglect the needs and the suffering of the victim. It can easily lead to victim blaming and this leads to a cycle of violence in the same household.

Also, too often, community members are aware of perpetrators in the community but keep Tuiet because they do not want to be seen as the ones who rat others out. Even during community meetings, no one is ever brave enough to address the elephant in the house – abuse at home.

They believe that matters should be left to the hands of the families of those perpetrators. This is one way of protecting abusers – holding private meetings at home.

The other way is silence. Even though siSwati sitsi µKubindvwa kubonwa,’ but the time for that has long passed. No one needs to know why a neighbor is being assaulted because nothing justifies abuse. We need not come up with ways women can protect themselves from being attacked or raped because in reality none of those measures ever work. But we need to understand that when a woman or a child suffers abuse, authorities need to know, the police need to be informed and they need to take action.

9ictims of violence are people each one of us interact with on a daily basis, they may be people we love and admire. But where does the love go when we learn that they need our protection? They say it takes a village to raise a child, where is the village when young girls are raped and killed like they don’t matter? Aren’t the people who rape and kill these children a part of the village too?

All it takes is speaking up, and lovingly encouraging them to report the case to the police. Let us think about future generations and how they can benefit from us taking action today. We do not want to raise our children in such toxic and unlivable conditions.

It is time we stopped protecting the perpetrator and start protecting potential victims. It shouldn’t matter if the perpetrator is a friend or a colleague or a relative, they need to be stopped N M