I do not feel safe in Namibia

Life as a woman living in Namibia is becoming increasingly dangerous. I am constantly confronted with headlines of how women and children are raped and killed in this country. It requires so much to leave our houses and it is such a huge bl e ss i ng to make it back home in one piece. Take a minute to imagine living as a Namibian woman. Imagine reading a headline about how yet another woman died at the hands of a man. Imagine reading a headline of yet another child that was raped by her father. Just take a minute to imagine how frightened Namibian women are. We are no longer safe inside our homes nor outside of our homes, so where must we go? The degradation of the Namibian society is showing us what happens when there is an interplay between patriarchy and outdated cultural belief systems. You constantly hear about how it has become common practice for fathers to rape their daughters and how woman need to be disciplined. These problematic beliefs are based in African culture and perpetuated by patriarchy, but Namibians are not ready to unpack and have honest conversations about this. As Namibian women, we are living in constant fear for our safety and we are starting to lose confidence in society at large. The fact that headlines about women and children being raped, killed and kidnapped have become a daily occur rence is disturbing, to say the least. My question is how manymorewomen are going to be killed before we spring into action? How many more children are going to be raped before we start to ask difficult questions about how this is becoming common practice? When we question Namibian men about this, they brush us off and invalidate our fears. Sadly, it has become glaringly obvious that women and children are in danger in this country and that we are fighting this alone. All I want to know is, who else needs to die, get raped, get beaten or kidnapped before the Namibian nation starts to take the plight of women and children seriously?