The ongoing pandemic no one speaks about
When will IT stop?
This enigma. I wake up to IT every morning. I read IT in my news feed while drinking my first cup of coffee. I listen to IT while I drive in the afternoon to fetch my daughter from school. I eat supper to IT while watching the evening news. IT never stops. There’s no respite. Headlines…tick, tick tick…
· Today: Missing 28-year-old woman found dead in Mpumalanga…
· Yesterday: Teen kills mother for telling him to go smoke outside…
· Days ago: A man dating her mother, slit her (the daughter) throat at her home…
· A week ago: Three children woke up to the grim discovery of their 38-year-old mother lying dead in her pool of blood…
· Some weeks ago: A man rapes the mother of his child, stabs her…
We’re talking about the war in Ukraine. Sixty something days now. Don’t get me wrong. Innocent people, many of them probably children, are dying so of course there is a big problem but the war no one seems to find alarming anymore, the one where we simple skip to the next story, is the war instituted on women. Females, to be exact. All the time, at least for the past two years, we’ve been obsessed about the pandemic that would change life as we know it. We’re still here yet the question remains. What about the pandemic that is affecting a very integral part of our society? I don’t claim to speak for the whole world but from the stats (according to UN Women), it is clear that this, IT, is a poison that is slowly eating into the very fabric of who we claim to be as the people. Of who we seek to be. Statistics…tick, tick, tick…
· Globally, an estimated 736 million women — almost one in three — have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life (30 per cent of women aged 15 and older).
· Most violence against women is perpetrated by current or former husbands or intimate partners. More than 640 million women aged 15 and older have been subjected to intimate partner violence (26 per cent of women aged 15 and older).
· Globally 81,000 women and girls were killed in 2020, around 47,000 of them (58 per cent) died at the hands of an intimate partner or a family member, which equals to a woman or girl being killed every 11 minutes in their home.
Despite these numbers, many people still ask, why is violence against females such a subject of focus when more men and boys than women and girls suffer violence. The answer is simple. Violence perpetuated against females is different. Very specific. It’s never a simple act of one-party punching another with the same strength to make a point, it is a statement on its own. A declaration of the control and power men believe they have a right to hold against women. We’re talking about intimate partners, family members, in some cases unknown men but all with the same belief that the woman must be subjugated and therefore kept in line. It’s actually sad to think of. The very people; fathers, husbands, brothers, sons, uncles, boyfriends, who are meant to love and protect are the same ones discharging the harm.
We talk about IT sometimes. We create special days to observe IT. We even have organisations in place to deal with IT yet, it still remains. Maybe because it is not only global but very personal too. Ingrained into our cultures, our values and our own households. No matter the specifics and reasons, two things are clear. First, the effects are long-lasting. Disruptive. Leave destruction in their wake and change lives forever. Worse than most pandemics. Second, something’s got to give. Really give. You see, where the world understands and acknowledges the pain of physical death, it is indifferent and none the wiser to the death of something inside, of a belief, a dream, hope and trust that women suffer after being dealt with this blow. It doesn’t get to appreciate the pain, dark and sinister, that worms its way and shapes what becomes our future. Humbly, the next time a man decides the only way to display his power and control is to violate a female, I dare him to consider the reverberation of his actions through time. To choose love. Always.
