Fighting rape of women ... an inspiring experience from Kenya

Farida Ahmed

The World Health Organization estimates revealed that one out of every three women in the world is subjected to physical or sexual abuse, and on the continent of Africa, nearly half of women experience physical or sexual abuse at least once in their lives.

These estimates are a dark future if not for a simple idea that has begun to spread and has already contributed to halving the proportion of rape crimes in eastern Africa.

A global crisis
Sexual abuse is widespread in Kenya, with a national survey conducted in 2010 in cooperation with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) that 32% of girls have experienced sexual violence before reaching adulthood.

This called on officials and those interested to think about organizing educational programs to educate and educate males about the concept of rape, how to defend women and their rights, while females receive lessons in martial arts and how to monitor dangers in East Africa.

These programs have contributed to reducing the proportion of rape crimes in half and preventing at least 200,000 attacks, and have proven effective with the intervention of 74% of males who were trained in Kenya to prevent assault crimes against women in the year following their training, according to Avaaz International. .

Women protection courses
Training sessions spread in most countries after sexual assault - including harassment - has become a common crime in many countries. The "Flip the Script" course - a training course to enable women to defend themselves by suddenly shifting the position in their favor - has been It was used for the first time in three Canadian universities, and is now widespread in most schools in America, and has reduced the incidence of rape by half.

A similar course from "No means no worldwide" in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya contributed to reducing the risk of rape by 63%.

According to a survey published in the magazine "Adolescent Health", a unified 6-week self-defense program is effective in reducing sexual assault, and half of the women and girls who attended the course used what they learned to stop the rapist in the year following the training.

American artist Lee Paiva founded the "No Spread of the World's Deviations" organization to combat rape, and created courses for girls and teenage boys around the world, such as Nairobi in Kenya, Malawi, South Sudan, Somalia and Uganda.

These courses rely on educating girls between the ages of 10 and 20 that most sexual assaults are committed by people they know, how to identify risk early, how to say “no” in an effective way, how to escape, how to use physical skills for self-defense, and private data has been proven The organization reduced rape crimes by 50% after receiving the sessions, according to the organization's website data.

Escaping from the Punishment
The prevalence of a culture of impunity, the lack of due diligence on the part of the government, poverty, sexual stereotypes, and misconceptions that inflict shame on the victim rather than the perpetrator, all of these reasons prevent the perpetrator from being punished for his crime, according to United Nations assertions.

These programs work to correct misconceptions among girls and young people, so boys and men are taught that women own their bodies, that rape and sexual harassment are unacceptable, and they learn when and how to intervene to protect girls and prevent a possible sexual assault.

Collins Omondi Oku - who runs the Ujamaa Africa program to prevent violence against women and girls in Kenya - thinks the reason rape is common is acceptable to boys.

"They grew up in an environment where they see this happen, no one talks about sexual harassment and violence," the slum houses are very close to each other. If something happens to a neighbor, you see and hear him, you start doing things because of Environmental impact. "

At the same time, however, he indicated the effectiveness of the training program, as it enabled boys and men who subsequently witnessed sexual assault to successfully intervene to assist the victim at up to twice the rate of those who did not participate in the course.

Sexual assault can take many forms around the world, from abusive speech, touch to rape, but there is one strategy and one method that does not differ anywhere in order to protect women, it starts to recognize and notice the danger, then strongly rejects, and finally the use of physical skills for defense or To intervene to protect women, this is the essence of training programs to prevent violence against women anywhere in the world.