Advocacy is a planned process, effort intensive and requires a movement or group of organisations, united in mission and committed to the cause, to implement the plan….. Advocacy is not a one person or organisation venture…. Its success is in its diversity….
The #IAmToufah campaign must not be an an event, a three day wonder which dies in the early morning of its life. It must symbolise the greater evil in society, the sexual abuse of children and of both men and women…. CSOs must coalesced into a formidable group, either under the umbrella of the Network Against Gender Based Violence or the aegis of FLAG or another body, to take the goal of #IAmToufah to its logical conclusion, until its goal is achieved.
Otherwise policy makers and politicians would be saying, ‘let them talk. They would be quiet when they are tired’. And rapists and potential rapists would be more emboldened, knowing those baying for justice don’t sustain their efforts. And since public memory is too short, only the music that is freshest in its head would be remembered, momentarily.
And I dare say that after the first march past, we must include boys and men in the victim category, while it is true that they are, by and large, the greatest perpetrators. One male victim is also one too many…. And our cultural set up makes it all the more difficult for a boy or man to say he was raped or sexually assaulted.
Society does not expect the ‘hunter to be the hunted’. Sex is expected to be a man’s to have… And so a cry of rape from a man is almost going to be met with derision which questions one’s manhood ‘aren’t you a man?’
Sexual violence is abhorrent and we must make it sure in the hearts and minds of every boy, girl, man and women. And male and female are both victims and perpetrators…. And rape is about power and violence, the abuse abuse of power and betrayal of trust. And rape is not the fault of the victim and no one deserves to be rape…. Rape is not a spontaneous action; it is always carefully planned.
Rape takes place in secret and the perpetrator often covers up his or her tracks, leaving the victim to provide the evidence. Rape is injustice and every lover of just must stand with the victim.
