09/01/2026
OPINION (Drink Water Before Engaging)
Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is among the most devastating crimes because it occurs between people who should be protecting each other. The offender and the victim are often bound by love, trust, or dependency. The pain of being harmed by a loved one is beyond imagination, it does not end; it returns again and again.
Imagine a child violated by a parent or guardian. Someone they should run to when hurt. Someone they trusted with their life. Someone almost god-like in their young mind. Jesu, that kind of pain is indescribable.
How do you help a minor make sense of pain caused by the very person responsible for their safety? Their mind is too young to process betrayal, abuse, and broken trust. For crying out loud, this is trauma at its deepest level.
In marriages and similar relationships, love is meant to form an institution greater than the individuals involved. A healthy relationship should continuously help people fall in love again through daily actions that affirm value, care, and respect. These actions should become routine. If they disappear, then perhaps we are living a lie. And when love fades, these same actions should keep us committed until love finds its way back.
As a society, we need to sit down, soul-search, introspect, and dialogue honestly. GBV is a serious concern. To me, it is far bigger than condemning acts on social media, though that is not wrong. The truth is, condemnation alone does not seem to work.
There is a deeper problem. And no outsider can define it for us. It is us who must locate it, name it, and fix it.
In my view, men and women appear to be at war with each other. Men have grievances against women; women have grievances against men. We blame one another for everything and forget a fundamental truth: we need each other.
A woman is not just “a woman.” She is someone’s mother, sister, daughter, or wife. My mother is a woman. My sister is a woman. Someone dear to me is a woman. Likewise, a man is not just “a man.” My father is a man. So are many people I love and respect.
One day at the mall, I overheard two separate conversations, one between two men, another among three women. The women complained that men have become stingy and forget that they were “created to provide.” The men, on the other hand, complained about the many rights women have gained over the past two decades.
These conversations surfaced issues we urgently need to dialogue on:
1. Abolition of marital power, Some men believe this was tied to bride price (bogadi). Do we still need bogadi? Does it unintentionally make some men feel they have “paid”?
2. Go becha / go jewa, What if the men of this generation are not meant “to be eaten”? Should we continue forcing cultural expectations without listening to how men experience them? Should women meet men halfway?
3. Is the presence of the opposite s*x in my life optional, or essential?
4. How important are creation and co-creation?
5. If I love my parents, are they not male and female?
6. If I love my children, are they not male and female?
7. Did I buy my children from a supermarket, or was someone else involved, and what does that mean?
8. Do we raise boys and girls with equal dignity and understanding?
9. What about the boy child?
10. What are human rights? Do we need separate rights for women and girls outside human rights, or do we risk alienating and antagonizing the other?
GBV requires clear, sober minds. The moment we apportion blame, we lose the plot. We must listen, truly listen, to what women are saying and what men are saying. Only then can we find common ground and address each concern honestly.
Peace and coexistence demand sacrifice, sometimes of the things we hold most dearly.
Maybe women are right. Maybe men are right. Or maybe the truth lies somewhere in between. The problem is that we are too busy identifying a culprit instead of understanding the cause.
We have jailed, shamed, labelled, whipped, and condemned perpetrators, yet the violence persists. Perhaps we are treating symptoms, not the disease.
Let me pause, for a cup 🍵 of water 💧
