The war on our doorsteps

Next year as the United Nations focuses on the millions of women, children and men displaced by civil war, the world also should take special note of the women and children daily dislodged from their homes by gender-based violence.

Next year as the United Nations focuses on the millions of women, children and men displaced by civil war, the world also should take special note of the women and children daily dislodged from their homes by gender-based violence.

These women and children often do not make the headline news as do those who flee their homes for neighbouring countries because of a well-publicised war. Violence within the home also is hidden, but all the same, it is a war. And, it is far more pervasive and insidious than many societies care to admit.

Gender-based violence is a threat to women’s health and their personal security. It poses a danger to society as women and children are continuously displaced by it. Like other acts of war, gender-based violence does not make selective choices – old, young, educated or illiterate, no one is spared.

Although the Nairobi Women’s Hospital reports that it is hard to quantify the numbers of women who die as a result of violence in the home, women displaced by this violence bear scars such as physical injuries, HIV and other sexually-transmitted infections, and psychological trauma as testament of the battles they bravely go through, and survive.

These women cannot realise their potential since they always live in fear. And, since they are regularly sent away or run away from a violent home, they cannot plan the care of their families.

A recent survey on gender-based violence in Kangemi Slums in western Nairobi indicates that of the married women interviewed (seventy-five percent of the women interviewed were married),  94 percent said they were beaten and chased from their homes every other day. How are these women supposed to take care of their families adequately if their lives are disrupted so frequently ?

In Kenya there is only one safe house for women run by the Women’s Rehabilitation Programme (WRAP), which assists women who are displaced by violence in the home. But the shelter only accommodates 12 people at a time, and according to information from WRAP, a woman may come with her children, sometimes as many as six to eight.  Hundreds of women and their children therefore are turned away, because there is literally no room in the inn.

There is no legal instrument and no government support forthcoming for women who are displaced by gender-based violence. The country”s much-heralded Domestic Violence Bill is still on the shelf. The legal system is slow and the Federation of Kenyan Women Lawyers(FIDA-K), which provides legal support, is overwhelmed by the number of cases it receives.

Time and again, women adopt coping mechanisms for the survival of their families, even though they are exposed to great risks to their own personal safety. The unequal gender power relations which are institutionalised legally by customary law in many African countries, continues to keep women vulnerable to all forms of violence.

The United Nations focus on the internally displaced next year is an opportune time to continue the activism of the 16 Days of  No Violence Against Women. Our voices must become louder and louder at all forums and wherever the chance is presented to remind everyone, especially those in decision-making positions, that thousands of women face conflict and are displaced every time they set foot into their own homes.

Rosemary Okello is with the African Woman and Child Feature Service in Nairobi, Kenya.

This article is part of the GEM Opinion and Commentary Service that provides views and perspectives on current events.

janine@genderlinks.org.za for more information