I have no respect for men who support rapists. I mean how can you condone such a selfish behaviour, yet you call yourself a “man”. I classify those kind of men as cowards because a real man would never do that.

I absolutely have no sympathy or respect for men who emotionally abuse victims of rape to make them feel bad about themselves. I believe that birds of a same feather flock together, so if you are able to understand the behaviour of the perpetrator, you’re also capable to do the same thing.

I’m living in a country that I love but the fear of rape has consumed me so much so, that I don’t even feel safe in my own neighbourhood, because even the person you laugh with the most could be the one to rape you at the end of the day.

I don’t understand what has become of our nation because the men who should protect us are the ones we fear the most. I’ve seen people mock, harass, guilt trip, insult GBV victims. They treat them as trash, convincing them to give up on their dreams because they believe they have nothing left to live for. They say they might as well end their lives because they are nothing.
I’m not one of them but I am one of those victims who have been treated as such and I believe I’m not the only one. The things I have experienced made me understand why there’s a higher percentage of victims committing suicide. I mean as fragile as we are right now, all we need is support, especially from our loved ones, but instead we try by all means to run away from them because they use us as examples to their children of what not to be, as if we asked for this.

The problem with people is that they say that they understand how we feel. They tell us this too shall pass and that we shouldn’t overthink it. Whereas they don’t really know how we feel inside because this is a lifetime scar and there’s no way we can erase it or forget it in the blink of an eye.

They are the ones who make us feel worse about ourselves and instil more fear and depression because they tell us they love us, but we must not tell anyone what happened. They tell us to remain indoors and not befriend anyone, because people can’t be trusted. They tell us to minimise wearing clothes that expose our bodies. What do you call this? Why aren’t we allowed to be ourselves? Don’t we have rights? Because in my own point of view, I see all this as a human torture, they don’t want us to speak out.

They treat us like psychopaths, especially when we have a breakdowns, just because we are on medication and our moods are not stable daily, but that’s what is supposed to happen, you cannot just expect us to wake up in the morning and act as if nothing happened, we are also humans. You need to stop doing that!

People take GBV as a joke or irrelevant, forgetting that it exists and more people get affected daily. But I can guarantee you one thing, that if you had to put yourself in our shoes, you would be saying out a different story today.

Tell us: What do you think of this piece?