According to recent statistics on rape submitted by Nairobi Women's Hospital, a woman is brutally raped every half an hour in Kenya the victims varying from old grandmothers to barely year old babies. A survey carried out in Korogocho ( a slum in the outskirts of Nairobi) by Ugamaan; ( a non governmental organization that helps rape victims) states that one in every woman is raped every year and over 70 per cent of the women had been raped at least once in their lifetime.
There are campaigns out to fight sexual violence against women. One such campaign is 'No Means No'; an anti-rape awareness campaign started by artists to create awareness on rape incident rates and educate people on measures to take after a rape incident.
We talk to the leader of the campaign Adelaide Onyango on the campaign's agenda, projects and progress.
Q: What inspired you to start the campaign?
Adelaide: I have close friends who have been victims of this crime. However, not much awareness and education on rape is being done and so I felt the need to help bridge that information gap.
Q: Who is part of the 'No Means No' team?
Adelaide: We have Goodwill ambassadors; Patricia Kihoro (singer, actress), Wendy Kimani (singer), Fena Gitu(singer), Nick Ndeda (actor and radio presenter), Nyambura Muthoga (model), Albert Minja(poet) and Kevin Waithaka(poet).
We create rape awareness through photography and videography and raise funds for the setting up of a safe-house for rape victims. The technical crew of the campaign would be Jenny Mungai, Jonathan Ochako and I. This is because we are involved directly in the shooting of the awareness video clips. We had to edit the scripts as some of them carried words that would have to be censored by the media hence loosing the 'real' and 'actual' effect the true scripts would have.
Q: What is the essence of the pictures and videos with stories on your Facebook page?
Adelaide: The stories are based on real women's rape stories who agreed to have their stories anonymously published as part of the campaign.
"13TH February, between the bus stop and my house. FOUR men. One grabbed me and showed me a knife. The three others lifted me to a nearby bush. Each one of them thrust inside me over and over and over again. The three men left leaving me with the one with a knife. He continued to rape me for hours. I wanted to kill myself since he’d robbed me of all my dignity – what was life without it?"
A KENYAN WOMAN'S RAPE STORY
Q: What avenues do you intend on using to push forward your agenda?
Adelaide: The avenues we want to use are; online social networks and we have already created twitter and Facebook pages. This is because we can reach our core target audience who are the youth, since they are the main users of this medium. We also chose it because it has no geographical boundaries and hence the pages can be used as global forums where ideas on how to combat rape etc can be traded across countries.There is the local media, we have already received some coverage by the Nairobi Star newspaper and a new addition to the campaign is spreading awareness through giving talks in high schools which we are in the process of organizing.
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| According to a recent study,one out of twelve college aged men and women committed rape. |
Q: What kind of support are you looking to get from the media?
Adelaide: From the media, we wanted to have our awareness video clips broadcasted on local television and the awareness photographs in local print media and also have the goodwill ambassadors on appropriate shows or magazines so as to carry forth the campaign's agenda to the public.
Q: Are you involving government in your endeavour? If so, any support given or pledged?
Adelaide: No. We have not involved the government or any government institution.
Date rape, also called acquaintance rape, is a non-domestic rape committed by someone who knows the victim. This constitutes the vast majority of rapes reported.
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| Male to Male rape incidents are steadily on the rise although they are seldom reported |
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| "Through NO MEANS NO, we learn to respect each other so much that we eradicate rape" -Nyambura Muthoga, Kenyan Model |
Q: Are you working with any organization on the campaign?
Adelaide: Actually, in September we worked with HAWA LIVE and DIRECT (Muthoni the Drummer Queen and Dela) and brought BONDS OF AGES - a concert in Westage Cinema that spread the NO MEANS NO message.
Q: Are you getting any international help?
Adelaide: We have, through the setting up of the social online pages, made contact with people who support the campaign in the USA, Australia, Botswana, South Africa, Spain and Malawi. These supporters are gathering information, from their respective countries, information on: rape incident statistics as well as what the governments and/or independent institutions are doing to curb the high rates of rape incidents.
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| There is a rise in the number of rape incidents occurring in Colleges and Universities |
Furthermore, some of the supporters are public figures in their countries (for e.g in Malawi, the supporter is musician TAY GRIN who has recently done a song with K'naan) they would therefore encourage their fans to join the global forum on the social networks. This has worked as in just a week the page had just about 1000followers.
Q: Is ‘No means No’ an international campaign and this is the Kenyan chapter or is it independent?
Adelaide: No, It is our very own campaign.
Q: What projects have you undertaken so far?
Adelaide: Just the concert at Westgate, And now we're organizing talks in various schools!.
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| " Rape isn't the end of the world. You are still BEAUTIFUL" -Wendy Kimani, Musician |
Q: What do you seek to achieve through this campaign?
Adelaide: We have these objectives: Educating people on issues around rape (what is rape, types of rape, medical actions to take after rape, legal steps to take etc) and Bring to the forefront the alarming rape statistics not only in Kenya but around the globe. In the near future, we want to hold concerts that will act as fund raisers for the setting up of a local safe house for rape victims.
Q: Are there any programmes in place to help rehabilitate the victims?
Adelaide: Under the campaign - no. However we will avail information to people on where they can go in terms of rehabilitation. This falls under the educating part of our 'game plan'. For example we have helped expose the KIMBILIO HOTLINE that is a toll free number for rape victims to call!
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" We want a world where NO means NO!" - Patricia Kihoro,Musician |
Q: What do you want guys to eventually do so as to deal with this evil? Action points you are advocating for people to put into practice? Any specific ones to ladies? Any specific ones to guys? Parents? Leaders?
A:
Well, the global forums on the social networks will hopefully produce suggestions on this. However, personally, I want the campaign to produce a new strain of thought where people respect each other so much so that they do not violate one another theough rape. This goes to both guys and chics. To parents, though they aren't our core target audience, we want them to open up channels of communication with their children so that they can know of cases of rape early and children do not end up suffering in silence all because they cannot approach their parents. To the leaders, we want to show that this is a problem that is deserving of their attention through reform and legislation.
You can join the No Means No campaign on their Facebook page to get more information about this great initiative.
All photos and captions courtesy of No Means No Campaign
Moreover, people must understand that rape is not a feminist issue reserved to women alone but that it affects both sexes even though more commonly perpetuated against one sex. For its elimination women AND men must stand together and men must learn the worth of a woman, that it is more than a 'bitch' or 'ho' but to understand her value, and to respect it. Then will we see positive change.
I actually want to start a fundraiser for everything that is happening in the DRC as far as women go. Wrote a blog about it recently as well. it really breaks my heart.