Having the opportunity to attend the event tagged “Young Men against Gender Based Violence”, organized by Education as a Vaccine, in collaboration with United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) held at Rock view hotel on the 2nd of December 2011, was an interesting one for me. I kept wondering why the programme was organized for men but I realized that it was because men are the perpetrators of this “evil” act. Looking at the world today, young girls and even married women suffer all sorts of sexual violence in the hands of men, some of which include sexual abuse, beating etc.

Some men beat up their wives without concrete reasons. Even if they do anything wrong, they don’t deserve to be made punching bags. A woman is meant to be cared for and well looked after. An example was given at the meeting of a female student at Abia State University (ABSU) who was raped by five young men. Rather than the men being traced, caught and dealt with, the security agencies and some other Nigerians have been allocating blames on the poor girl. I just wonder what becomes of the girl now, after such a terrible incidence.

Video clips were shown to participants at the event to accompany the message and I saw pictures of young women, both single and married with scars and injuries of various magnitudes as a result of being abused by men. It hurt me so much because I’m also a female like them.

The young men who were present there also tried to defend themselves by saying it is the girls that cause them to rape them due to the way they dress. One of the participants also said something which I took note of. He said, “Men are moved by what they see and women are moved by what they hear”. Then I thought to myself, if men are moved by what they see, why can’t they control their eyes?

Though I know that the way some girls dress isn’t decent enough as they expose their cleavages and other parts of their bodies that could attract the opposite sex unduly, that does not give the men a right to rape them. Then I also asked myself that if men are moved by what they see, what of fathers who rape their own daughters? What did they see in them that they dint see in the body of their wives or is it not the same child he saw as she grew? All this questions keep running through my mind and I was happy to find some answers to my question during the course of the meeting
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I really hope that the participants learnt a lot just like I did and I also hope they’ll help to spread the news to their friends and family. That way, the world would be a better place with everyone having equal fundamental human rights, rights to justice inclusive.