A MILE IN HER SHOES.
I rarely make resolutions mainly because I’m not disciplined enough to see them through. By the end of the first quarter, I usually have garnered an E. Instead, I pick from where I left and in this new year my Linked in profile kicked off the show. It needed a revamp and since I had time during my vacation I set to work on it. I vowed to spend as much time on Linked in as I did on Instagram.
As I scrolled through this professional app, I came across an interesting post by Triple C Advisory. The picture with the #Genderbasedviolence showed men in different types of heels in support of the “Walk a mile in her shoes” which is an International Men’s March to Stop Rape, Sexual Assault & Gender Violence. Since 2001 according to the Walk a mile in her shoe website, men have been joining the march which is a platform that provides a dramatic opportunity to raise awareness in your community about the serious causes, effects, and remediations of men’s sexualized violence.
The Walk in a mile in her shoes is a non-profit organization that seeks to find unique ways of tackling GBV which is a global problem. Gender-Based Violence is any act that results in physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life perpetrated against a person based on socially-ascribed (gender) differences between males and females.
One in three women in sub-Saharan Africa has experienced an episode of sexual violence before attaining age 18. Gender-based violence is significantly associated with place of residence, witnessing parental violence, substance abuse, marital status, and educational status. Different people will decode this information in different ways but as a young woman existing in Kenya where the numbers of GBV victims are at. My mind quickly unpacks the information with myself in mind. That could be me!
With this statistic in mind, it is a joy for me, a 23-year-old African woman to witness the march in Uganda. This is most definitely high in 2020 where the GBV cases soared due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The march by Ugandan men for Ugandan women is a bold statement, an act of solidarity a stance against Gender-Based Violence and a tap or blow on toxic masculinity when it comes to addressing the issue in their camp.