•WOMEN have suffered the most violence because of culture and unfavourable economic status
Title: Gender Based Violence Scourge
Author: Roger Tembo
Publish Date: 2013
Publisher: Roger Tembo
Pages: 118
“Gender Based Violence Scourge” explores the power of literature to help change the deeply entrenched thinking and beliefs on Gender Based Violence (GBV) in society.
The book thrives on graphical dialogue as it opens a scene where a husband is depicted beating up his wife in the presence of their daughter.
The fight ensues after the wife bluntly refuses to get pregnant on health grounds, while the husband insists that he married her so that she could produce children for him.
Contrasting this rather dramatic turn of events, the author exposes yet another glaring incident of abuse where a woman is captured harassing her husband for coming home late slightly after 18:00 hours!
She shifts her heat by asking her husband to give her money before starting to beat him up for not providing money which she intends to send to her mother for her to settle medication bills.
The husband, a chief accountant, argues he has no money as most of his salary was deducted as a result of the loan he got from the company. The loan was used to finance construction of a house of his wife’s mother. The wife demands more money for her mother’s medication.
“Rhoda, I thought I gave you my pay slip together with my salary. You saw what I got this month!” screams the husband. The argument erupts as the man is attempting to enter into the house.
At the entrance, the wife turns and faces her husband who is now trying to go past her in the door way. She grabs him by the throat, pushes him to the floor and sits on his chest and starts clapping his face.
The wife over-powers the husband.
“I will teach you a lesson that you will never forget,” swears the woman, as she continues pounding her husband who is still pinned on the floor.
The man is screaming and shouting in pain.
“I am giving you the final warning. By Monday next week if you don’t bring money for mum, I am going to your stupid office and sort you out from there. Do you understand?” warns the wife.
As the theme of the book dramatically unfolds, some incidents of sexual abuse at the workplace are ably exposed with a senior officer in a company taking advantage of a young single woman, who happens to be her junior.
The climax of the scene of abuse at the workplace reaches its peak when the young cultured woman fights off the sexual advances by embracing her morals despite her socio-economic status at the workplace.
Bravely, she warns the abusing senior officer at the workplace that the next time he makes sexual advances to her, she would out-rightly report him to the company board for disciplinary action to be taken against the officer. She is promoted at work and the abuser fails to accept that, accusing her of having an affair with one of the board members.
“Women cannot perform better than a man, can they? They are only good in the kitchen and you know wherelse. Damn!” exclaims the abuser.
Under the sub-title: Tradition and Cruelty, the author exposes a woman who swears against allowing her daughters to be circumcised, calling the practice as mutilation.
On the contrary, her husband makes all necessary arrangement to ensure that the rite is performed on his two daughters. His mother and her two elderly friends arrive from the village to perform the rite on one of the daughters.
They drag the girl and her mother before starting to perform the rite on the daughter in the bathroom. They misfire as the girl lies motionless in the bathroom.
The story lines of the book are well informed with contemporary realities taking place in society and the detail of the themes are heavily suspended until the last page of the book.
The hypocrisy of early marriage perpetuators is amplified when a man in the village decides to stop his 14-year-old daughter from continuing her education because he wants to marry her off to a village headman’s son, who has himself just completed secondary education.
As the story unfolds, the author highlights the importance of education and plans to marry off the girl end up at the police station where fundamental human rights of the victim are explained to the culprit.
This is against the truism that when the girl is informed of the proposed early marriage, she cries the whole night in disbelief. This is a girl with great potential to excel in school.
The victim protests: “I also want to be a doctor like aunt Ruth and Jane and not end up in the village as a housewife without a future
After heated argument, more sense is pumped into the head of the culprit by relevant authorities and the traditional leader.
Discussion and questions follow each sub title. We also see another scenario where an abused woman is bent on protecting her abusing husband because of material gain, defending the status quo as a minor misunderstanding which resulted in minor beatings.
To the victim, this is not something to worry despite wearing a heavily swollen face. “He is my husband,” cries the victim. He sister counters: “But that does not give him the right to turn you into a punching bag.”
It is courage and determination by concerned parties that easily changes the state of affairs. At the police Victim Support Unit, the detective tells the complainant the police have limited powers to prosecute this particular case of GBV because the victim is unwilling to testify against the abusive partner.
Through interaction with the police, the ‘victim is informed about protective laws aimed at halting the scourge of GBV and that victims should come out in the open to report such cases. Even men who are battered by their wives retard the progress of addressing GBV by withdrawing cases against their partners. Other cases equally unfold when an abuser is reported to the police who lock her in the cells but upon being released still continues to abuse the victim.
There are lessons from striking scenes exposed in the book which has been approved by the Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) for use in English Literature, Civic Education, Religious Education and Language in all Zambian secondary schools. MN
