No more negotiations

Last month a woman was stabbed in her head by her husband. It took the intervention of the local chief to have her flown to Nairobi for specialised treatment to remove the knife from her head. This month, a video has been uploaded and shared numerous times on social media platforms of a pregnant woman who was violently assaulted by her common law husband. The images of the disorientated and bloodied woman have shocked many. She is reported to have been stabbed in the stomach by her husband in a previous vicious assault for which she did not co-operate with the police in the investigation.

Last month, I can't remember by whom, a report was published on domestic assaults in Kenya. The vast majority of the victims are women, and it is strongly suggested that gender-based violence against women is very common. It has been suggested, strongly again, that men have forgotten their duties as men, especially towards the women in their lives.

Domestic violence or gender-based violence is not new in Kenya but since the advent of the internet and the proliferation of social media platforms, more and more incidents are being highlighted. One aspect of it all has been quite troubling. It is a feature of this most recent case. Whenever a husband violently assaults his wife, the women usually flees for safety. If she is courageous, she will report the matter to the police as she seeks refuge in her parents' home. More often than not, the parents will attempt to reconcile the man and the women, usually demanding "compensation" for the injuries that their daughter has sustained. What is curious is that the police usually are complicit in this arrangement, mediating the negotiations between the parents of the victim and her violator. The same phenomenon is repeated in cases of defilement, where the parents of the girl will demand compensation, especially if the below-age girl is impregnated.

Where negotiations are successful, the parents prevail on the daughter not to co-operate with the police in their enquiries. The police and the Director of Public Prosecutions usually go along with this state of affairs. It is now acceptable that in cases of domestic assault or sexual offences, prosecution is not assured. We talk about impunity but link it almost entirely to political corruption or traffic offences, but not the humdrum of domestic and gender-based violence. We encourage impunity when we allow men who assault their wives to buy their wives silence. If men know that they can buy their way out of vicious assaults, there is nothing that stops more of them taking out their anger on their wives or partners.

In the recent case, it emerges that the parents of the girl have been negotiating with the husband behind the wife's back. The father has received money as compensation. His wife, the mother, seems to have been a victim of domestic violence too and she hasn't complained to the police. This cycle has been repeated over two generations and if this latest victim carries her child to term, and if the child is a girl, will she too be taught to accept money for violent assaults by her partner when she gets married?

There are no easy answers to problems between men and women, but surely we cannot allow a situation to prevail that measures the value of women and girls in terms of money compensation and not in terms of honour and dignity. The police and the DPP must no longer be party to the negotiations that seek to sweep violence under the carpet. They must prosecute. They must make the cost of domestic violence more expensive than mere money. Those who will beat their wives or partners must lose their liberty; it is the only price that can be paid.