My attention was drawn yesterday by Andrea Bohnstedt and Stephen Partington to an article published by the Business Daily, a publication of the Nation Media Group, on 28 May 2013. In the day's advice column, a woman who had been abused in her teenage years by a relative and kept the abuse secret was wondering whether to finally now speak out. She's since got married and has children. We shall call her Wanjiku.
Dr. Frank Njenga's response to her predicament seems to start well. You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Good, so far. Well done, Doc. Then he proceeds to quote the Biblical account of a woman who was caught in adultery. 'Let him who has no sin be the first to cast a stone', Jesus told her all-male authority-figure accusers. I like the direction Frank Njenga is going. Then he does a very unexpected and surprising thing. He turns the story on its head and offers the advice that perhaps, perhaps Wanjiku should not speak out because her motives for doing so may not be pure after all. Maybe she only wants to speak out only to hurt her abuser, who is now a respected elder.
It is difficult to figure out which angle to approach this from: there are so many of them! Let's start with the misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the Biblical account. Wanjiku was abused. Her dignity was forcibly violated. Wanjiku is hurting, and has been carrying pain all these years. On top of all this she gets to be compared to an adulterous woman. Help me, somebody.
Frank Njenga blazes on and implies that Wanjiku should stay silent in order to protect the reputation of the now-elder then-abuser; maybe still-abuser. The truth shall not set you free because it could hurt your children, your family, and your husband. Be a strong woman; think only of how everyone else may benefit from telling the truth. Truth can be a very inconvenient thing. It can have some unintended consequences.
It is interesting to note that Jesus doesn't condemn the woman. In contrast, the word guilt appears at least thrice in Njenga's response. The word hurt (yourself, the abuser, your family) appears thrice as well. You are suffering from guilt, guilt, guilt Wanjiku. And you will hurt, hurt, hurt others.Speaking out is a bad, bad, bad thing.
The icing on the cake comes when Njenga implies that Wanjiku's abuse could be a false recollection. Maybe a delusion. Nice one, Doc; gosh, how many delusional women we have! We have whole hospitals dedicated to treating women and girls who have delusions of having been raped and nearly killed! Heck, we even have an Act of Parliament meant to protect women who might be delusional. Because, you know, sexual abuse is such a wonderful thing to fantasize about; what a good way to lift your mood if you are having a bad day! You can become so good at it the difference between reality and fairyland disappears.
Find a way, Wanjiku, to deal with this in a 'healthy' manner.
I don't know what is more pathetic between Njenga's 'advice' and the Nation Media Group publishing it. What I do know is that Kenya will remain an unsafe place for women and abusive men will continue to prowl in freedom as long as authority figures and media houses continue to be so blasé.
Thank you, Phyllis, for the terrific blogpost.
ReplyDeleteFrank Njenga needs to step down as an advice columnist or be terminated. It's unacceptable that he doesn't recognize two fundamental things about sexual abuse:
1) it's never just one isolated incident, unless the abuser is caught and stopped by external intervention. The man who abused this woman undoubtedly abused others, and continues to do so.
2) disclosing abuse is never just about singular justice or individual closure, it's about breaking the cycle of silence and impunity that enable sexual abuse.
An important response.
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