Screenshot
On November 25, the National Girls Summit invited me to officially launch the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence as we marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Activists at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA started the global orange campaign 34 years ago. Their core objective was to synchronize violence against girls and women in broader human rights observation.
Amid different activities at the National Girl’s summit, my mind was drawn to discriminative gaps in the fight against gender-based violence. This happened during a networking session when one prominent chief executive expressed her terrifying experiences as a victim of gender- based violence.
She asked me whether I ever noticed that we discriminatively run the 16 days campaign by excluding the boys and men’s experiences with GBV. In a society where women are the only sole holders of the ‘victim’s card’, it is time to pay attention to the male victims.
Just a few days ago, prominent journalist Canary Mugume, through his official X social media account, shared his story of gender-based violence in the backyard of his young family with Phionah Naggirinya aka Sasha Ferguson.
Mugume noted “I am part of the unreported statistics of men who experience domestic violence from partners with uncontrolled anger issues, but because we are men in a corporate world, we stay silent, show up every day.”
According to statistics from Mankind Initiative in United Kingdom, One in five Men (21.8% in 2024/25 said have been a victim of domestic violence in their lifetime, making it 5.2 million men while 8% of men (425,000) have been victims of partner/ex-partner abuse in 2024 and 2025 (1.2 million men) making it 39% of all victims. Mugume also highlighted the gist of the feminization against GBV.
He said: “I restrained myself immensely despite all provocations and assaults, but society will, of course, believe the female gender I have evidence of myself bleeding after being assaulted.”
Mugume’s story sparks a conversation about the need to demystify the feminisation of the fight against gender-based violence. The systematic feminisation culture of GBV is becoming an entrenched culture in our public institutions, development agencies and multilateral bodies like European Union, Commonwealth, African Union and United Nations.
Notably, ‘Most of the annual themes of the 16 days against GBV precipitate the us (women) against them (men), the epitome of polarising such a noble cause that is meant to protect broader human dignity for all’.
The feminists have successful and strategically centered the GBV fight in advocacy, violence response, policymaking, financing and implementation around the female gender alone, thus disproportioning the male gender.
The feminisation mythology that gender-based violence only affects women creates serious concerns that spark harmful stereotypes, gender disparities and imbalances, subjecting boys and men to discrimination.
This sustained myth that women are inherently weak pre-conditions society that they are victims of violence, thus entrenching feminisation of the fight against gender-based violence.
Because girls and women have been part of statistics of human rights violations, it doesn’t necessarily mean that GBV is only limited to the female gender. It is a mistake that leads to ignoring the realities at hand, that injustices and violence can happen to any gender.
Society needs to understand that boys and men are human beings and potential victims of injustices, social stigma, inequities and inequalities. Men equally feel pain, misery, despair and all emotional and physical faults that come with human nature.
Unfortunately, on so many occasions men have been ill tainted as the most insensitive and abusers of women’s rights. Interestingly in the Mugume story, many men came out to discuss how violence against boys and men goes unnoticed, and even when reported, it is treated as patriarchy and misogyny.
While there are countless cases of boys and men violently mistreating girls and women, history has shown that there are many convicted cases of men having been murdered by their wives.
Many married men are beaten at home while others are suffering from mental health, blood pressure and diabetes, while others are languishing in rehabs and prisons as a result of gender-based violence. The growing violence against boys and men is a but a reality before our eyes.
Any further silence about it is a complicity in violation of the broader human rights. We should not discredit nor dismiss the efforts of society towards ending violence against girls and women.
However, the systematic practice of tailoring GBV fight as a female issue is not sustainable in the broader human rights approach and observations. The investments in women and girl child empowerment are not sustainable, if we have deliberately ignored the boys and men.
I always ask myself, okay, to whom will these empowered girls get married? Many young boys are being wasted in drugs and alcohol abuses, crime cartels, homosexuality, street children, child soldiers and forced labour before our eyes.
It is time to demystify one-gender-sided efforts in the fight against gender-based violence with inter-gender open dialogues, mindset change, empowerment of the boy child through financing, strategies and inclusive policies.
The writer is a sustainable development analyst.
About the Author
