Kicking off November 25 (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to December 10 (Human Rights Day), the global community continues to annually observe the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) during which several society-led campaigns to end violence against women are held.

According to UN Women, gender-based violence was already a global crisis before the pandemic, and it only intensified as lockdowns and other mobility restrictions left many women stuck with their abusers, isolated from any kind of support. One of the various drives is helping victims of GBV get justice and support—to know and understand that it is never their fault and that there are channels to turn to for help.

Blaming the victim

Claudine Umubyeyi ended her abusive marriage four years ago, but she never imagined that people would treat her with such cruelty, not after everything she had been through.

Scorn and backlash were all she got from the people she called ‘friends’ when she left her abusive husband.

"When a victim of abuse finally finds the courage to leave, some people find a way to put the blame on her, or him. Many people kept on telling me that I brought shame to my family and that I humiliated myself, my kids, and my husband,” she narrates.

But Umubyeyi had her family’s support. "My parents and sisters never condemned me for taking that decision, if anything they were very happy to see me out of that situation and choosing my happiness and that of my children over a marriage,” she says.

But outside of the family, people bashed her and threw hate towards her. "As someone who had just come out of abuse, I needed people to support me and not bash me, my heart and mind were fragile, at some point due to the negative comments and blame, I felt like going back to him,” she adds.

Umubyeyi recalls that due to judgment and the way people blamed her, she was overwhelmed by emotions and started to blame herself too.

"I was becoming unsure of my decision to leave, I started telling myself that maybe I should have tried to stay and change my husband, or that I should have stayed and endured the beatings. But then my heart kept on telling me that it was for the best as this meant my children wouldn’t grow up witnessing the abuse,” she says.

There are many victims who go back to their abusers because of victim blaming, which puts them in a lot more danger than before.

How to support GBV victims

Barbara Umuhoza, author and pastor, has come across women who have been abused and says that victims need to be loved and given support in real ways.

"This means creating a space for them to open up and share what they went through. When you blame the victim, you subject them to the violence twice because gas-lighting or invalidating their pain does more damage,” she explains.

Encourage them to report the violence and offer them support as they go through that process, because, it in itself is painful and arduous, Umuhoza adds.

"After experiencing such trauma, victims need mental healthcare to heal. It is needed and paramount for their well-being, furthermore, some victims can’t function after such an incident, thus needing financial support (some can’t return to work or are already unemployed), as friends and family, lending a financial hand to support the victim during this time goes a long way,” she suggests.

Felix Dushimimana, a human rights activist in Rwanda, says it’s imperative that society refrains from tormenting a victim because in doing so, we infuse the mindset that abuse is normal and that the victim must have done something wrong, hence, they are the ones at fault.

"Victims need support that is positive, and it starts from the family. Families can support a victim by showing more love and comprehension, the victim has lived a traumatic experience with a person that they thought loved them, and being hurt by their loved ones can make them stop believing in love,” he says.

"Victims may also start feeling that they don’t need that love anymore, so to help them heal, the family needs to restore the love they lacked from their partner and double that, they need to be there for them and understand them, and most importantly they need to forget about asking the victim what they did to push their partner to abuse them,” he notes.

According to the Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey 2019-2020 report published by the National Institute of Statistics, 37 per cent of women and girls aged 15-49 experienced physical or sexual, or psychological violence. The corresponding proportions among men are 30 per cent.