There is untold suffering behind the smiling faces of many women who have had to endure the enormous weight of the reign of cruel husbands and fathers.

The condescending ordeal that women have gone through has been aggravated by some oppressive cultures that have programmed women into believing they are to be seen and not heard.

Such cultures that give men veto power and absolute control over women’s conscience and thinking is unacceptable.

Worse still, many cases of gender abuse and violence go unreported or ‘unnoticed’ in some societies.

The love for husbands has been poised to substitute women’s dignity, freedom of conscience and other basic human rights. They cannot bear to see their uncaring and hardnosed husbands standing in the dock to face charges of abuse and violence and risk long jail sentences.

In Zambia, gender based violence is reported to be almost a norm with cases of violence being reported in many households. In the streets of Lusaka with its wide environments, are suppressed voices and downtrodden wishes and dreams of women.

As if that is not bad enough, defilement of daughters by their own biological fathers is not a rare spectacle. Cases of this nature continue to soar as authorities in most cases do little or sadly nothing at all.

To reverse this trend, corruption should be purged from all systems of government and society at large. This will help to ensure that culprits are apprehended and the due course of the law is followed.

There is also urgent need to continue expanding the education opportunities for women and sponsoring not only the gifted girls but also the less previledged ones.

In fact, in most cases, it is the less educated girls who face GBV the most as they do not know their rights and they cannot lodge a strong case against the male brutes.

We should not sell our rich heritage in our cultures even though some pervasive cultural norms have been overtaken by the highly dynamic global world.

It is high time women got dignified treatment.

znyamosi@yahoo.com