Violence against men should not be ignored

East Africa awoke Tuesday morning to the shocking news of the death of Maj.Gen James Kazini, Uganda’s former Army Commander. Kazini had completed his journey so to speak, but what struck most of us was not Kazini’s death, but rather what had finally befell him. There were very many unanswered questions. Without getting any satisfactory answers, some of us were left speculating that Drafu, who had confessed to the murder, must have had an accomplice. What we subconsciously refuse to admit, is the fact that a woman, too, is capable of violence and can indeed kill a man of Kazini’s physical stature. What we forget, is that Lydia Draru is not the first and will definitely not be the last to commit a crime of that nature. For many years, human rights activists have worked hard to spread the gospel against gender-based violence. These activists have worked hard to bring about a climate where women could report domestic violence, and today, the fruits are being realised. However, what these activists forgot along the way was that virtually nothing has been done to encourage men to report the same. Culturally, the idea that men, too, can be victims of domestic abuse and violence is so unthinkable that many men will not even attempt to report the situation. A man will walk into your office with a bruised lip or black eye and almost automatically, your mind will process the idea that he was involved in a fight with another man or was injured fixing something but if a woman with the same bruise did walk into your office, the first thing on your mind would automatically be domestic violence. Such is the unfortunate bias. The society we are part of assumes that women are always the victims of domestic violence and men are always the perpetrators. Though statistics show that domestic abuse and violence is usually against women, very little attention has been paid to the issue of domestic abuse and violence against men - especially because violence against women has been so obvious and was ignored for so long. Women have become part of everything. They have entered the ‘man’s world’.They are lawyers, judges, engineers, soldiers and yes, they have become violent; some of them even physically abusive. Days after General Kazini has been laid to rest, maybe the question should not be why a woman would kill but instead how men can be incorporated into this fight against gender based violence. The world we knew has changed a lot, its time to look at both sides of the coin. Nasra Bishumba is a journalist with The New Times nasra44h@yahoo.com