{"id":3886,"date":"2019-06-03T14:35:01","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T14:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/?p=3886"},"modified":"2019-07-25T11:12:17","modified_gmt":"2019-07-25T11:12:17","slug":"the-silence-that-empowers-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/2019\/06\/the-silence-that-empowers-violence","title":{"rendered":"The Silence That Empowers Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

By Tochi Eze<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is evening. The man next door is pummeling\nhis wife, slapping and hitting. You hear her screams faintly rise above the\nsound of the generators. But you know by the simple fact of their daily routine\nof violence that it is not your business. So, you gulp down your pity, pull out\nyour laptop and Netflix your way out of their problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a way injustice sits and lives with\nus, a way we have mastered how to look away \u2013 professional minders of our\nbusiness when abuse is happening. It is not a deliberate or malicious stance,\nmostly. But this is Nigeria. Many men would be excused almost anything relating to how he\ntreats women. For many of young women out there, our fathers wounded us. Our brothers\nreminded us of the \u2018secondariness\u2019 of our existence, coming always only closely\nafter them. Our husbands hit us then chased after young receptionists at work.\nStill, we learnt to respond by perfecting the virtue of endurance, bending\nourselves to give more and more to certain men who will never get full. All women\nare strong, right? Another lie we celebrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, I read the horrible\n#AbujaRaidonWomen story on Twitter about young women allegedly picked from the\nclub and raped by Police Officers who used pure water bags as condoms. Some\naccounts say it was a brothel and that these women were prostitutes. The\nprostitute part was dangled during on and offline conversations, as though a\nwoman\u2019s choice of life is justification for the violence she faces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am glad to see protests happening on\nTwitter and on the streets of Lagos. Especially because a few years ago, people\nfirst complained about similar raids targeted at women in Abuja. But those with\nthe real power to effect change chose silence, did nothing. So ye, I am glad,\nthat even though some people were asked to mind their business when they\nexpressed their outrage online, they still refused to stay silent. Or to look\naway. I am glad that we as women, as humans, are unlearning what it means to\nface our front. Because injustice that is not addressed in the society will\nkeep collecting and collecting until it takes from all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should all join a protest where we can.\nSpeak up online\u2013trust me, it counts. The insensitive Police Complaints rep who\nwent on about the women being prostitutes (without proof) has been redeployed\nafter an outcry on social media. You may not be able to join a protest or speak\nonline (we all have different personalities, anxieties, and don\u2019t have to\ncontribute in the same ways) but there are other things you can do. Start by\ngiving yourself permission to feel. Resist the impulse to drown out the\nemotions. Linger a little more on this news of violence. Next time listen to\nthe woman complaining of abuse. Believe her. Or at least be open minded.  And most importantly, ask yourself, more consciously and more consistently: How\nhas my silence empowered abusers? How can I make a difference?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tochi Eze It is evening. The man next door is pummeling his wife, slapping and hitting. You hear her screams faintly rise above the sound of the generators. But you know by the simple fact of their daily routine of violence that it is not your business. So, you gulp down your pity, pull […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3888,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3886\/revisions\/3888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}