According to a report by the Kenyan government and the United Nations, 75% of Kenyan children experience physical, sexual or emotional violence, according to the findings of the first nationwide household survey of more than 3,000 young people aged 13 to 24.
The good news is, Kenya is now doing everything possible to stop the assault against the female gender by the male gender. School boys in Kenya are now being taught how to defend girls against sexual assault.
Collins Omondi, the co-ordinator of a program called ‘No Means No Worldwide’, run by the charity Ujamaa Africa, teaches adolescent boys to stand up against violence toward women. Collins is reinforcing positive masculinity in these young boys.
Researchers from Stanford University, University of Nairobi, and United States International University-Africa have found the training to be highly effective in improving attitudes toward women and increasing the likelihood of successful intervention. The successful intervention rate of boys that go through the training when witnessing physical or sexual assault also went up by 185%, from 26% to 74%, according to their study to be published later this year in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.
Interventions in verbal harassment also increased, and rape by boyfriends and friends of girls in schools where ‘No Means No Worldwide’ operates dropped by 20 percent, from 61 to 49 percent, the researchers said.
The program also runs vocal and physical trainings for girls; and is expanding internationally.
According to Ujamaa’s data, many of the schoolboys start out with very negative attitudes toward women, the trainers found, believing that it is legitimate to rape girls who they take on expensive dates or who are out after dark. Before the class, more than 80 percent of boys said that girls wearing miniskirts were inviting boys to have sex with them. Afterwards, it dropped to 30 percent.
Every secondary school child in Nairobi – some 130,000 students – will undergo the six-week program by the end of 2017 with funding from the British government, which is focusing aid on finding out what works to prevent violence against women.
Source: konbini.com
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