Questions have been asked and they have been exhausted. We have addressed the dressing code, yet babies are also being sexually abused.
We have as well addressed the alcohol, put restrictions, yet people are being raped while in their homes, sober. We have addressed walking at night, yet the statistics show women being harassed while going to the post office during the day. We have told women to not invite strangers into their homes, yet men invite themselves.
We have told women to never trust strangers, yet the boyfriend and the father figures are the ones doing evil deeds. We have educated the women, yet at the end of the day, women are being raped, all in the name of culture.
What have we not exhausted? Is there another set of questions we missed when discussing men raping women? Is there a narrative we have not exhausted? Is there a step we have not considered? We did the #Slutshame walk, we are still called whores because of keeping to ourselves and not giving in to the men entitlement.
We have put up information on what consent is, yet men argue that no is a sign of playing hard to get. We have involved the Office of The First Lady to engage both men and women, yet the numbers that turn up the most are women. We have used every tool necessary yet, to no avail. Which rock have we left unturned when it comes to the outcries of women? We cried #MenAreTrash for the longest time, clearly depicting that the narrative is about doing away with the way in which patriarchy is propagated by men, yet we are left with men who feel entitled to the bodies of women and no justice has been received.
What happens to the life of the many 12-year-old girls that have been molested by their fathers? Is their psychological well being not important? What justice do they get for what happened to them? How do we hold men accountable so that one day we can walk free at night or go for a jog without the fear of being followed home and have our throats slit? How do we teach grown men who clearly know what consent is, to practice what they preach? Because at the end of the day, these people are our pastors who preach no sex before marriage, our fathers who tell us to stay away from boys, our boyfriends who tell us that we are safe with them, our husbands who take an oath and repeat vows with us, it is our male friends who say they will always keep an eye out for us and it is the stranger that screams I will murder a man who touches my sister during beer conversations because only his sisters matter to him enough to protect but not the everyday girls walking on the streets or the ones who go out on dates alone. Women are tired of fighting. We should not be fighting for our safety or freedom but the fight has to go on.
• Frieda Mukufa’s lifestyle section concentrates on women-related issues and parenting every Friday in the New Era newspaper.