When the police do not come, when the law is a distant rumour, when the house is no longer a shelter, what happens? The world assumes paralysis. It expects waiting. It is wrong. Women do not just wait for rescue. They become architects. They become engineers and builders of their own safety. They survey the dangerous landscape and draft blueprints with nothing but their wits and their will. This 16 Days of Activism, we must spotlight this relentless, ingenious work. This is n

We claim to value truth. We build monuments to justice. We teach our children to speak up. Yet when a woman speaks about her violation, a different machinery engages. Our first instinct is not belief. It is interrogation. We demand evidence where there can be none. We question her memory as if trauma files a perfect report. We scrutinise her character, her past, her tone. This is not a natural response. It is a learnt, cultural reflex. It is a defence mechanism for a social o

I once sat in a room and helped a man build a cage for his wife. I did not lift a hammer. I did not twist a wire. I simply listened. A friend, a man I respected, dissected his wife’s character over a low table. He listed her flaws as if reading a defective inventory. He critiqued her failures, her tone of voice, the very space she occupied in his world. We called it venting. We called it a private moment among men. We nodded. We offered him more tea. We changed the subject.  

What do we choose to protect when we call a violent man ‘good’? The phrase echoes in the aftermath, a haunting refrain that isolates survivors and shields perpetrators. We hear it from neighbours, from relatives, even from our own conflicted minds. “But he was such a good man.” This myth of the dual identity is not a nuance. It is a lie. It is one of the most pervasive and dangerous obstacles to ending gender-based violence. It is the social alibi that lets cruelty walk free.

What does justice look like when the verdict is delivered, but the woman is still broken? The current system often fails survivors of gender-based violence. The formal, colonial-era court process can be a retraumatising labyrinth. It is alienating, slow, and focused overwhelmingly on a single question. That question is not “How is she?” It is “How do we punish him?” In this punitive model, the survivor becomes a witness for the state. Her needs are secondary to the legal proc

We are taught to recognise violence in the bruise, the broken bone, the shouted threat. But we are less adept at tracing its outlines in an empty purse, a stolen business profit, or the cold dread of an unpaid school fee. What does coercion look like when it is written in numbers, not scars? Economic violence is one of the most potent and insidious tools of control, a slow, methodical process that traps women in harm’s way as effectively as any locked door. Its weapon is not

What sound does a silenced woman make in a society that calls her suffering peace? We inherit cultural artefacts as wisdom. We rarely examine them as the foundational concrete of a pervasive silence. This silence is not an empty space. It is not a passive state. Silence is a structure, meticulously built and actively maintained. It is the most powerful tool in the ecosystem of gender-based violence. It allows violence to flourish in our homes and institutions. To understand t

The Hidden Burden of Domestic Labour What if your "day off" is just another shift? What if the rest you desperately need is being stolen by work you do not even call work? When did scrubbing floors become "self-care" instead of unpaid labour? How many of us declare a work-free weekend? We vow to steer clear of our computers and finally achieve that elusive state of "rest." Yet, we often find ourselves in a whirlwind of domestic labour. We scrub floors until they gleam, attack

What if our most trusted research methods are not just flawed, but actively harmful? What happens when the very tools we use to understand poverty and work systematically erase women's lives and rural realities?   Research can either reinforce inequality or dismantle it. In Africa, where patriarchal systems shape every institution, our research methods matter more than most acknowledge. Feminist research does not simply add women to existing frameworks. It fundamentally chall

What happens when our research documents women's empowerment while systematically erasing their oppression?   My first consultancy assignment taught me how research can miss everything that matters. I was the only woman and national consultant on a team studying a major road project. The terms of reference required attention to gender and other cross-cutting issues. The team leader assigned all these issues to me. The international experts handled the serious technical work.

What is the purpose of research? Is it to generate academic publications? Is it to catalogue problems? Or is it to create wish lists for donors? We must think carefully about this. Have you ever asked questions that cause more harm than good to the respondent? Consider a young woman who has experienced sexual violence. She already carries trauma. Your research questions can retraumatise her. This is violence.   Do you seek proper permission before asking sensitive questions?

A few years ago, I was privileged to evaluate a women’s economic empowerment programme. I will never forget Adanna's face when she handed in her loan repayment. For months, she had been participating in the programme. According to our surveys, she represented a perfect success story - regular attendance and timely repayments. But her eyes told a different story.   "Please," she whispered, "do not give me another loan."   Later, I learnt the truth. Her husband had forbidden he

I have been conducting feminist research almost all my working life. However, I kept saying I am not a feminist. I never explicitly indicated this approach in my methodology sections. I know I am not alone in this. Many colleagues prefer to sanitise the work. We avoid the feminist label while doing the core work of feminism.   This contradiction speaks to a wider reality across African research and development. It reveals the complex pressures we navigate. It also shows the q

My practical work in gender equality started at a community level. I saw a well-intentioned agricultural programme fail. It aimed to boost harvests, but by giving land titles only to men, it ignored the women who did most of the farming. These women could not access credit for better seeds. That experience taught me the true power of policy. A policy is not just a document. It is a set of rules that shapes real lives. When we learn to analyse these rules, we gain a powerful t

In the age of technology, the tools that were once seen as empowering, especially for women, are now being used to facilitate a new form of intimate partner violence (IPV): digital abuse. While technology can bridge the gender divide and empower women in many areas, it has also given rise to modern challenges where abusers exploit digital platforms to exert control, manipulate, and intimidate their partners.   What is digital abuse and how does it impact relationships? Digita

When I first began this series on intimate partner violence (IPV), I did not originally plan to include its impact on children. However, as the discussions unfolded, it became clear that excluding this would be a glaring omission. Children are not just witnesses in abusive households—they are deeply affected by the violence they experience or observe. Many women stay in abusive relationships for the sake of their children, hoping to protect them, but in reality, they may be

One of my colleagues once called me bold, and another added, “No subject seems to be off limits for you.” And you know what? They are right. I address topics others might shy away from, especially when it comes to intimate partner violence. I see it as a responsibility to speak the uncomfortable truths. The responses I have received—whether through comments, calls, or private messages—reassure me that this conversation is necessary. People are seeking a space to talk about th

Welcome back to our ongoing series exploring the progressive nature of abuse in relationships. In previous posts, we examined various forms of abuse, such as economic and financial violence, emotional manipulation , psychological abuse , and coercive control . These forms of abuse often set the stage for more visible manifestations of intimate partner violence: physical violence. In this post, we shift our focus to the physical aspect of abuse and the devastating impact it

We continue our series, focusing on real-life experiences to highlight various forms of intimate partner violence. In previous posts, we have explored various forms of abuse including financial and economic violence , verbal abuse , emotional manipulation , psychological abuse, deception, dependency, and isolation , and how they shape relationships. This post unveils coercive control, a less visible but pervasive form of abuse that often underpins other types of violence

After exploring verbal , emotional , and psychological manipulation, this post examines the interconnected tactics of deception, dependency, and isolation in abusive relationships. These tactics build upon the financial and economic control discussed in previous posts, highlighting how abusers manipulate and isolate victims to maintain dominance and disempower them.   In many abusive relationships, abusers employ deception, dependency, and isolation as powerful tools to con