Sun, 04 Dec 2016 10:30:48 +0000
By Innocent Chitoba
DESPITE facing possible stigmatization particularly from police who might mock them, men should not hesitate to report abuse at the hands of their lovers, a Daily Nation online survey has revealed.
According to the survey conducted on Thursday on whether a man would report his wife or girlfriend to police if she physically abused him, respondents stated that they would indeed report their lovers if abused by them.
“I would report her to the police especially of late when women have resorted to killing their spouses. It is very important to report the culprit to the police because if you don’t, the next is death”, stated Chrispin Chanda.
Musonda Chisenga added that “Of course I would report her to the police. Why should I feel reluctant to report her when she’s clearly putting my life in danger? Lately women have become killers, so men should not hesitate to call the police if they feel threatened. If women can report men to the police, why should men not do the same?”
However, other respondents argued that the police officers were to blame for men’s failure to report gender based-violence cases because they were in a habit of mocking them whenever men reported such cases adding that authorities were always in favour of women.
“Gender-based violence is an offense regardless of who commits it. Where reporting the issue to the relevant authorities in the case of a man being abused is concerned, becomes a problem in Zambia. The authorities have often taken the side of the women rather than that of men. As a result, most men usually nurse their injuries or ease their pain resulting from abuse from women at home knowing that little or no action would be taken by the authorities in a man’s favour. But where a man abuses a woman, that’s the beginning of trouble in that man’s life .But men are abused everyday by their women out there”, said Mulenga Charles.
Manda Jozef Julius added that “The stigma that comes with that is the one preventing many male folks to report such vices. The first people to laugh at you are the police themselves”.
It was also revealed that some men would not ‘risk’ reporting their wives to the police fearing that they would miss conjugal duties adding that such act was a taboo in the African culture as it was only showed man’s weaknesses.
“Mmmmm, this is very tricky because if I report her to the police and then she is jailed I will have no wife to do the home chores and provide conjugal duties for me, so it’s to die inside besides what happens in the bedroom, stays in the bedroom”, stated Mr Kapufi.
