I read this article in the Nation lately and I was left speechless for sometime…
Rape of men by gangs alarms doctors as crime rate shoots up
Publication Date: 9/30/2006
‘It will be difficult for police to apprehend and punish the culprits when the victims do not come out to lodge their complaints’
– Nairobi PPO KING’ORI MWANGI
By MILDRED NGESA
Rape is on the increase, and surprisingly the new victims are men.
Forty men were treated at the Nairobi Women’s Hospital in April, May and June – 11 of them aged 18 and above. Countless others are feared to have suffered the humiliating and agonising ordeal, but have been too embarrassed to seek help.
The abuse takes many forms.
Commonly, men are sexually molested by their attackers. But sometimes some are forced to abuse other male passengers when public vehicles are carjacked. Others are forced to rape women who accompany them. Sometimes they are then in turn raped by carjackers who hold them at gunpoint to carry out their perverted acts.
Occasionally men are raped by women, too, who force them into the sex act at gunpoint.
Driven into depression
Whatever happens, it can be so traumatic that the male victims – even more so than the women who still make up the overwhelming number of survivors of sex attacks – can be driven into depression and, often, see suicide as the only way out.
In April, June and July, six per cent of the 1,969 cases of sexual violence reported at the hospital involved men, meaning men were victims in around 118 cases; an increase of two per cent over the previous year.
Increasingly at risk are men caught up in carjacking, says Nairobi Province police officer King’ori Mwangi.
He was unable to estimate the number of victims, saying only that those suspected to have been abused were always referred to doctors at various hospitals.
The victims accepted treatment on condition that doctors did not reveal the nature of their injuries to any one else, including the police.
“It will be very difficult for us as the police to apprehend and punish the culprits when the victims do not come out to complain,” said Mr Mwangi. “As much as we know this thing happens, we can not be sure whether the assumed victims want their abusers punished.”
Cause for concern
Small though the number of victims might seem, Dr Sam Thenya, a director of the Nairobi Women’s Hospital, said there is cause for concern.
“You may look at the cases and dismiss them as being just a small number,” he said. “But note that it may be only six per cent of the total number of rape cases but the effect of rape is 100 per cent to each victim who encounters it. You only have to be a victim to know”.
Most men can imagine losing a car, cash or credit cards or even being shot in a carjacking or robbery, but do not even consider the possibility of being raped.
Dr Thenya thinks otherwise. “Every time I get into my car especially at night, I drive in fear of being carjacked and raped. It is such a real fear that it stalks me wherever I go. I have seen many men who have been raped. I could be one of them,” he said. Rape has for a long time been stigmatised. It is a crime of shame – a violation which puts a tag on the victim. For a man, being raped amounts to being weak, an attack against the very core of manhood. Few men would ever admit in public they have been raped, nor even begin to imagine another man would want to sexually attack them.
Whilst some sexual attacks on men are straight-forward cases of sodomy, others are shrouded in bizarre occurrences. They border on the absurd, provoking uncertainties as to whether a man has been violated or not.
“I once got the case of a pastor who had been a passenger in a matatu that was carjacked. All the men passengers in the matatu were ordered to rape the female passengers at gun-point. This pastor, an elderly man, was so traumatised by the ordeal because he was forced to rape a girl young enough to be his daughter. He was so psychologically disturbed by what he had been forced to do that at one point he was contemplating suicide and needed serious counselling,” Dr Thenya said.
Some men are raped by women, unlikely though that might sound.
One 27-year-old, a born-again Christian, went to the city hospital to report rape, not sodomy. He had accepted what he had thought was a lift on his way home from church by a “pleasant-looking lady.”
Once in the car, a gun was pointed at him and he was driven to an unknown destination where he was forced to have sex with his captor against his will.
Traumatised by the ordeal and fearing he might have contracted Aids, he sought help.
Whilst the reality of women raping men might be difficult to believe, the principle of rape remains – penetrative sex without the consent of both partners.
In carjackings, some male passengers have been forced to rape their female colleagues or rape other men at gun-point. Those who refuse are often raped by the gangsters.
“It is not a case of class, age or social standing,” said Ruth, a social worker at the hospital’s Gender Violence Recovery Centre (GVRC). “We are getting men from across the board. Men from upper classes have been sodomised after carjackings and robbery attacks in their homes. Some get lured into dens where sex attacks take place after drinking binges. It all puts into perspective the fact that men are threatened by sexual attacks just as much as women.”
It is to the recovery centre that most victims of sex attacks are taken for counselling. The staff there deal with cases of men to establish the kind of help they need. And as opposed to female survivors of rape, male victims are much more difficult to handle. Ms Jane Olago, a counsellor at the centre, said a male survivor of rape will take longer to be open about the turmoil he is undergoing.
“Most of them walk in here without even knowing how to begin explaining themselves. I have attended to men who first come in and they want to be assured that their confidentiality will be upheld. They want to know if we shall call the media. Others are in shock and are almost sure they are the very first or the only men who have ever been sexually assaulted,” Ms Olago said.
Only after several sessions of counselling do the survivors begin to come to terms with what has happened to them. The fact that it takes much longer for men to open up about an incident of sexual abuse means that they take much longer to achieve psychological healing.
Ms Darlene Sorley, another counsellor at the centre, said family support in healing a rape survivor is extremely important. However, it is more difficult to have a man bring in his spouse or family to encourage him in the healing process.
“It is also because of the social stigma associated with the rape of men.
Male survivors are also concerned about how their wives will receive the news that they have been raped. To them, it is a closed chapter, they do not know how the wives will react, said Ms Sorley.
Some marriages have collapsed after the men were raped. Regardless of what they may have suffered, many find it impossible to tell their wives what happened.
One victim is currently going through a healing process with a counsellor.
“It was sad and it was very difficult to get him to talk. When he first came here, all he did was cry and cry and cry… not a single coherent sentence came out of his mouth. He just did not know how to begin,” said one counsellor.
Also, men who have been raped face a high risk of contracting Aids.
“Because sodomy involves the penetration of the rectum, which has a much thinner lining than the vagina, the chances of many contracting the disease after sodomy is much higher, thus the need for swift medical intervention after exposure,” Ms Sorley said.
Dr Thenya and his team understand the risks involved, especially in sodomy. Men are therefore being urged to respond swiftly if they are attacked.
Emergency treatment
Emergency treatment to help prevent Aids can only work within 72 hours of exposure. After that, it becomes much more difficult to intercept the virus.
“Men need to know that they are free to come here after an attack. Their confidentiality will be maintained,” Dr Thenya said.
It is a difficult challenge to help the male survivor of rape. This is because society – including the victims – expects men to fight back, to be strong enough to resist any attack. However, it is a false expectation when the victim is confronted by a gang or held at the point of a gun.
I remember once talking to a friend of mine a few years back discussing the crime up surge in Nairobi and consoling each other that at least we didn’t have to fear rape (yes that was a callous observation but it was the only straw we had to grasp). It seems those days are over.
The sad thing is that the statistics for the crime must be far higher because few men would actually go through the agonizing process of reporting the rape; what with our insensitive policemen, poor odds of the suspects being apprehended and the social stigma that comes with it.
It is the way that women handle this heinous crime that makes it clear that women are by far stronger emotionally than men. Many women recover from rape and attempt to live normal lives and many succeed. The figures are far lower for men, rape is a complete and total assualt on a man’s being and identity. A man is rendered helpless and emasculated. I remember watching this movie and how the brother of the lead (played by the talented Clive Owen) committed suicide after being raped by an older business rival who did not take kindly to him stepping in his turf and taking the limelight away from him. After his ordeal he staggers home and slits his wrist in the bath tub as he tries to wash himself clean. Of course his brother enacts a bloody retribution.
But that’s beside the point. Kenya has never been crime free but I do remember a time when a robbery was just that, a robbery. Nowadays if you hear that someone was robbed more often than not they were subjected to rape. <br>Are these incidences of rape a way of these robbers who are the have nots lording their new found power of those who they are robbing (the haves)? Is it an expression of anger and frustration by these men who are growing younger and younger and are more often than not from the seedy parts of Nairobi?
Kenyans are being driven into a culture of fear and it is not funny at all. Imagine you have to look at the faces in the matatu you get into. Be careful where you drive, when you drive there and who’s driving behind you. When you go to the bar or the club you have to watch your drink like a hawk to make sure it isn’t spiked and watch out who you accept drinks from. You have to try and live in the most secure neighbourhood you can afford, hire watchmen who are ill equiped to fight armed robbers and get home as early as possible.<br>This isn’t how anyone should live but what to do?Life must go on…..
). I think it is also the fear of joblessness that keeps some of these people away.That and the fact that in their many years abroad of scrimping they would go home to find that their age mates have surpassed them by miles in terms of achievements and they would have no place.But I suppose my mind is now running down bunny trails.
