Hon. Ronald Kibuule. Monitor File Photo.
First read:
Uproar as guru claims Delhi rape victim was partly to blame: Understanding India’s rape culture and structural violence against women
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2013/01/uproar-as-guru-claims-delhi-rape-victim.html
Entrenched misogyny against women: Defence lawyer in New Delhi rape case blames victim; claims he’s never heard of ‘respected’ lady getting raped in India
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2013/01/entrenched-misogyny-against-women.html
Persecuted for Aiding rape victims: Dr. Denis Mukwege attacked by Gun men flees to Burundi
Women activists hold placards denouncing Mr Kibuule and condemning rape in Kampala yesterday. PHOTO BY RACHEL MABALA
Indecent rape victims to blame, says Youth minister
By PEREZ RUMANZI
Posted Tuesday, September 24 2013 at 01:00
Posted Tuesday, September 24 2013 at 01:00
Addressing youth in Kajara County, Ntungamo District on Saturday, Mr Kibule said the police should instead charge the victims with inviting the crime.
The minister, who was attending the launch of Kajara Youth Development Cooperative and Savings Society, said the police must scrutinise each rape case reported to them to establish the dress code of the victim. He added that once it is established that the victim was indecently dressed, the suspect should be set free.
When this newspaper called him last evening to verify these reports, the minister reiterated his position, noting that indecent dressing was “an open invite to rapists”.
“I have talked to the IGP and the police in Kampala to see that if a woman is raped they look at how she was dressed. Most women currently dress poorly especially the youth. If she is dressed poorly and is raped, no one should be arrested,” Mr Kibule said.
Asked to define what amounted to indecent dressing, the minister, who is also Mukono North MP, listed mini-skirts, bikinis and tight jeans.
The minister’s comments on rape have drawn immediate criticism, especially from women activists, with one female MP advising Mr Kibule to “have self-control”. “I don’t support wearing of miniskirts but on the other hand a man who is normal cannot go and rape a woman because she is putting on a miniskirt. He should have self-control,” said Mbarara Woman MP Emma Boona. “It’s not written anywhere in the laws. How does he measure a mini skirt? Does he himself rape indecently dressed women he sees?”
Ms Rita Aciro, the executive director at Uganda Women’s Network, said: “It is unfortunate that we have such leaders in this country. Does he know that there are laws in this country against rape? He is obviously misleading many men by saying that it is okay for them to go ahead and rape women who put on short skirts. Mr Kibule should come out and issue an apology to the people of this country. We live in a civil society that respects people’s rights.”
Nothing can justify rape
The minister of state for Youth Affairs, Ronald
Kibuule, was on Wednesday put on the spot in Parliament to clarify his remarks
that women who dress indecently deserve to be raped.
Speaking at a youth event in Ntungamo district
earlier, the minister had reportedly said that
police should cross-check the backgrounds of rape cases to eliminate those
‘provoked’ by women dressed in miniskirts, bikinis and tight jeans.
In Parliament, Kibuule denied he had made the
said remarks but an audio recording now available on social networks indicates
he actually did. In any case it would not be surprising because this minister
has made similar remarks before.
Rape is a crime, period, and thus no one deserves
to be raped. Nothing justifies it, not even nudity, Mr Kibuule. It’s a shame
that Uganda
has a leader at such high level, who would rather blame rape on the victim.
Would he in the same vein blame robbery on the
fact that the victim didn’t lock his house? Is that his logic?
It’s even more disturbing that Kibuule is
minister responsible for youth, most of whom find miniskirts, bikinis and tight
jeans trendy - which is not a crime. More so, the youth docket is under the
ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, which is charged with
promoting gender equity, among other goals.
Yet the minister’s remarks clearly show he is in
the wrong job. Sometime back, Parliament resisted the appointment of Prof
Tarsis Kabwegyere to the same ministry because some MPs felt that his earlier
position on the Domestic Relations Bill made him the wrong choice.
Similarly, Kibuule’s controversial position on
women’s dress choices versus rape makes him unworthy of such an office. The
sooner his appointing authority realises that, the better.
Above all, leaders like Kibuule must be held
accountable for whatever they say in public. They can’t afford to simply shoot
off their mouths at will because words, especially those uttered by leaders,
can have serious consequences.
Rights activists demand Kibuule’s resignation
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Rights-activists-demand-Kibuule-s-resignation/-/688334/2007394/-/ddrlbj/-/index.html
By MERCYNALUGO
Posted Thursday, September 26 2013 at 01:00
KampalaPosted Thursday, September 26 2013 at 01:00
Women rights activists and the youth yesterday joined a growing chorus of Ugandans calling for the resignation of the Youth Affairs minister, Mr Ronald Kibuule, over his recent remarks that women who dress indecently and are raped should be charged.
The Uganda Women’s Network, (UWONET), a consortium of women activists and youth groups said the minister should take personal responsibility and resign as well as apologise to Ugandans over what they called “irresponsible remarks”.
Addressing journalists in Kampala yesterday, the activists said they would petition Parliament and President Museveni to sack Mr Kibuule. “The minister is a disgrace to the youth of this country and he misrepresents government and laws of this country. He must take personal responsibility by resigning and apologising to the women, particularly the youth. He needs a sense of reflection and he should not make us believe he is a potential rapist,” said Ms Rita Aciro, the UWONET executive director.
Ms Tina Musuya, the Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP) executive director, said the minister must be called to order since he swore to uphold the Constitution. “Uganda ratified the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women which requires countries to refrain from engaging in any act or practice of discrimination against women, including rape. We were, however, shocked and concerned by the minister’s utterances and he must resign,” said Ms Musuya.
Mr Julius Mukunda, an official of the Forum for Women in Democracy, questioned the impunity of leaders in the country and demanded an apology from the minister. Ms Brenda Kugonza, CEDOVIP’s deputy executive director, said they would petition Parliament this week to ensure that action is taken against the minister.
The youth led by Ms Alice Kobusingye, the head of Makerere University students guild ministry of women, accused the minister of inciting men to rape women.
While addressing youth in Ntungamo District, Mr Kibuule is quoted to have said the police should scrutinise all rape case to ascertain how the victims were dressed, adding that if found to have been indecent, they should instead be charged for “inviting rape”.
The minister yesterday said he does not condone rape. He said indecent dressing exposes women to rapists. “The issue was, however, blown out of context,” he said, vowing not to resign.
Hon minister, rape is about power, not dress style
Thursday, 26 September 2013 22:34
One would think that a youth affairs minister in
any country would be an individual who could be held up as an example to all
those youngsters that he or she serves.
Perhaps in the case of Uganda, it would be better if young
people in the country did not subscribe to the views of minister, Ronald
Kibuule.
According to a Daily Monitor article, Minister
Kibuule suggests that when a rape is reported, the police should assess how the
victim was dressed.
Should it be found that she was wearing
miniskirts, tight jeans, bikinis or other ‘indecent’ items, the aggressor
should be freed. This trend of ‘victim blaming’ has become a sickness which
seems to have taken over the world.
In Uganda, for many years civil
society organisations, the media and survivors of rape have spoken out about
the treatment by authorities and the police, of women who report a rape.
Rose, (name changed), is 32. Weeks before she was
due to get married, she boarded a taxi home at 9pm. as she alighted and began
the two-minute walk to her house, three men followed her and began making
inappropriate remarks.
One put his hand on her mouth and pulled her into
the bush on the side of the road. What followed was a harrowing ordeal where
she was pushed to the ground, the first man forcing himself upon her, his
weight making it impossible for her to move while his hand covered her mouth.
Her clothes were ripped off, she was continuously
raped by the three men who scratched and bruised her body in the process. After
this, they punched her in the face, leaving her with a black eye and bleeding
nose.
“Since then, I’ve become a living corpse, not
only because of what they did to me, but because of the number of people that
blamed me for wearing fitted jeans and heels that day. The first question so
many people asked was: ‘what were you wearing?’”
Had she been covered up, she wondered, “would
their alcohol-fuelled sick minds not have chased me?”
The most painful moment for Rose was when she
finally made it home that night and sat in front of her mother and father and
described what had happened.
“Imagine as a father to see your daughter in that
state, to have to hear that men touched her in that way, witnessing his pain
was far worse than what I had suffered.“
Her wedding was called off and she found it
impossible to continue with her interior design business. Now, she spends most
of her time inside her house, too afraid to go outside for fear of it happening
again and the stigma. Unfortunately, the lax attitude of the police has meant
that those men are still out there.
Then there is Lucy, a 24-year-old Christian who
did not believe it was right to have sex before marriage. One afternoon when
most of her colleagues were away on a retreat, she went to use the bathroom in
the office.
A senior manager followed her in, pushed her up
against the wall, and raped her. He was so rough with her that she ended up
with internal tearing and bleeding, followed by a pregnancy which led to even
more trauma when she miscarried at seven months.
She said: “When I threatened to report him, he
said: You are responsible for distracting me, this is your fault.’ Though it is
irrelevant, I will say that I always wore full suits to work.”
Within days, Lucy was fired from the company, found
out she was pregnant and was disowned by her family. “It was not just rape, it
was death. For my parents, their daughter died that day.
They kept finding ways to suggest I was
responsible and when the news of my pregnancy came through, they asked me to
leave,” Lucy said.
“I lost the baby and continue to struggle
financially. How is it ever a woman’s fault when a man does something that
inhumane?”
These two women were in vastly different types of
clothing on the day they were raped, yet they share one similarity, they were
subjected to an appalling and abhorrent violation of their basic rights.
Numerous studies have shown that rape is not
about lust, it is about power, control and violence. It is not about a woman
arousing a man by the way she looks or dresses.
One may also refer to male-on-male rape; what
un-Godly errors is the victim likely to have done in that case?
Clothing is someone’s personal expression and if
a resignation does come through, then it is suggested to the junior minister
for Youth that he does not take up a job as a fashion advisor.
The Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie once said:
“We make girls feel as though being born female they’re already guilty of
something”.
This is exactly what happens every time it is
suggested that the way a woman dresses is responsible for her being raped.
Perhaps one day, it will be said that being a woman means that you are
responsible for attracting rapists.
In blaming women, frankly all you have done is to
empower a generation of rapists who will never take responsibility. Because, to
such men, the wearing of a short skirt is an unspoken way of saying: “push
yourself upon me, spread my legs open, force yourself in while I scream for
mercy, share me with your friends, infect me with every illness you have, hit
me a few times when you are done, take away my dignity and then tell me that I
asked for it.”
The author is a British citizen who has lived and worked in Uganda.
