Seek professional health when overwhelmed, counsellor urges men

By Laurine Jepchirchir

For several months now, Kenyans have been treated to unfortunate incidents of women being murdered by their partners, with police reports indicating that 97 women were killed within the last three months.   

That means a woman being murdered within every 24 hours. As attention beams towards addressing femicide cases in the country, many men are being subjected to Gender Based Violence (GBV), with non-reportage making it difficult to gauge the magnitude.

Laurine Jepchirchir had a sit down with Dr Loyce Ng’etich, a university counsellor on how to address GBV cases among men, and here are excerpts from the interview.

LJ: From your experience, what do you think are the primary causes and triggers of male gender violence?

LN: Number one is drug and alcohol abuse. When men abuse these drugs, money is spent to cater for such behaviours and when they cannot contribute to the economy and support their families, it becomes a big problem because it will anger the female partner who becomes abusive.

In addition, abusing alcohol reduces the ability of men to make right judgements.

The second trigger is family and emotional terrorism. This happens when a woman in marriage is harbouring negative feelings and resentment, due to lack of provision from the man, hence this will spur vengeance and even lead to animosity, hence a man will become a victim and sometimes staging can be done to aggravate the consequences, by ‘trying to spoil the man’s reputation’ through raising fabricated charges like alleged sexual molestation of the children.

Stereotyped communities will eventually believe the woman and terrorise the man without fair judgement of the situation.

Then there’s suspicion of infidelity. Some men in today’s generation may be alleged to be unfaithful in their marriages, this would lead to anger and bitterness from the female counterpart.

Eventually, it would lead to violence and even gang beatings, but sometimes these suspicions may not be true.

The fourth cause is family background and dynamics. This happens when role expectations between men and women have become similar leading to masculinization where females are taking more male roles. This will lead to domination at homes and work leading to conflicts.

LJ: How is male gender violence different from the other genders and what challenges does it present in counselling?

LN: When men go through violence, we tend not to talk about it because of stereotyping especially from the traditional setting which categorises men as strong, or should have dominion over women.

As such, victims of violence go unnoticed because of fear of being stereotyped. In counselling there are a lot of stigmas, since most men will not come out to talk about it compared to women who open up easily in case of abusive marriages. For example, if a woman is beaten up in marriage, it will be the talk of the town and actions will be taken immediately.

In recent years, we have seen a lot of campaigns championing women empowerment compared to men as people perceive it not to be a norm, and sometimes even when men are humiliated nothing will be done.

LJ: What legal frameworks should be developed to ensure a more equitable gender rule?

LN: The frameworks indeed have been developed but there is one major problem of implementation. There is a need for social workers, and legal institutions fighting for human rights to put these policies in place and enact them to govern the welfare of the boychild and the girl child.

LJ: What do you think are the barriers that male survivors face in reporting their cases?

LN: the major barriers are stereotyping and stigmatisation. The fear of being seen as weak, in the context that a man cannot be beaten up by a woman is real, and it is eating up very many men.

LJ: What are you doing to ensure that men come out more to seek help?

LN: We are doing a lot to ensure stereotyping and stigmatisation ends. We are taking up psycho-education and campaigns to educate people and let them know that ‘it is okay not to be okay,’ and reach out when facing violence.

That such problems do happen and it is right to seek professional help. A good example is for the college-going boys who are left to fend for themselves, they go through a lot of distress and unfortunately immerse themselves into drug abuse just to cope with the frustrations. Society expects them to ‘to man up,’ and not expected to ask for help.

LJ: What advice would you give to male survivors who are hesitant to share their stories?

LN: It is important for men to note that they cannot do it alone. When they feel overwhelmed with issues, they should seek professional help. It is not a weakness to seek help, rather it is a sign of strength. Some may want to even commit suicide as they don’t know what to do and where to go. It is ideal to seek professional help.