Home-grown Perverts
I read this on the editorial page of the Daily Nation and was shurprised (shocked and surprised). The individual who wrote the letter claims that tourism/tourists and the internet have led to the deterioration of the social and moral fabric in our society leading to the sexual exploitation of children. The writer speculates that "some perverts" move to Kenya to avoid punishment or restrictions in their home countries.
When I was about 10 years old, I went to the ASK show in Nairobi with one of my older sisters. While we were there I had a go on the bouncing castle-tons of fun. On leaving the castle however, the attendant at the entrance groped my chest, touching one of my bee-sting sized breasts! I hurled an insult at him and ran off to tell my sister, he just laughed at me. Home-grown pervert #1.
A friend of my parents, seperated from his wife for years, once tried to touch me and hug me when we were alone at his house. I remember just moving away from him and trying to act normal but knowing in my gut that there was something very wrong with what he had tried to do. It was the way he acted, nervous and funny. Even as a child I picked up on those weird vibes. Homegrown pervert #2.
Farmgal shared 3 stories of similar experiences back in Kenya. Home-grown perverts #3,4 and 5. I could go on telling and re-telling to prove my point but I think you get the idea. That's why that letter in the Nation irked me so much. I know it was an opinion, and that's just one person, but how many more people have that same attitude?
People want to pretend that the sexual abuse of children is something that tourists-euphemism for white-have brought with them from "their countries" to Kenya. Huh?! Just what we need, a more evolved form of the common "devil made me do it" excuse.
Wake up and smell the arabica and robusta people! We have our own home-made, home-grown Kenyan perverts. Until we are willing to admit that and stop pointing fingers, then the sexual exploitation of children will continue. Doing something about this extremely disturbing problem requires us to to confront the dirty truth-we have perverts among us and they look just like us. They didn't come off a plane, they live in our neighbourhoods, teach in our schools and we trust them with our children.
I am willing to admit that there probably are visitors to Kenya who are perverts with one agenda but I wouldn't say that tourist and pervert are synonymous, far from it. This view just encourages us to continue playing ostrich, burying our heads in the sand, and thinking of this as a problem caused by someone else. We need to take responsibility and find a way to fix this.
posted by wg-k @ 09:14
9 Comments:
Spot on!
I agree with you on the urgent need to do something about this issue.
I have heard people on several occasions say there are no paedophiles in Africa and that these are a manifestation of western civilisation. Yet I know several African people (both women and men) who were molested as children, some by family members. They kept quiet and told no one as they felt nobody would believe them. Very sad.
The Kenyan mentality would be laughable were it not so sad. Apparently anything bad like corruption, pedophilia, etc is "unafrican" and was brought in from the west to ruin our purity.
So sad, so sad.
What about those teachers who "slept" with pupils in primary school?
What about those dads that "slept" with their daughters?
What about those men who "sleep" with househelps - who are under the age of consent?
Yes, the list is endless, and it has been "swept under the carper", or blamed on foreigners.
Nice post...
BT,
You are so right with this post. Mshairi and I were discussing how we always blame the west for things that we do not want to own up to.
- medusa, glad you're back!
- mshairi, i agree with you. in addition to my own encounters, i know of instances of other people being molested and never saying anything. and we can't blame children for thinking nobody will believe them, look at the "not in Africa" attitude. sad.thanks for visiting my blog.
- nick, i have expressed my feelings already,i will say no more.
- m,you're right, the mentality would be laughable were it not such a sad situation.
- guess, i feel you, we are in denial even when the facts are staring us in the face and biting us on the nose.
- BT, isn't it funny, in a twisted, painful way, how we hide play the role of victim in order to avoid taking responsibility?
We're so quick to blame others for what is an open secret about Kenya - a large number of girls and women are sexually harassed, molested and raped every day...and this from a country that's always saying how we need to preserve our 'African' culture. For me if culture means rape and assault, forget it! That is not my culture!
~ Afrofeminista, open secret is right. (Actually sometimes I get the feeling that the only thing that makes sexual assault wrong is if it's done by "a foreigner" instead of "one of us".) how dare those damn foreigners corrupt our women and children?! You're right, this is not what my culture should be.
Okay, I am as disgusted as everybody else. However, surely we cannot all have forgotten (I fear I shall show my age here) all those quite insalubrious stories in the newspapers about various men being arrested for trying miraculously to have sex with chickens, goats and most horrifyingly, small babies. Nor can we have developed some fantastic amnesia to the fate of rape victims in court, who often had their underwear flourished in open court as "the garment in question." Throw in some child-brides, some misogyny, some repressed homophobics and we have all the makings of a busy pervert factory. "have seen the monster, and the monster is us." I've badly paraphrased someone,--it used to read "enemy" in the original, but I think he's dead. Should I discover what source I have thus mutilated, I will apologise and give due kudos.
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