“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”- Old Adage saying

We are now living in a world where respect for women has become a thing of the past. A world where beating up a woman has become a norm. A world where ‘getting away with murdering women’ has become the order of the day. A world where a husband beats up his wife to the point of leaving permanent scars. A world where a son rapes his sister, and nothing is done about it. A world where women are kidnapped by strangers only to be raped, tortured and later killed after they ‘satisfy their sexual desires’. Such a cruel world it is!

Social media these days is flooding with horrific true-life stories where women are being treated as animals by the other gender. Women are being abused in ways that no one can possibly imagine. It is a shame how a husband beats his own wife to the point of leaving life-time scars, and in some extreme cases, to the point of death. I mean why did you even marry her in the first place when you do not intend to treat her like a human being? If love got lost along the way, why not let her go before you kill her? Why not prevent rather than try to cure?

The world that we are living in today has no respect for women whatsoever. You find a husband forcing his wife to have sex with him and if she refuses, she gets beaten beyond recognition. I mean, is sex supposed to be something done when both parties consent to it? When people interfere asking ‘why are you beating up your wife’ all they get is ‘I paid lobolo for her, she is my property. I do as I please’. What a sick excuse! It is high time husbands stop treating their wives as sex slaves. They are human beings; they deserve to be treated with love and respect. Paying lobolo should not be an excuse for torturing her.

How can a man kidnap a total stranger and extremely violate her human rights to dignity and life? Rape her violently and brutally as she cries, ‘Please stop, you are hurting me’. How does one’s heart not get moved by the painful agony she will be going through. This just means that some people have hearts of stone. How can you get on top of her and continue to satisfy your selfish sexual needs when all you see if you look down at her face is an extremely terrified teary face? Do you even enjoy the sex? As if raping her is not enough, he goes ahead and kills her. How can one be so cruel? How about you let her live despite sexually degrading her? Is it that hard to prevent death? She is not a chicken that can just be killed. How does such a person sleep at night knowing that one family out there is going through unimaginable pain because of what he did, which could have been prevented had he stopped for a second to think of the consequences of his actions.

Nowadays, it has become the order of the day for university girls to go missing and later found dead. The post-mortem comes back showing, ‘murdered after being raped’. After you rape her, is it too hard for you to then let her go? Is your humanity too far gone that your heart cannot be reached? Sometimes I wonder if these perpetrators even stop to think of how hard the blow would hit them if it were their sisters or mothers being treated the same way they are treating someone’s sister or mother. How can a family live with the heartbreaking news that their daughter, who cheerfully kissed them goodbye before leaving for school, was later found dead after being sexually assaulted? This is a wound that will never heal.

Not long ago a pregnant woman was found hanged on a tree. What is so wrong with humanity that killing a mother and her unborn child is as easy as killing a turkey for thanksgiving? A man killed his girlfriend and burned the body. Two friends went missing and later found dead. A girl visited her friend and the friend’s uncle killed and buried her in the garden, for her remains to be found years later by the new owners of the house. A girl being cut into pieces using a grinder. A student walking into the post office to collect a parcel and never walking out alive again. Such is the world we are living in. Suspects get arrested and released on bail. With some cases going cold. Justice never being done. Has the human race suddenly turned into an animal race where killing is natural and normal?

She deserves to be loved. She deserves to be protected. She deserves to be shielded. Without a woman, there would not be such a thing as humanity, lest we forget. How about we appreciate all she does in this world. The pains of giving birth she goes through just to bring life into this world. She gets burned and constantly hurts herself in the kitchen trying to make meals for the family and later to be brutally beaten by the husband, ironically after she feeds him. There is never such a thing as too late. Actually, it is better late than sorry. Men out there can still be the protectors of women and not the abusers. It starts with a single step in the right direction. It starts with a single phrase, ‘STOP GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE’ from a single man and before we even know it, a trend is set. Women can still have a surviving chance. Protect their dignity. Protect their lives. They are jewels. They are important in this life. We are who we are because of a man and a woman, but if you kill the woman, how can one possibly look forward to sustaining the human race? Men and women complement each other and without one, humanity will become extinct. Gender-based violence must come to an end, and that is non-negotiable. It is better to prevent death than try to look for a cure later because death has no cure, it is a one-way road.