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Blaming victims is society’s vain attempt to feel safe, experts say

Living
 Questions will be asked directly or indirectly (Photo: Courtesy)

When Moses Gatama Njoroge was accused of pushing Eunice Wangari Wakimbi off the 12th floor of AmBank House in Nairobi on September 13, 2020, news of the unfortunate incident spread like wildfire.

Wangari had travelled from Kiambu County to Nairobi’s Central Business District for a date with Gatama. When it was time for her to go back home, Gatama resisted, adamant about spending the night with Wangari.

An argument ensued, during which Gatama allegedly pushed Wangari through the window of his office.

Luckily, Wangari landed on the 9th floor and suffered pelvic injuries, which cost her two months in a hospital bed. But according to some sentiments on social media, Wangari’s injuries, trauma and near-death experience should have been a lesson to her and other young women.

Instead of empathising with her, the sentiments leaned more towards blaming the victim.

The general argument was that Wangari had put herself in that situation and, therefore, she simply got what was coming to her.  It didn’t help that some radio presenters inadvertently fueled the victim-blaming fire by opening up a discussion on the topic, focusing on Wangari’s choices.

In another incident in March last year, 24-year-old Velvine Nungari was brutally assaulted, raped and later succumbed to injuries while in hospital.

While many were moved and deeply angered by her ordeal, some of the people blamed Nungari for what befell her. Nungari, they said, willingly went partying with a married man.

This kind of reasoning, according to Nairobi-based psychologist Miriam Kerubo, is flawed and a serious case of victim-blaming.

“One may then ask, if Nungari was assaulted for willingly going out with a married man, why wasn’t the married man judged as much for willingly going out with the woman?” asks Dr Kerubo.

When the public passes judgement as to whether a victim deserves empathy, they do it by asking the victim questions, whether directly or indirectly.

Questions like; “But why did you go there? What were you wearing? Were you drunk? Are you sure it even happened? Oh my goodness, didn’t you know? Why didn’t you leave? all fall in the category of victim-blaming.

American psychologist William Ryan came up with the phrase “victim-blaming” in his 1971 book entitled “Blaming the victim” and described it as “an ideology used to justify racism and social injustice against black people in the United States.”

The term has evolved over the years to include victim-blaming in various circumstances such as crime, rape and murder.

When Nungari’s story went viral, American Historian Brett Shadle shared his 2007 research paper titled ‘Rape in the Courts of Gusiiland, Kenya, 1940s-1960s,’ to show that victim-blaming was an “unAfrican phenomenon.”

Shadle had researched African attitudes towards sexual violence and violation of women in pre-independence Kenya. The Historian then reviewed rape court cases between 1940 and 1960 in Gusii land and highlighted how severely rape cases were dealt with in court. He noted the following:

“Court elders and magistrates treated rape as an offense against a woman as opposed to one against her male guardian. Most fascinating are cases where an accused man claimed to have had consensual sex with his accuser.

“Unlike their contemporaries in Western and Kenya’s British-run courts, Gusii elders did not expect a woman to prove that she had not consented to sex. Instead, they demanded that the accused prove she had consented.”

So what exactly determines whether people will feel compassion, while others will ask why the victim put themselves in the way of danger?

In examining the psychology of blame, experts identified several reasons.

“One of the key factors that promote victim-blaming is a self-preservation tactic known as the just-world hypothesis,” says Dr Kerubo. “It’s based on the premise that people deserve what happens to them.”

According to her, assigning responsibility to the victim is in part to avoid admitting that something just as terrible could happen to them — even when they took the “appropriate” precautions to keep themselves safe.

“People find ways to blame victims so that they can continue feeling safe themselves,” Dr Kerubo explains.

“I think it helps them feel like bad things will never happen to them. In their minds, they convince themselves that there was some reason that Wangari and Nungari were assaulted, and that will never happen to them because they must have been doing something wrong.”

Twenty-year-old girls go on dates and have lunch with friends every other day. That’s how people meet new friends, potential spouses and even business partners. Wangari did not do anything out of the ordinary, and yet, she was assaulted.

Focus on the victim’s story and experience — even in a sympathetic way — increases the likelihood of victim-blaming.

Conversely, focusing on the perpetrators of the crime and what they could have done differently reduces the reaction of victim-blaming.

According to Dr Kerubo, victim-blaming allows would-be perpetrators of sexual assault to suppress their brain’s natural inhibitions that are meant to prevent people from behaving poorly towards others. Instead, they develop reasons to prepare the groundwork to invalidate a victim.

“All these are excuses meant to justify the acts of violence. It is equal to stealing a vehicle and asking why the owner had a car and yet the thief did not,” explains Dr Kerubo.

Usually, people victim-blame so as not to face the fact that the next abuser could be a relative, friend or any person known to the victim.

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