Open Letter to Men and Boys

Dear Brothers,

We haven’t lived up to our expectations and purpose. We have fallen short of the glory of God and that of our mothers, aunts, sisters, nieces, daughters and friends.

Have you even been paying attention at all? For years, and now these past few days? How are we able to go about our days, sleep at night, keep up appearances and interact with them like all is well and good? How dare you ask them to care for our homes, live their dreams, and express their rights to freedom when we have failed them a lot of times, over and over again.

We hurt them. We scare them. We maltreat them. They second-guess us. They can’t stand with us, either alone or worst case in the company of other men. They think of a backup, a detour, a miraculous intervention when we show up out of the street corner or drive past them.

They worry every time they want to dress up in the ways they love to because we cannot be civil, human and respectful. We’ve dragged them online, sexualized everything about them, pulled their arms or touched their bodies forcefully while they go about their business in the markets. We call them names when they exercise their rights to not respond to our primitive roadside chants. They can’t even come out on dates without sharing their locations with friends and family or contemplating if we’ll repeat what one of our brothers had done before.

When you are in a fortunate position to assist them, you want a reward you aren’t entitled to. Is it in your place to request for how a favour will be repaid? Because you’re in a ‘small’ position of power, you’ve become ‘god over man’ and you think you must see beyond her thighs because her ambitions and aspirations are temporarily tied to your office and decision? Shame on you!

We are a total disgrace!

Where were we when these women and girls are assaulted by other men? How dare we question her when she speaks up about it or brings our attention to it before it’s beyond remedy and she locks up? Do these rapists live in evil forests and only come into town to perpetuate these crimes? Aren’t they boys and men who live amongst us; commute these roads, work in our companies, socialize on weekend, lead us in religious institutions and interact with us daily?

What have you done this man!? What have you done to that friend or group of friends who trivialize rape, assault and gender-based violence? You can’t call them outright? I thought as much – birds of the same feather. Your own time just hasn’t come to manifest right?

We can’t keep pressuring our women to be vigilant, carry gadgets to protect themselves, learn self-defence, observe curfews, walk-in pairs or groups, do this and do that! Life is already stressful as it is, why have we added to their worries, pains and fears by just being wild animals? Why?

Now and today! Men will protect every woman, girl or female figure in our communities.

Today, we will start to hold each other accountable.

We will join in this fight to eradicate rape, sexual assaults and domestic violence in our communities. We will stand behind our sisters in the marketplace and shut those badly-behaved men up. We will educate our boys, sons, brothers, friends, uncles and fathers to always respect our mothers, aunts, sisters, daughters and any female (anyone). We will go extra lengths to protect them, make them safe and make them sleep well at night without nightmares. We will endeavour to shine enough light to hopefully reduce memories of those shadows lurking in dark corners.

Every day, we will promise to always love, care, respect, protect, honour, preserve and listen to them. We will pray they heal and hope they forgive us for how much we have hurt and let them down.

And for you that perpetrator. I’ll remind you if you don’t know; your days are numbered. Those days of feeding off her fears, her silence, her concern of stigma, those days are far gone. Your deeds will catch up with you.

To the very few brothers who have shown love, care, support and solidarity before and during these times, your efforts are not unnoticed, and the work isn’t over till we have no cases of rape, sexual assaults and domestic violence in our communities.

I recently volunteered at the Mirabel Centre, a sexual assault referral centre in Nigeria and you can also join us – http://mirabelcentre.org/resources/ or any other related group or organization. Don’t stop at talking against rape, do something about it too.

With brotherly love,

‘Seun Johnson