”I didn’t know it was wrong to beat my wife,” says a man featured in the documentary Women Wake Up, one of the films that won a prize on Thursday in Senegal at the first pan-African film festival promoting public awareness of gender-based violence.
Directed by Ugandan filmmaker Caroline Kanya, the documentary tells the story of a woman who left her abusive husband to start up an NGO in Tanzania to help both female and male victims of violence.
”People think domestic violence is just a part of the culture, that it’s not really a problem,” Kanya said, explaining why she made the film.
”Some women even think [of their husbands], ‘If you don’t beat me, you don’t love me,”’ said Jane Murago Munene from Kenya, who directed another prize-winning feature film, Behind Closed Doors, about a middle-class family suffering from domestic violence.
Munene and Kanya agreed that there is also a misconception that violence toward women only occurs among the poor and uneducated.
”It happens at all levels of society,” said Munene, who added that most of the phone-call responses, all positive, after her film aired on Kenyan private television were from men.
The film festival, which kicked off on Thursday in Dakar, was sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund, the Senegalese government and local NGOs.
It also coincides with November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
First prize went to Zimbabwean filmmaker Tawanda Gunda Mupengo and his fictional short Spell My Name about a young albino girl sexually abused by the headmaster of her school and a young teacher who stands up to protect her.
Following an awards ceremony, Mupengo’s film, dubbed in Wolof, the predominant local Senegalese language, was screened at an open-air theatre in the capital.
”I made this film to make it a talking point, to inspire debate and discussion so we can try and protect our young girls,” said Mupengo, adding that ”there are so many stories in the [Zimbabwean] press about girls abused by uncles and teachers”.
For the festival, 85 films were submitted from filmmakers in 18 countries. Ten were selected for free screenings in several Dakar neighbourhoods as well as in the regions of Kolda, Tambacounda and Matam.
”We are ecstatic about this film festival,” said Ndeye Ndoye, vice-president of the Senegalese National Committee on the Fight against Violence toward Women.
Ndoye told a news conference ”the reality of women in Senegalese society is different from what you see on Senegalese TV”, citing inadequate media coverage of the problem.
”We hope that the festival will allow women to come forward and say, ‘I was a victim, and I need help,”’ said Alia Nankoe, a UN Population Fund programme officer who came up with the idea for the pan-African film festival.
Because of under-reporting, precise statistics are unavailable for Senegal, but Amnesty International says worldwide, a woman dies every two days from gender-based violence.
”There are signs of optimism,” said Angela Walker, UN Population Fund regional information adviser.
In Liberia, for example, under Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson, Africa’s first elected female President, an association of female lawyers helped draft recently passed legislation increasing the penalties for rape, including gang rape and assaults of children under the age of 18.
Nankoe said such a legal framework is one necessary step toward eradicating the problem, with proper implementation alongside training of police, social service and medical support networks.
”But we also need to create a cultural environment that allows women to come forward” and take advantage of such resources, she said. — Sapa-AFP