‘Weak manhood’ - the silent reality of GBV in Tirinyi

As the sun climbs higher in the sky, Fred Japusi spreads papyrus mats in front of his house. He pours several fresh fish on the mats and then squats down to spread them evenly. They are small fish. Some of them are sprat fish. Their lifeless eyes stare up at him as if transmitting their dullness and lack of emotions to him.

The fisherman resides in Balalaka village, Tirinyi sub-county, in Kibuku District. As he sits on a bench, it is evident that he favours his swollen right hand - a testimony of the beating he suffered at the hands of his 20-year-old wife.

“Maybe I do not have enough manpower. Maybe that is why she got another man. I want to visit a witch doctor to see where the problem lies and find out what I can do. I have heard that there are witch doctors who can give you manpower so that when you meet a woman, she leaves the encounter satisfied,” a soft-spoken Japusi says.

The 25-year-old man’s mother was a victim of domestic violence. When she died, his father brought a new woman into their home. After marking her territory, the stepmother chased away her deceased co-wife’s children. Japusi grew up in his grandparents’ home and in 2021, when he was 21, found himself a wife.

“I met her at Kiyindi Landing Site and I decided to bring her back home with me. I hoped for peace and children from her. That was all. I was ready to learn the rest of the things that come with marriage. We have one child together,” he says.

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After she had weaned their child, Japusi sold a goat and gave his wife Shs150,000 to open a stall to sell matooke (green bananas) and mukene (silver cyprinid). However, a few days into starting the business, he visited his wife’s stall and found her talking to an older man. He was piqued by the ease with which the two held a conversation.

“Two months after the business began, I found her with Shs500,000. I asked where she had gotten that kind of money. When I requested her to refund my Shs150,000, she refused and challenged me to do whatever I wanted to her,” he says.

With increasing frequency, he began finding his wife, Rose Awori, with different older men. She always told him the men were her relatives. One day, Japusi walked to his wife’s stall with a knife.

“I met her standing on the road with a man. I was angry. I grabbed him but he was strong. He wrestled me and ran away. I turned to my wife and beat her. Two days later, I found the same man in her stall. We quarrelled and I returned home,” Japusi says.

READ: Elgon men silently endure domestic violence - police

That day, he was to taste his wife’s harshness. When she returned home, she prepared a meal for him and served it. However, while he enjoyed the meal, she did not eat. Instead, she watched him.

“After eating I asked her to prepare my bath. She told me to get the water myself. I bathed and went to bed at 8pm. When I woke up two hours later, I was tied to the bed. I was laying on my stomach. My wife beat my back with a mingling stick. Then, she began hitting my hands,” the fisherman recalls.

As she beat him, she kept shouting at him to stop putting his nose into her affairs. She told him the beating was to teach him a lesson that Adhola women are not weak. She hit him severely and then, packed whatever she could carry, locked him inside the house, and travelled to her parents’ home in Budaka District.

She left with their child. After she left, Japusi called out to their neighbour, who eventually opened the door and untied him. 

Financial straits

Japusi’s situation is not unique to him. A week before his wife battered him, a woman in the trading centre, where his wife’s stall was located, had undressed her husband in broad daylight and beaten him. None of the onlookers intervened to protect the hapless man.

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Tom Kiirya is the LC1 chairperson of Kotolo Zone 1 village in Tirinyi sub-county. The 31-year-old assumed the weight of his office would protect him from domestic violence. However, it soon became evident to him that his 27-year-old wife, Stella Namukoole, had the upper hand in the marriage.

“Our problems began when I bought a maize milling machine and opened a store for her. I think that is where she met her lover. She was making a lot of money, especially in the dry season and I discovered that she was giving most of the money to her lover,” he laments.

At the time, Kiirya and his wife had a four-month-old baby. When he continued to demand that the profits from the business be used to fund his other businesses, his wife’s attitude changed toward him. 

“She decided that the solution to my incessant demands was to kill me. One evening, when I went to the store we started quarreling and she hit me in the face with the engine starter. As I turned away from her, she stabbed me with a knife in the side. She grabbed her bag and ran away, leaving me bleeding on the floor,” he says.

People from nearby shops rushed Kiirya to the hospital. Eventually, he reported the case to the police but no action was taken. Two days after stabbing him, a friend who visited Kiirya in hospital informed him that his wife had welcomed her lover into their home and they were living together. When he was discharged, Kiirya picked up his child and went to live in a rented room. The child is now three and a half years old.

“Things didn’t go well for my wife and her lover. Without my knowledge, they borrowed money in my name and accumulated debts worth Shs8 million. Then, their love soured and they separated. Both of them left this village, but I have to pay the debts my wife left,” he says.

What hurts Kiirya the most, is that his wife’s lover is his relative. “My brother took her. They took my money. Many people gave me unsolicited advice on what to do to her, but I ignored them for peace’s sake.”

With a lack of support systems in place, unlike the two men, many of their counterparts who suffer domestic violence remain silent and isolate themselves. Others flee their homes and communities in an attempt to escape the violence.

Badru Kiirya, the chairperson of Bugwere Cultural Council and First Deputy Prime Minister of the Bugwere Cultural Institution, blames women’s empowerment for the rise of gender-based violence against men.

“Most government programsempower women and girls, leaving men and boys unattended to. Financial institutions prefer to give out loans to women, claiming women are trustworthy. In our culture, a man is the head of the home. So, the economic empowerment of women tortures men, and automatically, this brings violence in the home,” he says.

Kiirya also blames the vice on cross-generational sex, saying when older women walk out of their marital homes, they usually rent rooms in the trading centres and lure young men into relationships. Because these divorced women are financially empowered, the young men hardly have a say in the relationship.

“Such young men have grown up with weak manhoods and they keep on taking drugs to help them become strong. You know, if you cannot consummate a relationship, the woman will ridicule you and leave the relationship. A man who has been harassed because he cannot consummate a union can never report the matter to the police,” the leader adds.

Moses Joel Mugulusi, the Prime Minister of the Bugwere Kingdom, stresses that the dire financial situation in the kingdom could be the root cause of domestic violence against men. He urges a mindset change among the kingdom’s subjects.

“The government has come up with good programs to alleviate poverty but when some men get the money, they take to drinking alcohol and marrying second wives. You can imagine what would happen in a poor home if a man got a loan of Shs1 million and instead of using it to develop  the family, he buys a smartphone. Now the family has to deal with poverty and a loan. Why won’t the wife beat him to a pulp?” he asks.

He adds that the kingdom is stepping up its sensitisation activities to help the subjects have a mindset change and to protect the men from their wives.

Lasting impact

Both Japusi and Kiirya can no longer do menial work because of the injuries they suffered at the hands of their wives. Kiirya was forced to sell off his maize milling machine.

“I used to own an electric saw machine for cutting wood but I sold it because I do not have the energy to use it. It has been three years since my wife stabbed me but the doctors told me the wound would take time to heal completely. Recently, I acquired funds from the Parish Development Model and bought 150 chicks. I am now surviving on my poultry business,” he says.

Kiirya blames himself for his wife’s attack. He says if he had not shown her that he was aware of her extramarital affair, he might have been spared her wrath.

“I advise other men to study their women’s behaviour. If she is having an affair but giving you peace at home, ignore the affair and go on with your life. If she gets to know that you know about her affair, she will kill you. I made the mistake of showing her that I knew she was cheating on me,” he laments.

Immediately after his wife left, Japusi kept calling her, begging her to return to their home and child. However, she informed him that if she returned to Balalaka village, it would be to live with her boyfriend. Not with Japusi.

“I am beginning to change my mind about her. Maybe after some years, I will marry again. During the beating, my wife sprained my hand and it cannot straighten anymore. Other men laugh at me, telling me not to bring her back into my life. At first, I felt bad and wanted to kill those who laughed at me,” he says.

Today, Japusi pities men entering into marriage unions, saying they do not know what they are getting themselves into. “I have lost hope in women. Marriage is good if you handle it well; and if you treat each other with respect. I used to trade in fish, taking packages to Pallisa town every day. But now, because of my injured hand and backache, I cannot ride a bicycle for more than 15 minutes,” he laments.

Mugulusi calls for the abolition of land fragmentation, saying family property should be communally used if the vice of gender-based violence is to be stopped.

“Nowadays, girls are being given land. A married woman will take a share of land from her father and husband. When a woman has such assets, she becomes economically sound and will become the boss in the home. This practice needs to be curbed,” he advises.

With the patriarchal nature of African society, it has now become an ingrained belief that women’s empowerment has left men without support or a voice in society. However, empowered women also face backlash from their partners, family, and community, who accuse them of not submitting to their spouses.

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