Insight of a Kenyan Girl

There are moments that seem small. Ordinary. Forgettable, even. And yet, they carry the weight of a thousand untold stories.

An elevator ride.
A shared space.
A woman going home.

This is not a true story. And yet, it is true for far too many women.

Picture it: a woman steps into an elevator with an older man old enough to be her father. She is dressed comfortably, deliberately unremarkable. Baggy jeans. An oversized hoodie. The kind of clothes women are told to wear when they want to be “safe,” when they want to disappear into the background and avoid attention.

She stands quietly. She does not smile. She does not speak. She is not inviting conversation, connection, or closeness. She is simply waiting to reach her floor. And yet, somehow, that is enough for entitlement to surface.

This is the part many people struggle to understand. How does nothing become something? How does quiet become consent? How does simply sharing space turn into an assumption of access?

For women, this confusion is not confusion at all. It is familiar.

Because violence against women does not always announce itself loudly. Sometimes it enters quietly, dressed as confidence, entitlement, or “misunderstanding.” Sometimes it happens in places that are supposed to be safe residential buildings, offices, transport systems, homes. Sometimes it happens in seconds, but leaves behind questions that linger for years.

And when a woman resists, when she pulls away, reacts, or names what has happened the story begins to shift. Suddenly, the focus is no longer on what was done to her, but on how she responded. Her refusal becomes aggression. Her boundary becomes “overreaction.” Her discomfort becomes inconvenience.

Why does a woman defending herself feel like an offence to others?
Why does accountability feel like punishment when it is directed at men?
Why is the denial of access treated as an insult?

Then comes the rewriting.

She must have misunderstood.
She must have provoked it.
She must have sent the wrong signal.

This rewriting is powerful because it relocates responsibility. If the woman is blamed for her clothes, her silence, her presence then the action itself becomes secondary. The harm is minimized, diluted, explained away.

Globally, this pattern is well-documented. According to the World Health Organization, nearly one in three women worldwide experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. This is not about isolated incidents or “bad individuals.” It is about systems that repeatedly fail to protect women and girls.
(Source: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women)

What is rarely discussed enough is what happens after the incident when institutions step in.

Or rather, when they don’t.

Too often, women are met with bureaucracy instead of protection. With delays instead of transparency. With silence instead of accountability. Evidence becomes difficult to access. Processes stall. Questions multiply, but answers remain elusive.

And sometimes, the proposed solution is not justice but displacement.

She should move.
She should adjust her life.
She should change her routine.

This response is revealing. It tells women, quietly but clearly, that safety is something they must chase and that peace is easier to restore by removing the person harmed rather than addressing the harm itself.

This is not empowerment. It is exhaustion.

UN Women has repeatedly highlighted how institutional responses can discourage reporting and retraumatize survivors, reinforcing the idea that speaking up comes at a cost.
(Source: https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures)

And still, we are told to focus on prevention usually in ways that place responsibility back onto women.

Dress modestly.
Be careful.
Avoid certain places.
Don’t walk alone.

But research consistently shows that clothing and behaviour are not predictors of sexual violence. Violence is about power, not provocation.
(Source: https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics)

So where does that leave us?

It leaves us with an uncomfortable truth: that many everyday spaces are designed without women’s safety at the centre. That silence is often rewarded more than resistance. That institutions tend to protect comfort, reputation, and routine over accountability.

And yet, this is not a call rooted in fear.

It is a call rooted in clarity.

Women are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for basic respect. For the right to occupy space without explanation. For the right to say no without consequence. For systems that believe us without forcing us to prove our pain.

This is not about hating men.
It is not about blaming victims.
It is not about living in fear. It is about naming patterns so they can be dismantled.

Because when we say boundaries are not provocation, we are not making a slogan we are stating a fact. One that women have known for generations, and one that society can no longer afford to ignore.

Women exist.
Women move through the world.
Women go home. That should never require justification.