Teaching women to defend themselves

By NANJINIA WAMUSWA

Philip Erick Otieno started boxing and taekwondo at the age of nine, believing the two sports would give him an edge in pursuing his dream of joining the army.

But he became frustrated after being turned away by military recruiters several times. Instead, in 2001, Philip started the Mathare North Youth Organisation to train young people from Mathare, Kariobangi, Baba Dogo and Korogocho areas of Nairobi in life skills.

“My dream was to join the armed forces and help protect my country, but I realised I could use my skills in other ways, like protecting the youth from negative influence,” he says.

As he focused his energies on empowering young people, there emerged a worrying trend where rapists in the Korogocho slums were targeting old women.

By 2007, the number of rape cases had increased to unimaginable figures.

COMFORTABLE

Philip explains: “It shocked us that young men raped older women before and after committing crimes such as robbery believing the acts would protect and cleanse them.”

He recalls a devastating incident in which an octogenarian was raped to death. This spurred him to start thinking of ways he could help to combat the vice.

Coincidentally, as he thought of ways to intervene, he met two tourists who had made time from their holiday to visit Korogocho and help the rape victims.

After discussing ways of helping women and girls to beat the challenge of rape, the trio came up with the idea of teaching potential victims to protect themselves.

“The two tourists, both of them women, offered to train me in self-defence skills specifically for women, so that I could pass the same on,” Philip says.

In 2008, after a two-week training programme, he started off with a handful of women and girls, and named the project I’m Worth Defending (IWD).

Five years down the line, the programme continues to teach verbal and physical self-defence skills. It is divided into four groups of ages 6-11, 12-17, 18-25 and 26 and above.

Philip says each group undergoes different types of training in various categories.

In verbal defence, they are taught how to be assertive, educated on their rights, and also trained on how not to infringe on the rights of others.

There is also boundary setting, where the groups are shown how to prevent someone from going beyond what the girl or woman is comfortable with.

In broken record, they learn how to choose a phrase and stick to it, such as saying “I am not going” repeatedly. This frustrates the attacker.

If this fails, there is making a scene, whereby the victim makes noise to draw attention and get assistance.

Then there is naming the behaviour, in which the victim shouts what the assailant is doing and demands that it stop.

Finally, there is escalate and de-escalate, where the victim pretends to yield to an assailant’s demands, making them believe they are in charge, but buys time while negotiating a way out.

“Physical self-defence skills are engaged when the verbal ones fail, or if the attacker engages the victim in a physical fight,” Philip says.

TARGETS

During the physical self-defence classes, women and girls are taught to go for the four primary targets — eyes, groin, throat and knees — that are most likely to temporarily immobilise an assailants

They can also focus on secondary targets such as the nose, which easily oozes blood when hit. Bleeding can distract or scare off an attacker.

In addition, the students are taught how to free themselves from one or multiple assailants using both verbal and physical manoeuvres.

Philip says that despite starting the programme in Korogocho, it has spread to many parts of the country. He has trained women and girls in Garsen, Mombasa, Nairobi, Bungoma, Migori, Mbita, Nakuru, Nyeri, Gatundu, Eldoret, Kisumu and Kakamega.

He has also been invited to conduct the course in primary and secondary schools as well as corporate organisations, and estimates the number of beneficiaries to be hundreds of thousands.

“These skills not only help to prevent rapes, but also robbery and mugging,” he says.

Since men and boys make up most of the perpetrators of these crimes, he decided to train them to respect women and the need to reduce gender-based violence.

“Men are taught to respect women, be gentlemen, and understand that when a woman says ‘no’, going beyond that point is violation of her rights,” Philip says.

Other areas of training include fighting archaic cultural practices such as female genital mutilation, early and forced marriages, and widow inheritance.

Philip says he and his team have trained more than 50,000 men and boys.

Not everyone has welcomed these courses, however. Some men have accused Philip of training women to become violent in their houses and beat up their husbands.

“This is not true because the skills we impart are only to be used to ward off assault’,” he insists.

Seeing as their work depends a lot on goodwill and targets low-income areas, there is also the challenge of financial constraints, which have caused the team to turn down tens of invitations to conduct training sessions.

Patrick, the first born in a family of five siblings — four boys and a girl — was born in Migori in 1975. He attended Mathari Primary School then Eastleigh High School, and later University of Nairobi, where he pursued a degree in Sociology and Gender development.

He has also received training in self-defence in the United States.

Philip, who loves watching soccer, reading thriller novels, traveling and going out with his family, is married with a son.

He says his dream is to have the IWD programme extended to the 47 counties, and for the programme to continue even when he is no more.