I've written previously about No Means No Worldwide, a non-profit that has partnered with several Stanford researchers to document the success of their self-defense programs for preventing rapes of girls in Nairobi, Kenya. Over the last week, the program has garnered some wonderful news coverage of its complementary program to educate boys about their responsibility for stopping rape, including a Reuters story that describes how some schoolboys halted the sexual assault of a young girl:
Having been trained to defend girls against sexual assault, the boy called other young men to help him confront the man and rescue the child.
"It would have been fatal," said Collins Omondi, who taught the boy as part of a program to stamp out violence against women and girls in Nairobi slums. "If this man would have assaulted this kid, he would have thrown her inside the river."
The Reuters story also mentions some very heartening news: Thanks to funding from the British government, all of Nairobi's 130,000 secondary school students will undergo the six-week No Means No Worldwide programs for girls and boys by the end of 2017.
Upworthy has also covered the programs' success. From their story:
In many parts of the world, assault prevention starts and ends with what women can do to avoid putting themselves in "high-risk" situations. These are not effective.
Researchers used Kenya's scenario to test the two methods. One group of women received the No Means No [empowerment and self-defense] training while the other took a life-skills class. Girls who received the No Means No training saw a nearly 40% decrease in rapes in the year following the program. Girls who took the life-skills offering were raped at the same rate.
Not only is teaching women how to avoid "high-risk" situations ineffective, but it shifts the blame to the victim for being raped instead of putting it on the rapist for actually committing the crime.
Committing a crime is a choice, and the No Means No program empowers young boys to choose not to commit that crime.
Previously: Empowerment training prevents rape of Kenyan girls and Self-defense training reduces rapes in Kenya
Photo by Steve McClaughin
