In Uganda, sexual violence survivors still face ongoing challenges due to the same elements that often stop them from reporting the abuse initially and this is the most comprehensive sessions on Gender-Based Violence I have ever attended
A founding Safepal team represented by Nantume Nurah and Emmanuel Kateregga goes into consent, rape, and violence within relationships, Marriage which I think it’s very helpful to survivors navigating the challenges of sexual intimacy after abuse and also other adult sexual relationships
To this day, some people still are unsure if some of their early sexual encounters with each other were consensual. Make no mistake, people have a mutually fun and consensual sex life but do they understand consent or sex, violence or ?
Today’s session led by Nantume Nurah and Emmanuel discussed with the youth mentor-ship participants at Trinity Senior Academy-on Gender Based Violence, Consent, rape and made us understand consent in relationship
The battle in Uganda is still tight when it comes to understanding consent, is actually understanding what sex is and what it’s for. Whether you are in a healthy or unhealthy relationship, one thing will always be true
If someone thinks of sex as some kind of moral exercise or medical procedure, then they are less likely to look for passionate consent. If others think of it as a duty, then they are more likely to think of it as something owed and paid, rather than shared
There are some obvious things that stop a person from growing like being lied, cheated on and exploited. In broad terms, think of abuse as something that destroys someone’s life. Abuse and non-consent aren’t quite the same thing, but where you find one, you usually find the other
Nantume Nurah and Emmanuel Kateregga talked about different forms of Gender-Based Violence, myths and misconceptions and prevention with the participants, they went ahead to talk about on how one can help the victim and where to report the sexual violence cases. There are platforms like ”Safepal app is an online platform that helps someone to confidentially report sexual violence cases and get linked to the nearest support service providers for help” – Nantume Nurah said
There are some circumstances when the law and policies ignores consent. Some sexual acts are illegal because of the identities of the parties involved and the relationship between them. Other sexual acts are illegal because of how a person’s body would be treated
Meanwhile, the rest of the time, consent for sex is used in many places as a measure of responsibility and legality when it comes to sexual acts. It is generally taken to be the case that when consent is actively withheld by one person and knowingly overridden by another, that an unlawful act has occurred. Nantume Nurah and Emmanuel argued that it shouldn’t just be that “no means no”. Rather, it should also be “only yes can mean yes”
Although consent gets used as a measure for responsibility and legality, the substance of consent isn’t really about either of these. If could distill into the word “consent” everything that we want to mean by it, then we say honoring consent is a form of faithfulness, and the giving and accepting of consent is a form of wisdom
If one person’s body is deemed more important than the other’s, that has implications too. Bodies are important and it’s a big thing for something to enter a person’s body. That means it’s hugely important for a person to be able to decide what does and doesn’t enter their body whether they’re eating and drinking, getting their blood tested or having their ears pierced.
Always, always, always get active consent for penetrative sex and there is simply no excuse, ever, for not getting active consent to penetrate a person’s body during sex – Nantume Nurah said during her presentation at Youth Mentorship Camp, Bwebajja.
Everyone needs to accept responsibility for the possibility of a pregnancy, HIV infection, STDs; whether you are using contraception or not. What are you each going to do if there is a pregnancy? What happens if one of you would want an abortion, but the other wouldn’t? Is one of you having sex with pregnancy as the primary aim? What will you do if it doesn’t work?
Everyone has a responsibility to know what infections they are carrying. Having sex without disclosing an STI, HIV status when you know you have one is a consent violation. Be aware, when you get tested for STIs, HIV you don’t get tested for anything and you can carry infections without showing symptoms. This means that even if your tests turned up negative, lying about your sexual history is a consent violation.
Have a two-way conversation about both these issues before you have sex. Your body and your future are not worth risking for someone you can’t trust to have an honest conversation with. And if you don’t want to disclose your sexual history or medical conditions because you’re afraid your partner will shame you for it, then ask yourself if they’re worth being with anyway
Seriously, a relationship where one person holds their moral or physical superiority over the other, is a relationship without consent.
”RAPE is RAPE!” – Nantume Nurah
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