By Joyce Oloo
Gender based violence has a lasting impact on survivors, their families, and their communities. It’s any harmful act that is perpetrated against a person’s will and that is based on socially ascribed (gender) differences. The world must join together to protect both genders to ensure they can fully participate in society, and to have any hope of ending extreme poverty.
Andrew Duncan Oduor aka Tumbili a well-known comedian is a victim of GBV as he came out on 25th January, 2023 to address his silent tortures he went through the hands of his baby mama. As the society believes especially today’s generation it’s a little bit awkward for a lady to fight a man but that is not the case as some men prefer to respect women despite that they still suffer. Duncan Oduor met his baby mama back in the university in 2014. They were happy until they had their first kid.
He says that the baby mama became so toxic to a point where she used to abuse her in front of his kids and call him names that were obviously not right before young children. At a point she was in sighting the kids that Duncan Oduor was not their father and obviously the kids went out to play with their fellow friends and spread what their mom told them making their father feel uncomfortable of staying around that environment as neighbours wondered why he did not take up responsibility and behaved like a man.
Fortunately, he had friends who understood what he went through and they were very ready to help him in whatever situation he was in. Thomson Maghana is one of his friends who provided him with emotional support whenever he needed it. His baby mama used to complain that Thomson Maghana had a bad influence on him to point of introducing him to prostitution, which was not the case. Due to constant quarrel and abuse from home he slept with his friends and his baby mama saw that he was moving along with other women.
In 2018, he was involved in a serious case where he almost his life when his baby mama hit his head with the gas cooker grill, he reported the case but the police officers were so adamant to attend to his case this made him to confine to his friends in case he had troubles at home. Finally, on 25th January, 2023 he came out and spoke about the brutality he has been facing but his baby mama went missing and could not be traced for about weeks when he filled a case in court and the case is still ongoing in court. He saw it wise to speak on behalf of the boy-child who is also passing what he was silently going through and he hopes for justice to be done.