Kenyan Women Risk Rape Just By Going to the Bathroom

I'm sure many people have suffered the experience of being on a long car ride when suddenly they really, really need a restroom. Or perhaps you've been stuck in a meeting you just can't leave, or a never-ending line. It's highly uncomfortable, and when you gotta go, it can feel like torment. But for many low-income women in Kenya, going to the bathroom carries a much more serious risk with it: the risk of rape.

A new Amnesty International report on women in Narobi slums looks at the less-than-glamorous issue of toilet use. With toilets located outside an individual's residence and shared by a number of families in the neighborhood, there are major health issues associated with these latrines and a severe lack of privacy. They are also often located a significant distance away from a woman's home, leaving her vulnerable on the solitary walk there. Amnesty reports that, for many women, using the common toilet facilities after dark is simply "not an option," because of the high risk of physical and sexual violence.

Stories like this reminds me both of how disadvantaged women are when they can't even use the bathroom without the fear of violence, and how ludicrous victim-blaming often is. Going to the bathroom is not sexy. Is it a woman's fault that she has bodily functions like everybody else? Is it her fault that she can only access the public toilets, which lack privacy? Is she "asking for it"? These women aren't being raped because of anything they do wrong. Women around the world are just trying to live their lives and meet the most basic of needs. And the men who assault them, as Cara writes on The Curvature, are "raping women because they’re rapists," and because they are products of culture of misogyny that permits sexual violence.

Photo credit: tataquax