There is a disturbing video being shared on social media, mainly on WhatsApp, among Sierra Leoneans. The video shows a very young girl in Sierra Leone, being assaulted physically, verbally and appearing to be held against her will in an enclosed space in a public transportation. She is being attacked by an adult woman who was careful not to show her face in the video. The girl appears shocked and naked under a wrapper with which she struggled to keep her body covered. The adult woman’s voice is heard saying the girl’s first and last name, that she caught the young girl having sex with her husband. The vicious adult woman claims that the girl is 20 years old, but the girl looks much younge
The poor girl may well be a victim of rape by this adult woman’s 50-year-old husband. But that does not matter to this vicious wife, who is treating the girl as if she caught the girl raping her husband. The most disturbing part of this crime is that it happened in the public’s plain view, and nobody intervened on behalf of the assaulted young girl. Was it because it was one woman assaulting another woman and that makes it less of a crime in Sierra Leone?
Sadly, this woman-on-woman assault for husband or boyfriend is typical among Sierra Leonean women. In Sierra Leone and the diaspora, when a Sierra Leonean woman finds her husband or boyfriend in a relationship with another woman, her first instinct and reaction is never toward her wayward philandering husband or boyfriend; she would viciously attack the other woman.
Most times, the woman claiming ownership of a wayward philandering man would recruit women in her circle to gang up and attack the other woman; if living in Sierra Leone, where laws are for sale to the highest bidder, they would gang up and physically attack the other woman, and If in the diaspora where laws are swifter, the woman and her gang would resort to harassing the other woman at her job and in the community. Many more of such women frequently seek various ways to cause harm to the other woman, including through fetish and other clandestine means to harm or even cause death to the other woman.
What is most senseless about this behavior by desperate vicious women who are married to or are girlfriends of wayward philandering men is that their attacks on other women have never stopped philandering men from chasing other women, sometimes even the best friend of the wife or girlfriend.
Anyone who has lived in the DMV area (DC, Maryland, Virginia) for any length of time and has attended the numerous Sierra Leonean parties and cookouts, cannot deny having witnessed many fights between women at those events. Those fights are almost always due to rivalry over a man, even when the man is as useless as a penny with hole in it.
The strangest part of this trend that has been going on for long, is the mentality of the women (wive or girlfriends) who claim ownership of the men, such women always treat the man as their personal property and as innocent victims that the other women have tampered with; even though the husbands are the predators in the “chasing” game. Hence such women begin their assaults on other women with: “Commot behine mi man!!” in Krio, which loosely translates as “stop chasing my man!!”
We can see this mentality playing out in the viral video, with the desperately wild wife accusing the poor girl of sleeping around with men, calling her ‘a 20-year-old prostitute who preys on 50-year-old men.’ So, she is showing her on social media to warn other wives/girlfriends who will be on the alert when they see her around. This vicious wife was bold enough to make this video and traumatize the poor young woman in public, because she believed the Sierra Leonean public would support her.
The mentality that needs to be corrected among many Sierra Leoneans is the view of the wife in such cases as the victim of the other woman. Even when the other woman happens to be an adolescent girl who is a victim of rape by the husband. In a chronically patriarchal society like Sierra Leone, the husband is viewed by people with this mentality as an innocent man who is charmed by the other woman or girl. So, the vicious wife is more likely to gain support than the other woman.
The one positive thing in the case of the young traumatized woman in the video, is that a lot of Sierra Leonean men in Sierra Leone and in the diaspora have responded with support for the young victim. The men are all expressing their disgust for what we see in the video. Many are calling for the young woman to be found and supported and for the vicious wife to be prosecuted for kidnapping, illegally detaining the young woman and also sharing images of the young woman on social media.
Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for Sierra Leonean women. We have yet to hear the voices of women condemning this vicious wife’s assault on the young woman. The only female audio so far responding to this assault is a Sierra Leonean woman in the UK whose response is basically passing moral judgments on the young woman and girls generally in Sierra Leone. The lack of women supporting women in Sierra Leone is the eternal tragedy that is keeping women in Sierra Leone in their unprogressive status.
Here are some pieces of advice for the vicious woman who attacked the young woman and women who behave like her because they are married to or dating wayward, philandering men:
- If your husband or boyfriend is seeing other women, the women are not your problem. Your HUSBAND is YOUR problem.
- If your husband is in the habit of sleeping around with other women or even raping adolescent girls, STOP attacking the women and girls; ATTACK your HUSBAND.
- If you think your husband is your property but he doesn’t know it, and chases other women like a dog, then do what dog owners do, put a LEASH on him and STOP attacking other women and girls.
- Remember always that it is your HUSBAND who is YOUR PROBLEM and NOT the other women.
- If your husband or boyfriend is not respecting your relationship contract (marriage or engagement), you have only two choices:
- ACCEPT his behavior and STAY with him or
- REJECT his behavior and LEAVE him
Know that attacking other women is NOT one of your choices. Your attack on other women is a crime against womanhood and will never resolve your problems.
Your HUSBAND is YOUR PROBLEM deal with YOUR HUSBAND to resolve YOUR PROBLEM
MAMA SALONE ~ Lioness of the West Coast 