It is in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart that Uchendu recalls the case of a man who beat up his wife only to be visited by her brothers who administered a sound thrashing to remind him that she was not defenceless. This anecdote demonstrates protection of women’s dignity, a principle enshrined in human rights law.
This story comes to mind following the viral video of Mike Mbuvi Sonko, the former governor of Nairobi, responding to a distress call by his daughter at night. The daughter’s story is that she was beaten for asking the husband about the children’s breakfast the next morning.
In the video, Sonko repeatedly asks his son-on-law: “Why have you beaten your wife?”.
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