A year ago, the First Lady and the President of Sierra Leone launched the Hands Off Our Girls (H.O.O.G.) campaign, but child rape and gender-based violence against girls is as at a historic high. 

Between January and April 2019, the Rainbo Centre recorded" 1,051 rape cases — the highest ever for four months and nearly doubled the 600 reported over the same span in 2018. Four months before the launch of the H.O.O.G. Campaign.

There is nothing wrong with the campaign, but the messengers have one fundamental flaw, they are the wrong gender. Sierra Leone's men don't listen to women, for the message to resonate with men, we need to change the messengers. 

Over the year, men's response to the campaign has primarily been one of mockery. Both online and off in social circles and workplaces, when women say "hands off our girls," men have said, "hands off our pockets." 

What they fail to understand is that their behaviors and attitudes towards girls are the reason why 40% of girls are married before 18. And why of the 1165 of 100,000 maternal deaths in Sierra Leone each year, 466 or 40% are girls.

Men don't listen to women because men in Sierra Leone don't view women as equals. Cow big tay na soup. They hear us, but who are we to tell them? "Hands off our girls" should be led by men-- the Husband School model, because changing men's attitudes is work only men can do. 

Men in government, parliament, cabinet, local council, and yes, faith leaders in the mosques and churches need to do their job.

Pastors and Imams should include the message in their sermons every day, every week. M.P.s should engage the men in their constituencies every month. When Ministers meet in the cabinet, the President should ask them what they did this week to protect girls from marital rape, sexual assault, and rape. 

Let us have a wholehearted commitment from all-male leaders in this country. Our ministers seem to think that this is the First Lady's job; it is not. So they fold their hands and feet. 

Whenever she has a community engagement as she has been doing across the country, the Ministers will say," let me go and support First Lady for this her hands off our girls." They show up so they can be seen, like accessories and ornaments, to something that they ought to be leading in the first place. It's a war on sexual violence against girls, and those who should be in the front lines have left their post unmanned.

It is not the First Lady's job to protect girls in Sierra Leone; that responsibility rests with State House, the cabinet, and the police. 

No man who considers themselves a leader should take a back seat on this campaign if they are sincere and committed to winning Sierra Leone's war against gender-based violence.

Men must engage boys and other men in a safe and non-judgmental environment to redefine manhood and break away toxic masculinity." Any man who rapes or places any form of violence against women and girls is not a real man," said President Bio a year ago when he launched the campaign. He was right, but where are the new schools and leaders to teach our men how to be real men? Women can not be working to protecting themselves, to heal from the traumas of abuse and also have to bring men along, let the men who say they don’t rape go work on teaching their menfolk how to be men.

Men need to take ownership of the hands-off of our girls' message and deliver it to men because, after a year, too many men have failed to take responsibility for a problem that ought to be every man’s priority.

If men don't take the lead, the hands-off our girls' message will never get delivered. In Sierra Leone, men only listen to other men. 

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Image Credit: World Humanitarian Forum