Sexual Violence Goes Beyond Individual Acts. It Is a System

Sexual Violence Goes Beyond Individual Acts. It Is a System

Understanding the Structures That Enable Sexual Violence and Silence Survivors

About a year ago, a survivor of sexual violence shared her story with me. What stayed with her most was not only the violence itself but her parents’ reaction afterward.

She told me that after the incident, she and her parents were the only people who knew what she had gone through. They had always been the people she knew would protect and comfort her in moments of pain. Here were parents who would tear an entire neighborhood apart if anyone dared hurt their children.

But for the first time in her life, she saw her parents defenseless.

When she broke the news to them, their first words were:

“I hope you haven’t told anyone else. Think about the family. This could bring shame.”

She did not understand how quickly the conversation shifted away from her pain and her need for support toward avoiding scandal and protecting the family’s reputation.

Days went by. Her voice grew quieter, and the harm she experienced slowly folded into complete silence.

Stories like this are not isolated incidents. They are windows into a broader reality about how violence is handled in many communities.

What happened in that moment between a daughter and her parents reflects a deeper social pattern in which violence is not only committed by individuals but quietly managed through silence by the very institutions that shape our lives: families, churches, schools, and even legal systems.

In many cases, the immediate response to violence is not centered on protecting the survivor’s well-being but on protecting reputations and avoiding public scrutiny.

Silence, in this sense, becomes more than a reaction. It becomes a system of protection, not for survivors, but for the structures that shy away from the consequences of confronting abuse.

Looking Beyond the Individual Perpetrator

When justice for survivors of sexual violence enters public conversations, we hear numerous calls for “justice for the survivor.” Yet far less attention is given to the enabling environments that allow perpetrators to act with confidence in the first place.

Justice framed only around the individual offender risks missing a deeper reality.

Sexual violence does not emerge in isolation. It is shaped by the environments and systems within which people live and interact.

One of the most persistent myths about sexual violence is that it is driven by uncontrollable sexual desire. Evidence consistently proves otherwise.

Global research shows that sexual violence is less about attraction and more about power, dominance, and control over another person’s body and autonomy (World Health Organization, 2013).

In other words, it is not primarily a sexual act. It is an assertion of power.

These crimes do not occur in isolation. They often happen within environments where power differences are already accepted and rarely questioned.

When societies normalize control and unequal authority between men and women, adults and children, or leaders and those who depend on them, it becomes easier for abuse to occur and harder for it to be challenged.

The World Health Organization has identified unequal power relations between men and women as one of the strongest structural drivers of violence globally (World Health Organization, 2021).

These patterns are not distant global trends. They are reflected in everyday realities within communities.

The Reality Within Communities

Evidence from Cameroon further illustrates how deeply these dynamics are embedded in social structures.

Surveys show that nearly two-thirds of some Cameroonian communities believe it is sometimes or always justified for a man to use physical force to discipline his wife, revealing how violence can become normalized within everyday expectations (Afrobarometer, 2023).

Patterns of coercion also appear early in women’s lives.

Data from the Cameroon Demographic and Health Survey indicates that approximately one in four women report that their first sexual experience was forced or coerced, illustrating how power and consent are often shaped long before survivors ever enter public conversations about sexual violence (National Institute of Statistics Cameroon & ICF, 2020).

Conflict, Displacement, and Increased Vulnerability

Looking at the conflict-affected regions of Cameroon, particularly the North West and South West Regions, these challenges become even more visible.

Humanitarian organizations working in Cameroon have documented increasing cases of gender-based violence in areas affected by displacement and insecurity, where weakened social protections and economic pressures heighten vulnerability for women and girls (UNFPA Cameroon, 2022).

In these contexts, survivors often navigate not only personal trauma but also fragile institutions that struggle to respond quickly or effectively.

Families may encourage silence to protect their reputation.

Religious institutions may prioritize forgiveness over accountability.

Schools may discourage reporting to avoid scandal.

Legal systems may move slowly or fail to protect survivors effectively.

Each response may appear isolated, yet together they form a structure that quietly shields perpetrators and isolates survivors.

Survivors learn that speaking up may cost them family support, community respect, or personal safety.

Perpetrators, on the other hand, often learn the opposite lesson, that communities will prioritize stability and reputation over accountability.

Sexual Violence as a Systemic Issue

Understanding sexual violence therefore requires looking beyond individual acts and examining the systems that enable them.

A perpetrator commits the act, but the surrounding structures choose whether that act should be condemned, concealed, or quietly absorbed into everyday life.

When we say sexual violence is systemic, we are not removing responsibility from the perpetrator.

Rather, we are recognizing that accountability must extend further.

Justice is not only about punishment after harm occurs. It is about transforming the environments that allow harm to be tolerated in the first place.

Systems ought to respond first with protection rather than silence so that the conditions that allow sexual violence to persist begin to weaken.

A Collective Responsibility

Ending sexual violence therefore requires more than individual courage from survivors.

It requires collective responsibility from the systems that surround them.

Somewhere, another daughter is gathering the courage to tell someone what happened to her.

And her family is deciding whether to respond with protection or with silence.

These moments may seem private, but they are shaped by the norms we inherit.

Changing how societies respond to sexual violence therefore begins not only in courtrooms or policies, but in those quiet moments when survivors first speak and someone chooses to listen and act in their favor.

References

1. World Health Organization. (2013). Global and regional estimates of violence against women: Prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence. Geneva: World Health Organization.
2. World Health Organization. (2021). Violence against women prevalence estimates, 2018: Global, regional and national estimates. Geneva: World Health Organization.
3. Afrobarometer. (2023). Public attitudes toward gender equality and domestic violence in Cameroon. Afrobarometer Dispatch.
4. National Institute of Statistics Cameroon & ICF. (2020). Cameroon Demographic and Health Survey 2018. Yaoundé, Cameroon and Rockville, Maryland, USA.
5. United Nations Population Fund Cameroon. (2022). Gender-based violence in humanitarian settings in Cameroon. Yaoundé: UNFPA.