Podcast: Power Of The Lens

Audrey Kawire Wabwire: This is Power of the Streets, and this is the first episode of a podcast series brought to you by Human Rights Watch about how we speak truth to power.

I’m Audrey Kawire Wabwire and I’m based in Nairobi, Kenya. In our first season, I’m honored to hear from some of the people driving Africa’s #MeToo movement.

Everyone we speak to in the series has a second, a minute, or an hour, when they realize that they need to make a change. The moment when they decide to step up… and rise.

Kiki Mordi: What is going on right now in our continent is a huge awakening. And I think in that sense it's okay to compare that with the #MeToo movement in the West, because it also thrives on that huge awakening but in so many ways it's also different.

Audrey: Kiki Mordi is a prolific filmmaker, writer and activist from Nigeria. She has always been a storyteller, and the media gave her a platform to use her voice. Kiki spoke to us from her home in Lagos, Nigeria.

Kiki: So we may not be looking at movie stars outing another movie star. Maybe we're looking at young women coming out, to out their professor as a sexual abuser. Maybe we're looking at outing a system, not even a person! The system has been complicit in sexual assault and sexual abuse. But I would say that in Africa, the movement, I don't know what to call it yet I don't know if it's the #MeToo movement but whatever that movement is, it's moving. And it's up to us to be on the right or wrong side of history.

Audrey: In 2012, Kiki was pursuing a biochemistry degree from the University of Benin when one of her lecturers demanded sex from her and harassed her until she dropped out. She then devoted her journalism to speak out against harassment. Kiki produced an investigative documentary film called ‘Sex For Grades’. The film exposed the practice by some university lecturers in Nigeria and Ghana, where they demand sex from students or threaten retaliation in their academic grades if the students choose not to comply.

Kiki: When did I decide to start speaking up against the violence that women face? I think it was long before sex for grades happened. I had a job on radio, which was literally what saved my life. At the time where I got the job on radio, I was struggling with school. I was struggling with a personal experience of sexual harassment from my own lecturer, my course advisor. And I was dealing with that for about two semesters. I was just really confused about what to do with my life at that point and any opportunity that pops up I'd just go there out of boredom, I mean what's the worst that could happen right? And I found myself on radio and radio really gave me that voice and that part to speak authoritatively unlike the power that I had in school. In school I had no powers, my lecturer had all the power, but on radio it was my show and I was running the show. So I think that empowered me to start speaking up against the violence that women like me faced in school. It was really a moment, it was a local radio station and it wasn't BBC. But we had a very small movement and it was viral for the very small space that it was in, because for the first time students felt empowered enough to call into a radio station and talk about the things that they go through in school. It wasn't just women, young boys and young men and young women calling in to talk about the things that they face in school, but the predominant story there was sexual harassment. It was very predominant and this was as far back as I think 2009 or 2010, this is about 10 years ago, right? I always took that as my personal agenda! So I grew, that first radio job grew into a second radio job, it grew into a more prominent position as head of programming. And I always carried that agenda with me.

Audrey: Her experience with sexual harassment as a university student fueled her throughout the production stages of the documentary, but it also weighed heavily on her mental state.

Kiki: I found myself in a women radio station, this was a station that was dedicated to women's stories. And then I felt at home and that was the point where I met someone who worked in BBC Africa. They needed resources, they were thinking about doing the story. The last investigation they did, they got feedback from the population and the feedback was mostly ‘please investigate universities next.’ That was the predominant feedback that they had. That's to show you how huge this problem is. We know that the problem is huge, but what we don't still expect, what we see when we find out, when we go under cover, when we start researching. Of course, I was happy to help. At this point I'd been on radio for over six years and had built a network of people who understood me to be a voice for women. I had all of these networks of women who had safe spaces for other women, that experienced violence at home or in school or different places. They found me to be an asset. We worked together and the more we looked, the deeper we went, the more we found that this problem wasn't just the Nigerian problem. We found at least prima facie evidence in different countries. We weren't able to chase all of the stories, we ended up going to Ghana and two other universities in Nigeria. It was a no brainer, when it happened, when the situation presented itself. I wasn't thinking about it, I was just doing! I was just acting well, you need this? You need the university students to speak to you? Okay, I'll get you this. Slowly and surely, so many times when we didn't know that this project would become a reality, we would cry to sleep. Especially me, I shed tears because I put my whole life into this project, nothing else mattered. My family couldn't reach me for long periods, my friends could reach me for long periods because I was so focused. It was personal for me, it was me 10 years ago, all of a sudden being faced with a lecturer and not having any power whatsoever. There being this sliver of l hope that maybe we could expose them and then people would see them exactly for who they are. That was it for me.

Audrey: When you're saying that so many people thought that this is a huge problem. One of my best friends and I were talking the other day and we were reflecting on high school and how some teachers would demand things from us. We didn't even know it was wrong at that time, we were 15, 14? We didn't even know that was wrong. It was just uncomfortable. It's unbelievable that that can happen where it's supposed to be a safe space, but here's someone preying on you. It's horrible! Now that you produced this documentary and some lecturers were held to account, suspended and the Nigeria Senate began to speak about the sexual harassment bill. I wanted to hear from you, what happens when women and queer people speak up against their abusers in such a public way?

Kiki: It's not the reception that we received with sex for grades is quite the opposite. In fact, it's like the women or the queer people are on the trial. In a place like Nigeria where same-sex marriage is illegal, it’s on paper. It's like boldening the people who have this hatred against the LGBT community, they're emboldened and they're in the system. They are the police as well, they are lawyers and they're judges. So, what happens when they come out to speak up against violence, is that they are blamed for their violence. So someone would say, well, if you were not gay, you wouldn't have gotten beaten up. Or if you're a woman who was, if you don't have a sharp mouth, [speaks in pidgin] you wouldn't have gotten beaten up. It's actually really close to home.

Audrey: Kiki, what's a sharp mouth? I listened to pidgin but you need to explain.

*both laugh*

Kiki: Okay. I got into my Nigerianness. It's like, when you talk back, you have a smart mouth. We expect women to be subservient, to not be their own adult. We're talking about an adult woman here. If a man talks back at you, no one would see it as anything, we would see it as a person who's defending himself. But if a woman does that, she's rude, because we've managed to infantilize women and see them as children. You shouldn't have strong opinions, we shouldn't talk back at men. And so, when they do that and they get beaten, it's like society says, oh you deserve it, or you dress a certain way. Whatever happens would always find a way to blame the woman or blame the queer person for speaking up against abuse. And it's quite unfortunate.

Audrey: Let's come back to you a bit. You're speaking openly about these issues, which the society maybe does not want people to talk about. And you talk about it online on the media, almost every single day of your work. So, I wonder what your close friends and your family respond to this activism that you've chosen to pursue.

*Kiki laughs*

Audrey: *laughs* Why are you laughing?

Kiki: I don’t know. In all my biographies, I've never really put activist there, maybe I'll stop running away from it in 2021. But I've always been this person to them. They know, you're not going to tell them about me they will tell you about me.

*laughs*

So all of the things that you see online, they've had to fight for the past 12 years and they've accepted it. The ones who couldn't accept it gave me their distance. I have people that don't talk to me, they cut me off because I'm always talking that gay stuff or that you've come with your equality things. That gay stuff or that equality thing that she's always saying, and I'm like, okay, fine. Become distant family members I'm good with that. So, the ones that are close, well, some of them don't even agree, but they can't cut me off.

They are like, we support you regardless. One of my aunts doesn't believe in gay ohhh but, I guess she starting to see points in that we shouldn't be violent to them. I mean, that's a step. In the future she would come to accept it. So, I don't know what they think about it, to be honest. I just know that they're used to me. They're not surprised when another, twitter dragging like they call it happens. They are like okay, “I guess in three months we expect another one.” They are even tired of responding to people. People would send my mom's screenshots. Did you see your daughter? They're like, “yeah I saw it was what is the problem. Are you asking me for an explanation for what my daughter did? Cause you're not getting it.” I think that I've found that my sister is now an activist. I didn't know when that happened. I don't know when that switch happened. Cause I, I noticed that I saw someone on Twitter fighting people. I'm like, this is my sister.

*laughs*

Audrey: The name looked familiar.

Kiki: I know that name! So yeah, my battle is their battle unfortunately, that's how this is who we've become. Their battle is my battle. And it's vice versa.

Audrey: That's super interesting. Even with the sex for grades, I know that your mom and your sister were really instrumental in you deciding to take on this cause. Could you tell me about why these women were so useful, in your journey in that way?

Kiki: I've been surrounded by strong women. I didn't think that there was any other option besides being this person. As a matter of fact, I was the shy one. I was the one who didn't quite have a voice. They used to think that they would have to come defend me. You won't believe this is a conversation we had as a child because battery or domestic violence is so popular that we were anticipating it. They were like, if your husband beats you we'll come and beat him back. Because they just felt like I didn't have a voice and they just felt like it was imminent in the future my husband would probably beat me. It was a very strong support system, my grandmother can physically go and fight you if you touch me. That's my grandmother, my grandmother killed snakes. I just really saw all these powerful *laughs* women around me. And she's so old, you know, she has the cutlass in her hand and she’s chopping off heads of snakes that come. They are crazy and that's the kind of person my mom is. My mom is so bold, she says, tell me, because she says that's what her mother told her. If anything is wrong or if anyone does anything to you, tell me, she's not going to judge you first. She's just going to defend you first. That's her first line of action, defense. My elder sister, she binded it in her and then, I had no other option. I had to somehow find a way to come out of my shell.

Even when I was facing sexual harassment in university, I was scared of telling my mom, I didn't want to disappoint her. Or when it got to a point where, there was nothing else I could do. I tried everything I reported, I did this and nothing was happening and I'd given up already. She was the one I called and she told me, you know, what, come home. She was far away from me. She's an immigrant, she's in the US. She had to leave to find better economic opportunities so she could send us to school. She needed all her girls to be educated. I was so sad because I knew that if she was in the country, she would march to that school and have whatever lecturer, that is there by the balls and she would not apologize for it. But she sounded so sad and she was like, you know what? Just come home. You can’t die because of school, you’ll start again, right. It was important. I later found out in life that my mom faced sexual harassment in university. She dealt with it the way she knows how to deal with it by being the aggressive person. She understood, I didn't think she would but she actually did. Later on, I found out that my older sister actually faced something like that. Unlike me, my older sister reported immediately to my mom and my mom dealt with it. She really did understand, and she was just really sad that she wasn't physically present to defend me. I had to do this for them and we couldn't repeat that cycle again. I have a younger sister. I would literally run mad if I hear that this is happening to my youngest sister as well.

Audrey: Coming from that strong, very clear-minded line of women. You're now working with 15 other women and you formed a really prominent feminist collective called the feminist coalition. It gained a lot of recognition as a movement. You take on women's rights, queer rights and other human rights causes. It's so energizing and exciting to hear about your work. I think that, this coalition, it speaks a lot about the role of women in movement building, pushing conversations. Tell us about this coalition and where you are right now. How's that going?

Kiki: The feminist coalition really, just when I thought that the most significant events in my life happened in 2019, then 2020 came, and the feminist coalition happened. At least I didn't see that one coming. The women in that group, all of us have some sort of relationship. We have worked with each other once or twice because we're like-minded women, but in different spaces. We have women in tech, women in the medical field, women in media, women in advertising, women in Bitcoin even. Damilola, who's the co-founder Dami and Odu. They are the two women who came together to form this coalition. When they reached out to me, because we've done some work before in the past. And they reached out to me that were trying to form like Kiki, you know we've talked about this before in one of our sessions and you know that we need to do these things.

We need to have our backs and we need to have a strong network that can form, sort of defense or protection for the women that are not as strong. We can recognize our strengths and pull those strengths together to form one formidable force, right? That formidable force will be useful to one woman who doesn't have that help or protection that she needs. I was immediately interested, of course. We came together and I found out they were even more amazing women in the group. I love every single member. It was so exciting when we came together. We were planning long-term, we're taking our time. We had a couple of pillars that we were interested in, education, leadership, financial freedom basically, because you can't do a lot of things without money. You can't do a lot of things without being informed. We were facing these pillars and building slowly and then End SARS happened and Odu immediately reached out.

She said, “You know how these movements go, women need to be there to protect our collective interest.” The woman needs to be there, so that when it's time for the decision making, we need to make sure that women's problems are not swept under the carpet. Because it's a majorly male issue that police brutality issues that we were facing in Nigeria.

Audrey: So Kiki, could you talk about the End SARS movement for someone who missed what this was?

Kiki: Okay so, SARS is a police unit that really went rogue in Nigeria and they were perpetrating violence against ordinary citizens, especially young people and over time they sort of faced their target towards young men in tech. Of course we also had issues against women. We had an issue where a police unit that just went on the streets and bundled up about 30 women in Abuja , they accused them of being prostitutes with no proof whatsoever and they raped these women in custody.

Audrey: Yeah that's… heavy sigh… There's a member of your collective who's leading the Arewa #MeToo movement. I wanted you to talk about this movement and how, you know, different parts of a country as diverse and a large country like Nigeria, that there's a whole #MeToo movement that's just for a particular area. Could you speak more about this and what it's impact has been?

Kiki: I mean, Fakhrriyyah, she's such an inspiring person. If you see her in real life, you cannot believe the strength she has. The people she has shaking in their boots, are literally physically maybe five times her size.

Audrey: Fakhrriyyah Hashim, the woman who sparked the Arewa #MeToo movement, is a 28 year old Nigerian activist and writer. Fakhrriyyah is also a peace, security and development fellow at the African Leadership center.

Kiki: She inspires me so much. Northern Nigeria is a different reality from what we face in the rest of Nigeria. If you even break it down further, we have six geo-political zones. If you zone these problems to these places, you would see how the problems are the same, but they are also different. In Northern Nigeria, you hear that, this man beat the child and then you find out that the child is his wife. You don't even know, okay so what are we hearing? Are we hearing a case of domestic violence or rape because you shouldn't be with an under aged woman, it's confusing. They're very vocal and they're very heated about the people who speak up against the things that they consider normal. They're very vocal about the people who speak up for women's rights. As much as I've observed online, I can't really speak on behalf of her but as much as I have observed online, she gets threats to her family home, in fact. She speaks to the specific issues that they face. Some of the issues would include, body policing about dressing. Some of the most prominent issues, child marriage, various types of violence against women, even in religious spaces. As diverse as Nigeria is you need to break down the movement into pieces and then, model it after this area so that it suits these women. We also have another area in Nigeria where their own issue is money wives, where women are seen as currency. If you have four daughters, you're a rich man, because you can always use your daughter to pay off debts.

Audrey: The Arewa #MeToo Movement is a true representation of how the #MeToo conversation is contextually different in various parts of the world, but it still heeds to one call of action. While the #MeToo movement is often seen as a Western movement, women in Africa have started their own conversations to address social issues in their unique context from Shut It All Down in Namibia, Am I Next in South Africa, Rape National Emergency in Liberia, Child Trafficking in Ivory Coast and Ghana. The list just goes on.

I know that you're a super busy person, Kiki, and you're carrying this load, you're starting this new project in 2021. Could you tell us how you take care of yourself? I know you're a cat mom like me.

Kiki: *laughs*

Audrey: Is that part of self-care or how does self-care look like for you?

Kiki: Everyday it changes, self-care changes for me everyday. I have to adapt to my new reality. Right now, I don't even know what self-care is. Because I'm looking at my hair like okay, you need to do this hair. At the end of the year, last year I managed to take a trip. On that trip, usually I just like to do trips and work together, like one day working one day relaxing, but that trip was different. I unplugged entirely. I was still on social media, I will see your message, I would not respond to it. I would just be posting my jpegs, my cute holiday pictures and things. You cannot threaten my peace right now. It helped me a lot to launch this energy, this fresh energy that I'm using to work this year, but self-care wise, I'm really just figuring it out.

I like to do things like swim. I like to go to the beach just to just clear my head. I haven't done that since like Christmas last year. I haven't done that in over a month, which is unlike me. I've just really immersed myself in work. But yeah, self-care sometimes includes unplugging, just seeing a movie hanging out with my cat. My cats are even mad at me. I don't hang out with them as much, but I know that it will get better, that's what self-care looks like for me right now.

Audrey: Before we ended the conversation, I had to ask Kiki about her recent achievement, the MTV EMA 2020 Generation Award, that seeks to elevate young activists who are transforming the globe.

Kiki: I mean, that was, that was quite a shocker for me. To be honest, I mean, we released sex for grades in 2019 and the bulk of the awards that I've been receiving, including another one in December, usually revolved around my journalistic work. So it was refreshing to see something else that was not sex for grades. It just shows that people are watching. It came at a really difficult time. We were in the middle of protest in Nigeria and MTV really put it upon themselves, to support us on the work that we do in, the work that I do, which includes my work with Feminist Coalition, my work with document women. I was really humbled by that because the award was for five women across the world. For this part of the world, I was the woman for this part of the world. And it was really such a humbling thing.

Audrey: But before you go, could you tell me where to find you online to follow your work and your project with the feminist collective?

Kiki: All right, so my personal handle is at Kiki Mordi everywhere. You can find me on any platform at K I K I M O R D I. My two babies, these are my babies right now because they're my priority the whole of this year. Feminist Coalition and Document Women. Feminist co is at feminist underscore co on Twitter, it’s feminist.co on Instagram as well. Document Women is Document Women everywhere, literally like document and women. What we want to do is any way we have, any means that we find, we find a medium where we can use that to document women would use it as long as it's a way to document history. We want to make sure that the future generation, know, of all the women that influenced leadership, influenced politics, influenced everything that they now know as society.

Audrey: You have been listening to Power of the Streets, a podcast series brought to you by Human Rights Watch. I’m Audrey Kawire Wabwire.

That’s the end of our show. Check out our show notes for more about Kiki and the Feminist Coalition.

In this season of Power of the Streets, we’re going to hear stories from Uganda, South Africa, Malawi, Gambia, Burundi, and more — personal stories from people who are rising up and leading the #MeToo movement.

To learn more about Human Rights Watch please visit HRW.org. And to find out more about what to expect in this season, follow us on Twitter @HRW and on Instagram @humanrightswatch.

Join the conversation using the hashtag #PoweroftheStreets, and share your thoughts with Kiki or any of our other guests, and you can tell us how you’re speaking truth to power.

Our producer is Andisiwe May and this is a Volume production.

The main theme song, Au Revoir is produced by Young OG Beats.

Till next time, thank you for listening