Our Women Were Humiliated. We Mocked Them.

A foreign man recorded intimate encounters with Ghanaian women secretly, without consent, and posted them online.

That is a crime.

But what shocks me most is not his violation. It is ours. Instead of outrage, we turned it into entertainment. Memes. Jokes. Voice notes. Duets. We turned living, breathing women into punchlines. That’s the real disgrace.

And now, it’s not only men. I have seen Ghanaian women recording videos, laughing, saying these victims have disgraced “all Ghanaian women.” Hear this: someone’s violation is not your brand problem.

This kind of exploitation happens everywhere. A Brit leaked Thai women’s tapes? Thailand deported him. A tourist filmed Filipinas secretly? Local fury, swift arrest. If a black man posts Latvian women’s videos? He’s out in 24 hours, facing charges.

In places that respect themselves, people close ranks around the violated. They ask one question: Who did this to our people?
We, instead, ask: Why was she there? What was she wearing? Why wasn’t she smarter?

Bad judgment is not consent. Recklessness is not a green light for global humiliation. You don’t have to agree with someone’s choices to recognize abuse.

And here is the part we must confront honestly: When we respond to violation with laughter, victims of real crimes go silent.

Laughter silences tomorrow’s victims. Raped women? Silent. Blackmailed men? Buried. Abuse festers. Women who have been abused will think twice before speaking. Men who have been blackmailed will say nothing. Families will hide pain rather than face public shame.

Men what kind of strength is this? You say you love your mother, your sister, your daughter. Yet you circulate another woman’s naked shame for laughs. That is not masculinity. That is cowardice with data bundles.

That is not strength. That is a culture training itself to suppress truth.

Women what kind of solidarity is this? You know what it is to be vulnerable in a world that already blames you for existing. Yet you join the chorus that tears another woman apart. That is not standards. That is cruelty dressed up as “morals.”

In our homes, we understand something the internet forgets: A society survives because its members close ranks when one of their own falls not because they broadcast the fall.

Here is what dignity demands from all of us:

Stop sharing. Every forward is a fresh wound.
Stop joking. Violation is not content.
Speak up. Call it out when your friends circulate it.

Before you post, ask yourself: Am I protecting my society, or helping to destroy it from within?

Sɛ wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi. It is not wrong to go back for what we have forgotten.

We have forgotten empathy. We have forgotten protection. We have forgotten that strength is measured by how we treat the vulnerable when they fall.

Right now, the embarrassment is not the women who were violated.
It is the Ghanaians who turned their pain into a spectacle.
It is us.

— Tiger Rifkin, Pan-African analyst and founder of The Witty Observer.