Societal narratives have traditionally cast the girl child as the victim and the boy child as the perpetrator. However, in today’s era of heightened awareness and exposure, it is imperative that we reassess our approach. We must recognize the vulnerabilities and challenges faced by both genders and acknowledge that boys, too, require a listening ear and protection sometimes from the girls too.
James, a finalist at Makerere University, had just completed his last semester’s examinations. To celebrate, he joined his course mates for a dinner party on a Saturday evening. Little did he know that this would lead to a series of blackmail attempts and immense stress.
He narrates that after the ‘mega’ party, he wasn’t courageous enough to travel back to Kikoni hostels late in the night. In company of two other friends, James followed a group of other finalists to a house party.
“We chose to go with a friend who had a car for easy and safe transportation.
It was a three bedrooms house and everyone was busy enjoying the moment. Some were in the compound, others in the corridors while others in the dining.
We joined a group of friends in the sitting room who were gaming. There were plenty of cocktail juice for us who don’t booze and plenty of liquor for the boozers,”
All was well for James and his friends until the next day at 6:am when they were woken up by three girls with whom they had shared the same bed.
He recalls that his socks were off and the shirt unbuttoned. This did not cause an alarm as he thought that they had shared the bed with many other students who had woken up early and left.
Feeling confused, James and his friends asked the girls how they had ended up in the same room and on the same bed, it is when they started contemplating of having been drugged by fellow students.
“Everything seemed normal but after a week, one of my two friends called me and said
‘James, I am in some shit. Some babe told me that on the night, we slept together and I didn’t use protection. I tested myself and I am negative but she says she is pregnant.’
First I thought it was a joke until I saw a message on my phone. It was the same message as my friend had received”
James admits to have had a conversation with one of the girls on the fateful night at the hotel.
However, he emphasizes that there was no romance involved.
The situation started getting on his nerves so he asked one of his female friend, who seemed to be in the know of the scenario to explain the whole situation to him.
“You guys had fun! she said. To make matters worse, the camera man had taken a picture of me with the alleged victim back at the house party,” he recalls
“The girl started endless calls and messages asking for Shs 250,000 to terminate the baby. She said she had videos of us making out and also claimed to have a friend outside Kampala who would help us terminate the pregnancy.
Getting her money wasn’t the problem but the urgency so I asked her for a few more days.
She had asked for it on a Monday and I promised to give it to her on Friday but to be honest, I wasn’t myself the whole week. So much was going through my head.
The situation had us on pressure because we were uncertain of the details.
At some point, we thought of admitting to have done it while unconscious. We were worried of the videos getting circulated because we all have big brands and reputations to protect. The whole situation had me stressed,” James continues to say
James’ alleged victim also pretended to be stressed with the situation arguing that her father who is an army officer could not take it lightly if he found out she had messed up.
“She would pressure me for the money and at the same time contemplate on releasing the videos. I realized the situation had gone beyond my control so I talked to my lawyer friend about it. He advised me to confront the girl,” he recalls
James’s lawyer called the girl and asked her to go with James at a known hospital for a medical check-up to prove the existence of the pregnancy.
The proposal made her act defensive and furious. She accused James of acting bossy because he had backup of his lawyer.
“My lawyer was almost convinced with her story and each day that followed made us more anxious of the events that had happened at the house party. One time she called and I told her to keep the baby, she switched off the phone,”
While James was combating this one girl, his two friends were going through the same. The girls were blackmailing them using the same statements and tactics.
Upon realizing this, he shared the lawyer’s contact with them so that they could deal with the struggle simultaneously.
“The lawyer started digging up the story from scratch. We also invented a female spy on the girls. She befriended them and during one of their conversations, one of the girls said “these guys don’t want to disburse money, they look to be rich but are stingy, by now all these things should be done, let’s try it one more time,”
With the statements, I realized it was a set up, I called the girl and told her my lawyer was going to pick her up and take bring her to my family hospital so that we terminated the pregnancy, she declined and said I shouldn’t worry because she was going to do it herself. My friends did the same thing and the girls willingly backed off,” he explained
James met his black mailer again at the university. Both of them were checking for their missing marks.
“As soon she saw me at the notice board, she vanished,” he said.
