A two-speed indignation (By Souleymane Diam SY) October 15, 2026
We were taught that domestic violence had one direction: from the man to the woman. This is true, in the vast majority of cases. And we must fight it without weakness. But in Sam Ndiaye, in the commune of Fandène in the department of Thiès, the violence took the opposite direction. Cheikhou Omar Ndiaye, forty years old, was fatally stabbed in his sleep by his wife. As he heaved his last breath, dragged to the threshold of his compound shouting the name of his executioner, a whole section of the taboo surrounding violence against men was shattered. The late farmer leaves behind six children. His second wife, presumed murderer, was pregnant at the time of the events. And since then, there has been silence. A deafening silence. Because if the victim had been a woman stabbed by her husband following an argument, the reactions would not have taken long. The press releases of indignation would have flowed in, the marches would have been organized, the television sets would have been on repeat. But because it is a man, the emotion remains discreet, almost embarrassed. These double standards call into question the coherence of our discourse on human rights. Isn’t a human life sacred, regardless of the gender of the person who loses it? The prohibition on taking life must not allow for any exception or selective reading. In Senegal as elsewhere, legitimate voices are calling for the inclusion of femicide in the Penal Code, defined by the United Nations as the murder of a woman because of her gender, often against a backdrop of control or possession. To maintain all its moral credibility, this fight must not be of variable geometry. If gender-related killings are criminalized, protection must be absolute and bilateral. So what about men who are victims of homicide or extreme violence within a couple? What we could describe as “masculicides”, from the Aïda Mbacké affair to the drama of Sam Ndiaye, proves that intra-family violence is not exclusive to one sex.
In our society, virility remains associated with stoicity and silence. A man must neither cry, nor complain, nor show off his weaknesses. Under the weight of these representations, many spouses suffer in absolute solitude: psychological abuse, physical violence, emotional blackmail, daily humiliations. For fear of being laughed at by the neighbors or the incomprehension of those close to them, many remain silent and endure until the ultimate tragedy. Others, more rare, try to break the isolation by seeking support from associations like those of battered husbands to relieve stress that has become unbearable. This initiative helped to broaden the definition of domestic violence beyond physical attacks, by integrating its psychological, moral, economic and verbal manifestations.
Now is not the time for opposition between the sexes, but for global awareness. Domestic violence, in all its forms, is a scourge. Demanding tougher laws to protect women is a noble and necessary cause. But obscuring the suffering of men who are victims of their spouses weakens the very principle of equality before the law and before national empathy. It is urgent to broaden the spectrum of our indignation, to break the taboo of the beaten husband and to recall an elementary truth: each life destroyed by domestic violence is one tragedy too many.
