By: Zethu Gweva
After the country experienced heinous acts of gender based violence in the past few weeks, the Department of Social Development in partnership with South African AIDS Council Men’s Sector launched a Buffalo City District Men’s Parliament at the East London City Hall yesterday.
The Department and Takukuwani Riime Movement seeks to encourage boys and men to play a role in the prevention of HIV, gender-based violence and other social ills.
According to the Deputy Minister of Social Development Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province is one of the leading districts on gender-based violence cases and has a high prevalence of drug and substance abuse which are contributing factors of crimes committed in the metro.
“Seven women in Buffalo City Metro are killed everyday. We are creating a platform for men to hold each other accountable for their actions,” said Bogopane-Zulu.
Talking about the continuity and sustainability of Men’s Parliament, Bogopane-Zulu expressed that the department allocated funding to all 52 districts for Men’s Parliament and that there will be local municipality and ward based Men’s Parliament.
“Men must be mobilised by men for men so that we don’t have issues of sustainability and continuity,” she said.
In addition Bogopane-Zulu said men choose their own topics to discuss in parliament, they want to deal with issues such as the definition of a man, toxic masculinity, parenting, relationships, gender-based violence as a concept and femicide.
“The time they spend together will help them deal with their realities and find solutions to their problems. Whether it is psychological, emotional, whatever it is that takes the monster out of a man. This exercise made us realize that as the department, we don’t have services that deal with men whereas there are a lot of services for women,” said Bogopane-Zulu.
Secretary General of the Men’s Sector of South Africa Mbulelo Dyasi said the role of Men’s Parliament is about men holding each other accountable, a place where men can share their problems, reasons being that when women are victimised when they report cases at police stations and that police are held accountable for not responding or doing anything about the cases.
“Men’s Parliament is not a talk show, it is for mayors of districts to deal with men’s troubles and deal with them in council meetings,” said Dyasi.
He added that a lot of money is spent on programmes like Men’s Parliament but rape never ends.
According to the Civil Society Chairperson in Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality Nzuzo Novuka, they are grateful for the opportunity given by the department to men to discuss social issues, which are caused by men. This platform is for the same men to come up with solutions to curb gender-based violence and other social ills.
He added that Men’s Parliament will not end at the city hall as it will spread across all 50 wards in the metro. He said 34% of people in BCMM are HIV positive and men are afraid to get tested.
“This will hopefully promote HIV/AIDS testing amongst men as we all know that men don’t like getting tested and that the virus is perceived as a women’s disease whereas when women get tested, they are told that they were infected and cannot trace who infected them,” said Novuka.
Novuka expressed that if there were men’s corners in clinics and male health promoters, that would catalyse the process of testing and screening as men are more comfortable communicating with other male health practitioners.