Men urged to break the silence on GBV
· Citizen
Men who witness abuse against women but choose to remain silent are being challenged to speak up and hold other men accountable. A new campaign launched in Fourways is putting the responsibility for confronting abusive behaviour squarely on men’s shoulders, with the message that stopping gender-based violence cannot be left to the authorities alone.
The Men Against Abusive Men campaign was launched by internet radio station Rogues On Radio, which broadcasts from Fourways Mall in Sandton.
Visit asg-reflektory.pl for more information.
Station manager Chris Rothman said the initiative was intended to encourage men to confront abusive behaviour among their peers, colleagues, friends and communities without resorting to violence or taking the law into their own hands.
“We understand that we can’t be the judge, the jury,” Rothman said. “Us as men, the responsibility lies with us. We cannot count on the powers that be, on their own, to try and stop whatever is happening to the women, the mothers of our children, and the daughters of other men.”
‘We need to stop what is happening’
He said men needed to recognise that they had a responsibility to challenge behaviour they knew was wrong, rather than simply distancing themselves from perpetrators or ignoring what was happening around them.
The campaign was not about vigilantism, but about making it socially unacceptable for abusive men to act without being challenged by other men. “Why don’t we step up and hold accountable the men that are in the wrong, and not by any means of violence,” Rothman said.
The campaign comes ahead of South Africa’s annual 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children, although Rothman said the initiative would not be restricted to the awareness period. Instead, the station intends to develop it into a long-term movement that could eventually contribute to a measurable reduction in abuse.
Rothman added that businesses and organisations had an important role to play in social activism because they could mobilise resources, customers and communication networks that ordinary citizens might not have at their disposal.
“A lot of organisations have the resources where citizens, on their own, do not necessarily have the resources, the network, etcetera, to be able to get something like this off the ground,” he said.
“Whether that takes six months, a year or however long,” he said, the intention is to establish a movement that men would recognise and support, and whose impact could eventually be reflected in the country’s gender-based violence figures.