Men’s Dialogue on Gender Relations and Abuse: discussion

Meeting report

IMPROVEMENT OF QUALITY OF LIFE AND STATUS OF WOMEN JOINT MONITORING COMMITTEE
24 August 2005
MEN’S DIALOGUE ON GENDER RELATIONS AND ABUSE: DISCUSSION

Chairperson: Ms M Morutoa (ANC)

Documents handed out:
Perspectives on Gender and Socialisation; a challenge to men: briefing by Commission for Gender Equality

SUMMARY
Men from a wide variety of social and organisational sectors shared a dialogue on how men could become more involved in preventing women and child abuse. The Committee saw this meeting as preparation for Parliament’s discussions on 30 and 31 August 2005 on the national gender machinery. Presenters explained their perspectives on men who valued women’s lives and rights, the protection of the girl child and the upbringing of boys.

MINUTES

Men as Partners briefing
Mr Dean Peacock, Director (and also Programme Manager for Engender Health), said that Men as Partners represented a network of organisations that promoted men’s full support for gender equality. They encouraged men to take a clear and active stand against domestic and sexual violence. He recognised the link between domestic and sexual violence and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the encouragement of men’s involvement in the reduction of risk taking behaviours, the increase of health seeking behaviours and their involvement in the reduction of HIV/AIDS, care and support. He exhibited video clips that were testimony on how gender and domestic violence impacted on people’s lives. There were four clips that depicted the impact of sexual and domestic violence and for two of the clips, the narrators were present and made presentations to the audience during the NGO and civil society session.

Mr Patrick Godana, a young man who worked for the project testified to having grown up around domestic violence and physical violence. He had been involved in activities that involved men in gender equality. Not all men were bad and asked policy makers to lead by example by speaking about gender equality issues. It was important to include men in the task and quest of eradicating violence against women. He alluded to the media’s ignorance of gender issues. Many men were committed to ensuring that they realised what they had fought for.

Rra-Phakisa Botha then mentioned that the youth were taking over from the old but inherent in the youth were socialisation problems as they attempted to display their masculinity which was evident in behaviour like multiple sex partners and substance abuse and which led to their being violent. As young men, they had taken it upon themselves to change the way things were done like the killing of women by their intimate partners. From his personal experience, not all men were bad but the media had portrayed the negative picture and they as the youth had a role to play in the education of young boys in their early years.

Mr Thami Nkosi further mentioned two issues at the root of the problem that silence was the killer in domestic violence when people did not come out to address the issues. Institutional or interpersonal socialisation was another problem which did not allow men to come before women. He pleaded for the implementation of legislation and policies that were relevant in the eradication of domestic violence by the Committee. He concluded by asking whether they as men were ready to take the lead as the women stood at the forefront of femininity.

Commission for Gender Studies briefing
Commissioner Bafana Khumalo gave a presentation on the perspectives of gender and socialisation and the challenges to men. He mentioned that there were synergies in the presentations that had been made and his organisation had conducted a study on the implementation of the Domestic Violence Act and the gaps it failed to address in terms of attitudes and what happened when women presented themselves at the police station. It also covered the conduct of the police where they felt that issues of domestic violence were seen as family matters and abuse cases were not documented by the police. It was clear there were problems with implementation.

His presentation outlined that the legislative framework was positive toward gender equality and even though transformation was part of their agenda, it was within a patriarchal system. The definition of socialisation and the manner in which it was transferred and shared through institutions like the family and schools was one of the reasons gender transformation was such a challenge today. Many International Conventions had been signed affirming gender equality and one example was the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender Equality. He explained the role of culture and its contributions to the present situation. Traditions and cultures were dynamic and evolved over time and were about the enhancement of life and about building and growth. There were harmful cultural and traditional practices and these were distorted but at the same time a model was available and the culture of ubuntu was one of them and was embedded in almost all cultures and was more about life enhancement.

He explained that there were possibilities available to alter the situation and it was possible through the harmonisation of constitutional democratic provisions with cultural provisions, through presidential imbizos, ward Committee systems, local area meetings, the ‘African Renaissance’ and the country’s legal framework. He felt that the way forward was through the review of gender policy to include work with men, to lobby for gender focus presentation at the correct and influential levels and the exploration of the role of arts and culture in placing the matter on their agenda. There was the possibility of deepening the links between government and civil society initiatives and the need of carrying through the approach to service delivery in the achievement of an integrated approach to gender equality. Traditional institutions played a significant role in development and would allow culture to grow as it would help in eradicating the challenges of poverty and joblessness and thus enhance the status of women.

Presbyterian Church briefing
Reverend R Rashe spoke about the role of the church as theologians identified the role of men in eradicating the problem of domestic violence and how the church could involve them in the process. He mentioned that increased awareness was important for purposes of portraying the problems of domestic violence. He pointed out three steps of ethical decision making that could be utilised. The first entailed seeing the problem, accepting it and describing it. The second was identifying the nature of the problem and the determination of responses. Many men did not see domestic violence as a problem and therefore saw women as responsible for it. The ethic of seeing was needed to help them to come to a collective decision to respond to a problem. Men were already an integral part of the communities that supported and interacted with families that dealt with violence and as such had a role in stopping domestic violence. Men were more critical to violence prevention since men were more likely to listen to other men when it came to the perpetration of domestic violence.

He suggested that one of the practical solutions to men’s role in change at the church would be the integration into the churches of issues of human rights and dignity which encompassed respect for human life in the ministry.

He also spoke about the role of men especially in men’s associations and their effect in changing social norms in situations of domestic violence. The three factors that contributed to perpetrating violence against women had been identified as culture, socialisation, and religion. He proposed the liberation of culture and mentioned that religion had also played a role in terms of liberation theology. He also questioned the capacity of its application in the concept of domestic violence. The same Liberation Theology that had oppressed women, could also liberate them. He spoke about the need to re-socialise the agents of socialisation by the reorientation of men as agents of socialisation in all institutions like the family, schools, and societies. It was churches’ role to build responsible citizens and to pay attention in doing so from African concepts that had commendable ethics and the ability to reach out to others who needed help. Men could reach out to families where domestic violence was present.

New Holland Publishing briefing
Mr Brian Wootton, CEO of New Holland Publishing (a division of Johnnic Communications) spoke on behalf of the business community and from a business perspective. Women were an important asset to every business and businesses had an important role to play in the improvement of the life and status of women. Businesses were involved in a number of roles with women as employees. They should be involved in a number of roles, where women were employees, for instance in corporate governance that included gender equity, in the adoption and implementation of policies such as maternity and pregnancy, sexual harassment, employment equity, and the subscription to good codes of practice. He mentioned there should be external reporting on the adoption of these policies. Business should be involved in relationships with women on broader societal issues, as companies played an important role due to their day-to-day involvement with women and could be involved in the enforcement of the Domestic Violence and Maintenance Acts. He stated that there were possibilities for educating both men and women with regard to their rights in terms of the Acts, the identification and reporting of cases of abuse of both women and children, medical support, counselling and in obtaining garnishee orders.

He mentioned that the key solution was a coordinated programme of education and training and the implementation of monitoring, which he felt corporations had not done enough of and these required money. His advice was to incorporate Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of big companies who had a lot of influence to get some of the people involved in the forum which would lead to its effectiveness.

Bonitas Medical Aid briefing
Mr M Ndzuzo said medical aid schemes were regularly involved in the medical implications that arose due to domestic violence. He commended the increase in the ratio of women that represented local government that had been announced by the President and added that a higher ratio would have been better. One of the major problems with regard to domestic violence was a mindset one. There was the perception that the initiatives that fought against women and child abuse brought about complacency as people felt that a favour was being done for women and children and the notion needed to be eradicated. One of the challenges was to get women to take the lead in issues that affected them like the non-disclosure of HIV/AIDS by men.

Another was the sustainability problem that led to the loss of enthusiasm by the women and thus participation in the initiatives. Their challenge as a medical aid was the designation of costs incurred as a result of women and child abuse. The statistics were scant and multidisciplinary coordination was vital to the determination of a global picture. The statistics showed that child abuse had cost the taxpayer more than R2.2 billion. It was the Committee’s task to determine the cost of the scourge on public resources which was possible through a compilation of actual as opposed to official statistics from other involved parties and would thus allow proper intervention. There was therefore a need to establish the cost of abuse related injustices in society which had to be done through a co-coordinated effort with all stakeholders. He questioned the vigilance of civil society and their end result and felt that more campaigns were needed. The extension of Parliament’s monitoring function was imperative for ensuring a functioning education system and emphasised that it was important to move away from Committees and towards the people as they were the drivers for success.

Ilitha Labantu briefing
Ms Madisa Monakali spoke of the challenges for society because of violence against women. She acknowledged that it was the best kept secret in the communities and it was ironic that even though there were organisations whose daily work was to combat domestic violence against women, it was still depicted that domestic violence was on the increase. South Africa had concrete legislation and despite her organisation’s involvement in the drafting of the Domestic Violence Act, domestic violence was still on the rise. She spoke about some of the challenges on how domestic violence was perceived and referred to the video clips that had been exhibited. She questioned why domestic violence against women was prevalent among people of colour. This was a challenge and she asked whether it was because people were open to talk about violence against women or was it because people of colour had now come out to speak about it including the children. She further asked why other people of colour and other societies did not talk about it as this had not been depicted in the video clips. She questioned what was being portrayed in the country, as it appeared that these problems only affected particular people like it had been portrayed before in HIV/AIDS statistics.

She reiterated that it was a challenge for all policy makers how they depicted these problems to the country. She spoke about the involvement of men in fighting domestic violence and their importance in fighting violence against women as not all of them were bad. The issue of rights was brought to the fore as she questioned whether women out there knew their constitutional rights and acknowledged that it did not only affect women but also affected men and therefore men were part of the solution. She challenged the use of language in the involvement of men in dialogue as they felt uncomfortable and distanced themselves. She stated that it was not about victory or defence but it was about creating a conducive environment for women and men to live in.

She mentioned that the other challenge was ensuring multi-disciplinary co-operation as South Africa had a powerful Domestic Violence Act, but an evident gap existed between policy and implementation and these would have to be balanced. She mentioned that the police and the justice system would have to work together. She pointed out that the other challenge was domestic violence and power, as it was evident that power and control were the essence of domestic violence and that the power that abusers had made it difficult for women to confront violence and as such made it their secret. She commended the milestone Domestic Violence Act, and mentioned that much had been done in this area but much was yet to be done, especially in preparation for the Beijing Plus 10 conference and in the implementation of its goals. The theme at the conference would be domestic violence as one of the key areas and they would launch a plan of implementation in South Africa. She questioned the role of implementation as it was torn between government and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), and especially because NGOs had problems due to lack of resources.

She added that another challenge was the definition of manhood and its meaning to different people. The ideal one was one that portrayed men as strong and gentle, healthy and able to find ways to deal with their emotions and take equal responsibility with women for raising their children. Another issue was the socialisation of boy children in the family. She recommended the use of laws that prohibited physical abuse. The challenge was not to leave out the boy child when empowering the girl child. Violence against women could not be divorced from HIV/AIDS, as well as from other issues that were happening outside of the home.

Parliament Chief Whip’s briefing
Parliament’s ANC Chief Whip, Mr N Nhleko, stated that respect and dignity for everyone on the basis of non-racialism and non-sexism and the unrelenting goals in the pursuance of equality, respect and dignity were central to the transformation of the country from the previous sexist and racist past. He quoted from the Freedom Charter "the right of the people shall be the same regardless of colour, race or sex". The Bill of Rights also stipulated that everyone had the right to freedom and security of person and included the right to be free from all forms of violence from both public and private sources.

He mentioned that the provisions of the Bill of Rights bound the legislature and that the purpose of the meeting was to undo the culture of violence and human abuse and therefore spoke directly to the duties of individual South Africans and to civil society.

One of the important tasks of Parliament was to ensure that it strengthened its capacity to confront the issues and the fact that there existed a Joint Monitoring Committee was an important step in search of effective and better solutions. He questioned the ways in which the Committee could be strengthened to remain a powerful force able to drive the institution and society to the acceleration of the realization of the goals of women, their emancipation, and eradication of the scourge of violence against women and children. The strengthening function was related to all aspects of organisational functioning including the theoretical aspects, administrative and other operational aspects that fully capacitated the Joint Monitoring Committee to take the struggle for women s emancipation further and to ensure that violence against women was relegated to the shameful past.

Poverty was a major challenge that faced South Africa and Parliamentarians had consistently spoken and acted in a manner designed to effect the economic upliftment of all the people. Flowing from that was an ongoing need to assess the impact of the programmes on women. This was to ensure that women had unfettered access to economic opportunities and the necessary skills allowing them to play a meaningful role in the country. Women occupied no less than 50% of the leadership positions in society. Parliament should also monitor employment equity in the state and society as well as within itself. Despite many causes and drivers of violence against women, domestic violence thrived in conditions of poverty and therefore its eradication would remove dependency on which rape and domestic violence fed. Issues of women’s emancipation would find greater expression within the moral regeneration movement excluding corruption of which violence against women was. Parliament would ensure the integration of the objective of non-sexism in the formulation and implementation of policy as well as its elaboration.

One of the challenges was the debate on the role of women in society and it was Parliament’s role to legitimise the correct perceptions that would help in "breaking the boundaries of comfort zones and mindsets". Full advantage of opportunities to skill the people were necessary, particularly since national consensus would become a mirror in terms of accessing the available skills and training opportunities that were needed in skilling women.

He felt that there was a need to delineate key areas of intervention where it would be compulsory for women to be involved. Amongst these were the foundations of society which were the economy and commerce of the country, as it would not help to have women in Parliament, municipalities, or policy formulation bodies but where it mattered most, the resources of the nation.

He pointed out that there was a need for a zero-tolerance attitude to anti-women practices that ought to start at home at the basic level. The only way to eradicate this was through a concerted effort to change power relations at home, church and school, where these institutions needed a proper definition of violence to include psychological violence and the denial of rights as part of domestic violence and move away from the focus on physical violence.

He stated that it was necessary to deploy state and societal resources on issues of gender and at the centre of public discourse. This would avert the media’s disregard of important issues on domestic violence against women which if not changed, would affect the dissemination of information to the nation, particularly by the media. Parliament and other institutions needed to set aside sizeable resources because the manner and extent of resourcing would determine its success.

There was also a need for proper profiling which he felt the Committee should take time to look at and develop the communications checks as critical issues like gender violence were not covered by the media. He questioned how Parliament could develop alternative media mechanisms in order to communicate the key and strategic messages to the people.

Discussion
Ms Kiki (ANC) urged the forum be made an ongoing campaign and taken very seriously. She also proposed that the women of South Africa form a women’s movement that would focus on the campaign of violence against women. This should be funded by government to avert the lack of funds that constrained these meetings to a few a year. NGOs and women’s organisations also lacked funds to take campaigns forward.

Ms Ngcobo asked if people in the video clips had been imprisoned as a result of their violence. The police needed to be educated on the Domestic Violence Act. There was a responsibility to interrogate the implementation of the Act and where the problem started. There was a responsibility to address the youth on domestic violence and its effects as they grew up.

Ms Ramudibe (ANC) commended the Chairperson for convening the forum as it entrenched that gender issues also included men. It would had been appropriate if awareness on the issue of violence was brought to the youth in their curriculum as they proceeded with their studies and in their earlier stages.

She stated that the lack of implementation of policies was a problem and this could be attributed to transformation in the judiciary and it had been evident in the problems they faced in implementing the Domestic Violence Act. There was a need to conscientise society to voice dissatisfaction on the implementation of these important policies.

Ms Camerer (DA) asked whether the Chief Whip would promote the attempts by the Committee to obtain further funds to do more oversight and inquiries and hence more hearings and whether he would support an increase in the Committee’s resources.

The Chief Whip replied that it was everyone’s responsibility to ensure this and remarked that there were structures that could be approached in instances where programmes could not take off due to a lack of funds in which case the Chief Whip’s office was open. The question of the allocation of resources was not generic but practical and the ideal would be to have identifiable programs that were actually running and unable to implement due to budgetary constrains.

Dr A Luthuli stated that one of the biggest challenges was to get men involved and acknowledged the difficulty of doing this and mentioned that it was critical and at the bottom of the problem. It was probably because men were fighting back after apartheid. South Africa was a diverse nation and there was violence across the races even though the other compatriots did not come out to talk about it, but the only way it could be handled was to talk about it as a nation.

Mr Solomon (ANC) emphasised the complexity of the problem and acknowledged that it was one sided. He questioned whether there was a link between socio-economic factors and violence as it appeared that the problem was prevalent among the black communities who did not have access to many resources. He also asked whose role it was to educate children. The problem was a government problem especially in the provision of funds and it therefore meant that partnerships were necessary to tackle the problem.

Reverend Rashe stated that there was a need to establish a link between issues of domestic violence at the Department of Correctional Services and whether they were doing enough to determine if some of the offenders in the jails were ready to be released into society. He emphasised that there was a need to involve men in domestic violence issues and that cyclo-violence was a high possibility as girl children were empowered and the boy children left out, in which case there was there was a possibility of retaliation.

Mr F Maserumele (ANC) addressed Bongani Khumalo and stated that from his prior experience the liberation of South Africa meant the liberation of women and children and wanted to know what an environment did to a person’s mind in situations where there was squalor.

Mandisa Monakali stated that there was a need to evaluate strategies that determined the effectiveness of policies like the Domestic Violence Act. She knew there were gaps and wanted to know what had been done to resolve these problems. She wanted to know whether there was integration between the different government offices like the judiciary and the police. She also wanted to know whether the correctional services were doing anything to rehabilitate the domestic violence offenders before they were released back into the community. She spoke about the need for partnerships between government and civil society in line with the Millennium Development Goals. Women’s issues should be dealt with for longer than 16 days in a year.

Mr B Ntuli (ANC) felt that sectoral imbizos were needed as they would determine what culture was to be retained and what was to be discarded. Parliament and theologians needed to eradicate common misconceptions like a strong man was one that was violent. Culture did not actually condone some of the atrocious practices that were prevalent today. Religion was also not thoroughly explained and condoned some of the practices against women. People were hiding behind religion and culture and a critical look was vital at all societal spheres and within all cultures in the quest of the determination of what was wrong with society.

Mr M Shah (DA) stated that it impossible to quantify in financial terms the mental and emotional trauma that women had suffered as a consequence of violence and disagreed with the presenter from Bonitas medical aid. Religion was often interpreted by men to suit their own needs, and so preachers needed to be ‘re-orientated’ to make scriptures more contextual and progressive. Parents had an important role in society with women at the corner stone of society and that an aggressive education campaign was needed to teach these values. He also pointed out the challenges women faced in the SA National Defence Force where he served as a Portfolio Committee Member. Aggressive behaviour was not inherent in all persons but was learned and fathers had a great responsibly to eradicate violence. Parliamentarians also had a great responsibility that they had not fulfilled in the eradication of domestic violence.

Dr Luthuli emphasised how intimately the pandemic of HIV/AIDS was tied to the dominance of men over their partners and could not be disassociated with their lack of power over things like the use of the condom.

Mr Dean Peacock stated that there was a misconception prevalent in society that women were better off and had power in society. This was not the position on the ground and, even though transformation had occurred, women were still poorer than men than they were in 1994. The challenge was to compare this to pre-1994 where people justified oppression. The same notion was perpetuated in South Africa today by the use of similar logic in demanding that men’s power and oppression over women and violence went unchallenged. He offered to assist the forum in future endeavours in terms of engaging male Parliamentarians in the constituencies.

Thami Nkosi reiterated that transitional sex was a problem amongst the youth and also involved older people and felt that institutions were vital in the socialisation process and was the solution to the present problems.

The Chairperson concluded that the problem of men’s domination was critical in the HIV/AIDS pandemic where the men passed the virus on to their faithful partners. It was important to involve other parties in the resolution of the problem like had been done through the involvement of Bonitas Medical Aid and the business sector and was probably a solution to the implementation of the laws in society. She emphasised the need for the improvement of partnerships like through the involvement of Government communications systems in meetings they held as the Committee. She suggested the use of forums that involved communities and which had been utilised effectively in the political liberation struggle.

The meeting was adjourned.