Manana is the one who needs educating – about respect

DEAR Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training Mduduzi Manana, we celebrated Women’s Day with pomp and pageantry, yet you had the brazen audacity to brutally assault a woman, before a huge audience and you are the Deputy Minister of Higher Education.

Perhaps it is you who needs to be educated on the higher moral values of treating women with respect.

Assaulting women is a serious offence. This assault is inconsistent with the standard of a civilised country. It creates a moral imperative to act.

Society must ostracise the abuser not the abused. Violence against women continues to be a major social and political problem.

The law must take its course, it must be executed with fidelity. Your atrocious behaviour was malignant and spiteful. The umbrage felt by the nation is staggering.

These mindless acts have taken a toll on society. Our recent history is replete with brutal, unprovoked violence on women.

Many perpetrators have been able to get away with their crimes without any form of legal sanction to punish them for their crimes and to serve as a deterrence to others.

Women live in an insecure world filled with fear. They continue to endure unprecedented violence. Their harrowing ordeals are untold, unseen and unheard. Strong investigative disciplinary mechanisms must be put in place for those who commit gender-based violence.

Perhaps this poem, whose author is unknown, will galvanise you, as a senior politician to treat women with total civility. “A real man never hurts a woman Be very careful when you make a woman cry Because God counts her tears The woman came out of a man’s rib Not from his feet to be walked on And not from his head to be superior But from his side to be equal Under the arm to be protected And next to the heart to be loved.”

Society must wrap our beloved women in the healing garments of reverence and respect. Benoni