Accept that men are trash until they change, says acting mayor

MEN must accept being called “trash” until they can demonstrate that they have changed their abusive ways, said the acting Tshwane executive mayor, Abel Tau, yesterday.

He was speaking as one of the panellists who participated in the men’s dialogue event hosted at Tshwane House.

The inaugural dialogue was held as the country continued to observe 16 Days of Activism For No Violence Against Women and Children.

The event took place two months after the night vigil against gender-based violence was hosted at Tshwane House.

Tau strongly condemned violence against women and children, saying men must stand up against it.

“Statistics point to the fact that perpetrators are men. We need to own up as men and say we are trash if my brother is still trash. The diversion that we create is that there are still good men out,” he said.

He said men must stop brushing aside the truth that they were abusive to women and children.

“If it (the truth) touches a nerve then it’s fine; it will spur us into action. Let’s accept that we are trash until such time that we can demonstrate that we are not trash,” Tau said.

Senior official from Tshwane’s Health Department, Kwena Nkoko, warned against painting all men with the same brush by accepting the phrase that “men are trash”.

He said society risked falling into the trap of “generalising” once it started to label all men as trash without attaching context to it.

“We need to be careful as a society… let’s not solve one problem by creating another problem,” he said.

Nkoko encouraged men to actively participate in the dialogue aimed at changing their abusive behaviour.

Dennis Mamabolo, from SAPS’s Men for Change, said: “In this society that we are living in now, it’s painful to know that out there there is a child and a woman who is abused and ends up being murdered. We encourage all men to come forward and say ‘Not in (my) name’, and that we are tired of what is happening to our women and children.”

He said his forum was started in 2016 with the aim of eradicating gender-based violence.

From time to time, the forum organised workshops for men and encouraged them not to bottle up their feelings.

He said police nowadays dissuaded victims of sexual abuse from withdrawing reported cases and allowed matters to go through court processes.

Tau said society must deliberate more about the problem of gender-based violence “until we see that there is a real change”.

He added that there were city employees who continued to suffer from gender-based violence.