Women's Shelter counsels men

CHANDAPIWA BAPUTAKI
Staff Writer | Friday November 19, 2010 00:00

 

Speaking at Gender Links discussions, followed by a cyber dialogue for this year's 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign, Shupiwe Letso, of Women's Shelter said that now that women have been empowered to have a voice it is time to shift the camera lens to the men.

'Most of the cases that we handle are those of transactional and intergeneration sex. Most of the time it is the men who continue with counselling to the end, while the women relax and stop seeing the counsellor,' she said of the new trend.  She revealed that the lack of a drop-off centre for men forced them to refer the men to Men's Sector, the organisation that has been formed to bring men to talk together about issues of HIV/AIDS.

'Starting a men's drop off centre would require a document to show the need and we do not have that at the moment. We work on the responses,' Letso said.

She further revealed that they received 127 people, 29 of them men, at the dropping centre from April to June this year, while 70 were received from July to September.

The Gender Links country director, Keabonye Ntsabane, said that the service provided by the Women's Shelter, as the only drop-off centre in the country is not enough. She revealed that the other Non Government Organisations (NGOs) providing services of fighting against GBV are struggling because of lack of financial resources.

'The issue of gender violence looks like it has been left to a certain population. We want Members of Parliament and councillors to come on board as it is their people who are suffering on the ground from this predicament,' Ntsabane said.

This year's global theme for the 16 Days of Activism campaign is 'Structures of violence accentuating the intersection of HIV/AIDS with the focus on taking stock of achievements in addressing violence against women'. According to Gender Links, there will be concerted efforts to raise awareness on key provisions on gender-based violence in the SADC protocol on Gender and Development adopted in 2008.  The overearching theme for this year is 'halve gender-based violence by 2015' which is also the main target around GBV in the SADC gender protocol.

16 Days of Activism campaign takes place  between November 25 and December 10 annually, when activists raise awareness on gender violence.

The campaign began in 1991 and since then it has brought various stakeholders including gender activists, civil society, governments, private sector, faith based organisations, communities and development partners to find lasting strategies to end gender violence.