How men's attitudes can make a difference

‘I keep thinking if we can get our boy children to think it very cool to be men of peace, to be men that accord dignity to all persons, particularly vulnerable people, then that would be our success story,’ says South African Deputy Justice Minister Cheryl Gilwald.

Bongani says, ‘I want to make a statement that, “People wake up. Let’s wake up and smell the coffee. What’s happening to us? What’s happened to the pride that we once enjoyed?” Do you know during apartheid days we were so united as black men, very united and we had one common enemy, our enemy was get rid of apartheid and we were united against that. We were so determined. Post 1994 I don’t know what happened to that unity. That unity has been replaced by the animal instincts, they are animal instincts that are surely jumping out now.

‘We’ve got this anger and the anger that we have is taken to the wrong people, it’s taken to our sisters.’

Charlene Smith adds, ‘85 percent of relationships fail after a rape and I think it’s because people, our family members and the men in our lives will very often say, “Don’t talk about because it hurts you.” In fact, we need to talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, talk about it and they need to explain how they’re feeling as well.’

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