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Duration: 3 min 36 seconds
It’s been a long three years and the conclusion of the process will be in the next three weeks when a group of representatives from government, business, the religious community and other sectors of society put the finishing touches to the Charter. The development of the Sexual Rights Charter is viewed by many as the answer to halting the spread of HIV, unwanted pregnancies, and the continued widespread abuse of girls and women in South Africa. A key issue is how gender relations are defined in favour of men. Zengeziwe Msimang, is the former advocacy officer of the Women’s Health Project.
‘In South Africa we have the highest incidence of violence against women for a country not at war. Our statistics are shocking. It is a difficult topic to grapple with. It’s hard to convince people to talk about it. But it’s something that we and many other organisations have to do, and what our government has realised more everyday that it must be done. As difficult as it is, we have an epidemic on our hands and in order to combat that we have to become open. We have to talk about issues that were previously, or still are taboo.’
Has it been difficult?
‘Yes, it’s been very hard, but I think as time goes on people are realising more and more: AIDS is killing us on a daily basis. And it’s not just AIDS. It’s the number of teenagers that there are pregnant. It’s the number of women who get hit every single day. And those things are crippling us and they’re not building the strong society that we’re trying to build. And therefore, as hard as it is to talk to people about this and as hard as it is for people to talk to each other about this, it’s something that we have to do and it’s something that as more and more people are dying and the more funerals we attend every Saturday the more it’s sinking in to people that we have to stop this and this is one of the ways that we can do it.’
The Sexual Rights Charter aims to create an environment where women can understand and assert their rights as sexual beings. But it is also aimed at bringing men on board so as to make them aware of the need to recognise that sexual rights belong to both men and women, and that these have to be respected. But how realistic is this? I put that question to Vusi Cebekhulu, the Gauteng co-ordinator of Men as Partners, a life-skills education programme under the Planned Parenthood Association of South Africa.
‘It’s not an easy thing. One, because we have different cultures and family backgrounds. We believe that if you talk about sexual rights: What’s that? But, gradually, we are getting there and if we can just believe that reach one, and teach all. That’s how it can work.’
Culture ranks high amongst the defences that men use to explain our inhumane, abusive and exploitative treatment of women and children. At a recent conference in Pretoria, of the South African Medical Association, Dr Kgosi Letlape, spoke out against this ludicrous explanation.
‘I’m an African. And the culture of our humanity is not to destroy our women and children. I was raised in a culture where men protect women; men raised their children; and men treated their women with respect. We sit around here and we pussy-foot around, and we wonder why we are now living with the highest number of people infected with the virus. It is because as Charlize Theron tried to illustrate, a few years ago, on her adverts: South African men need to grow up to become truly men. We have to move from our manhood pedestals and come down to being decent human beings. And if we become human again and we become advocates of truth we will build the greatest nation the planet has ever seen.’
E-mail Khopotso Bodibe
