CDM striving for 50/50

GBV and HIV & AIDS are identified as two related phenomenons. They are related in that GBV happens due to gender related stereotypes, be it on the side of men or women. Issues of rape usually happens in instances where a particular gender considers itself to be superior over the other, for example, man over a woman, two male in-mates in prison where one dominates the other and subsequently turns him to a woman.

Men are generally considered to be the perpetrators. It is for this reason that this long term project of engaging men in mitigating GBV and HIV & AIDS was conceived. Several incidents of domestic violence happened with the district municipality.

The practice happened in several ways and those are:
Á¯ € ­ Dialogues with the Chiefs, Elders in the Traditional Councils as well as Indunas on topics of GBV, HIV & AIDS, Medical Male Circumcision as well as HCT.
Á¯ € ­ General Community Dialogues with such partners as Commission for Gender Equality (A Chapter 9 Institution), South African Men Action Group (SAMAG) – (a locally based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO)) as well as Sonke Gender Justice Network (a National NGO) and the Department of Health at a district level.
Á¯ € ­ Meetings involving the different stakeholders individually as well as through the District AIDS Council.
Á¯ € ­ Door to door awareness campaigns where HIV and Counselling was conducted within the households instead of during the open campaigns.

This is considered to be a good practice in that changing the attitudes of men towards accepting that women can be their partners and equals does go a long way towards building a gender sensitive society, where all individuals live in harmony with each other.

Download : 18544_gbv-application-cdm--metse.docx