Engaging men and boys to end gender based violence / Men in Action Against Violence and Abuse

? Although gender based violence is a global problem but Swaziland remains a country with one of the highest figures. The recent National Surveillance Report prevalence figures indicate that 75% of

? Reported abuse is on women, 99% occurs in the home, and 70% of the abusers are men and emotional abuse is leading by 54% followed by financial abuse at 18%.
? The national study on violence against children and young women in indicates that the lifetime prevalence of any sexual violence among 13-24 year old females may be high as 48%.
The project was started by a group of concerned men on the abuse and violence that plagues our society everyday especially women and children being the majority victims. It was born out of the need to actively engage men and boys into being active participants in eradicating the malady of violence as well as HIV and AIDS. This organization capacitates men and boys through dialogues and workshops, teaching them the use of communication as key in every relationship, where problems are solved amicably in an engaging way.
We find it as one of key our responsibilities as an organization to teach men and boys and socialize them to stimulate and analyze the norms associated with masculinity and also expose them to the advantages of living an equitable lifestyle.

We sit with the Gender and Family Issues Unit which is under the Deputy Prime Minister ’s office, together we are part of the Men Engage steering committee and the gender consortium. We also have a working relationship with the National Population Unit under the Ministry of Economics and Planning. The partnership with this two government entities opened doors for our organization to be part of a great national tool called the National Development Strategy review and we were able to add some elements on gender and development which had some shallow and outdated information. Being one of the first organization to work with men and boys in Swaziland, we were invited to write an article titled “Gender Issues, Yes We Must ” which was published in a government newsletter which speaks to the importance of male involvement in gender issues. I was also invited to address more than 500 men in a march that was organized to commemorate International Men ’s day which was to encourage men to make noise on the escalating cases of gender based violence, where the Deputy Prime Minister was the guest speaker representing the Prime Minister. I got the opportunity to lobby him to continue motivating the enactment of the Sexual Offences and Violence Bill into an act, since his office is the face of government ’s kindness.