Empower men to change the culture of violence and abuse - Manickchand

Empower men to change the culture of violence and abuse – Manickchand

May 27, 2009 News

“Empower men and boys to change the culture of violence and abuse… Empower men and boys to take responsibility always for their own actions… Empower men and boys to understand that only with equality between men and women can we develop properly and rapidly as a people and human race…
“Empower men and boys to resolve issues, irrespective of the issue, without resorting to violence and abuse”
These were among the many challenges issued by Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Priya Manickchand, when she spoke at the launch of the Men Empowering Network (MEN) on Monday at the Guyana International Conference Centre.
According to Manickchand, women alone also cannot address the issue given that while women are mostly affected, domestic violence is not just a woman issue.
She added that such being the case, the MEN initiative is most welcomed, “because while there have been individual men, and in a few cases, groups of men we are yet to see an organisation of men and men’s groups join, not lead, but join in this fight to stamp out violence against women.”
She said that there must be the understanding of just how traumatised some women are because of all that they have faced at the hands of unenlightened men.
“So there was a concern that if men were more empowered they would treat women worse…because whether real or perceived the balance of power seems to lie in favour of the male.”
She added that the nation’s women continue to be battered and killed alone, speaks to the fact that the inequalities are extant and alive amongst Guyanese.
According to the Human Services Minister until true equality among the sexes can be attained the country’s rate of development will never be at its zenith.
“There can be no sensible argument against the view that if men and women get to contribute equally, our development as a country in every area shall be accelerated.”
Chairman of the newly launched group aimed at tackling the scourge, Reverend Kwame Gilbert, under the title ‘Changing the Culture of Abuse’ told the gathering that the issue of domestic violence must never be seen or treated in isolation as a woman’s issue or for that matter, a gender issue.
He said that domestic violence is a threat to the civil liberties and the social well being of all. Once one person “amongst us is a victim of an unjust act of abuse or violence we all become responsible for the administering of justice and the mitigation of every form of abuse.”
According to Rev Gilbert addressing any problem, particularly social ones, involves reckoning with the complex interaction of the problem itself, the social context, and the authority to frame the problem and to identify acceptable solutions.
He noted too that it is also important to note that the problem of domestic violence cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness at which it was created. “We have to begin to think and act outside of the box…. When addressing the issue of violence, whether it is against women and children or men or against society as a whole, we have to examine the causative or contributive factors, in relation to the other social matrixes.”
Gilbert emphasized that much has been said by many, about what is driving the epidemic and much of what has been said lacks proper scientific or analytic support, even to the point of being merely conjectures.
As such he pointed out that it “becomes necessary for us to make careful and deliberate distinctions between the culture of abuse and domestic violence… The fight therefore must be not only to stop the violence, but to arrest and change the culture of abuse that sometimes is overlooked as a private matter between a man and his woman.”
He said that in Guyana’s context as a nation, “we have seen an escalation to beat out and now the order seems to be murders in the most gruesome of ways.”
He said that it is this culture of inhumanity that “we (MEN) seek to arrest, but it begins with us having an understanding of the dysfunctions within the relationships of our men and the women in their lives, and engaging, educating, enabling men to lead in these relationships so that respect, honour, love and dignity is fostered.”

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Empower men to change the culture of violence and abuse – Manickchand

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