Radio Miraya
2855: MBS. 16 Days of Activism Against GBV: Positive Masculinity
The 16 days of activism against gender-based violence is right around the corner. Well, from November 25 to December 10, South Sudan will join the rest of the world to raise awareness about gender-based violence, highlight the efforts of organizations and individuals working to end violence, and promote collective actions towards creating safer communities for everyone, particularly women and girls. Now, to hear more about the importance of this topic and events to be conducted across the country, I'm glad to tell you that we are joined by Anmi's gender affairs officer, Mr. Mwenga Cello, who joins me right now in the studio, Mwenga, good morning, good to have you on the Miraya breakfast show. Good morning. How are you today? I'm fine. Thank you. And yes, we have this conversation. Let's talk about the 16 days of activism. Of course, it starts today on the 25th, which goes up to December 10, the Human Rights Day if I'm right. So let's just briefly give us a content of what is the 16 days of activism and what is it all about? Okay. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for inviting us to this very important program. I think for us as gender affairs unit, we take this as a reminder of the existence of the problem. I think we -- there are a lot of things that we can have a conversation on in South Sudan and there are a lot of things that are happening in the country and some of the things begin to fall off the table because of the priorities that keep on cropping up. So for us, the 16 days is a reminder of the existence of this particular problem of gender based violence, especially against women and girls. And then we also use this occasion to take stock of what we have been doing in the past one year. Between last year's, you know, commemoration and this year's commemoration to see what has worked, what we have done, what needs to be done more. And we also use this occasion as more advocacy towards the problem. So you will find various activities that will take place. Some of them will be very statistical, like you give out figures of where we are to measure whether we are making progress or what the challenges are. Thank you. Yes. And why is this important? Why -- what's the significance of the 16 days of activism campaign and what it means for unmiss and the gender affairs division? Yeah. What it means basically for unmiss is that we -- since we -- our main mandate actually, one of the rather the main pillars of our mandate is protection of civilians and the fact that gender based violence falls squarely under that mandate area. It is very important for us to take interest as well as to develop interventions that are going to address that particular -- you know, that this particular issue. You may be interested in the way that -- the way we approach this, we approach this issue from two perspectives. Basically, we talk about protection, which could be reactive or proactive and we talk about prevention, which is more proactive as well as accountability. So when you are -- when you want to prevent something from happening, obviously, those people that are going to get involved into that activity, they have to know that you can be punished for it or you can be a code to account. So when we -- when you -- when you -- when you code people to account, for us, we take it that it is part of the prevention, you know, the prevention of this thing from occurring. It will be very interesting for you to know that, you know, there are certain times when these cases appear and because of lack of the proper formal justice mechanisms, people resort to either, you know, family resolution or they take it to traditional cancers. But we had a very interesting case in one of the -- in one of the states where when we deployed, you know, the role of blood deployed, you know, a mobile court and then there was a person who was actually -- who was a complainant of a -- you know, of -- of this GBV -- of a GBV case. And when they saw the deployment of the court, they actually withdrew the case from the traditional system and moved it into the formal justice mechanism. So for us, as only this is one of the impact points that we see, that if we intervene, actually, our interventions, you know, are responded to. Great. And of course, with these 16 days of activism, there are quite a lot of activities that will be taking place within this time. Just specifically, what activities these enemies involve in during these years 16 days of activism? So generally, we get involved in all activities that are happening at both national and at field level. And I want now to bring in an element of one of the probably unique activities that we're going to do this year as enemies, which is one court postive masculinity. So you see, when -- when -- when you show up as a man in society, what do people think of you? Okay? So you have all these attributable behaviors, like being, you know, strong, you know, men don't cry, you know, there is your traditional things that you have been taught to do, okay? But then we want to look at those attributes and then say, okay, among these attributes, which ones can we turn around and make them a force for good? For instance, when the people see you as a strong person because you are a man in a community, what do you use that strength for? Is that strength supposed to be used to -- not to do violence on other people or to protect them? You know, so there are two sides to this coin, okay? So we are going to have a forum. We are going to have forums around the -- around the country. The idea is to have 10 of them within this period and then we'll have a national forum where we engage with various stakeholders on how we talk about postive masculinity. And there will be other activities. There will be, you know, football matches in the field. There will be dances. There will be public debates. So there will be a lot of activities that, you know, we are going to get -- that we're going to conduct in this. In order for us to understand really what you mean by positive masculinity, what are negative masculinity? So I'm very happy to ask that question that way. So first of all, we talk about masculinity in general. What is masculinity? Okay? So masculinity is basically these are attributes of behaviors. You know, that attribute to you by which of being a man or being a boy, you know, I grew up in the village as a cut-ahead. So when we went to the -- you know, to look after the cattle and all these things, your strength was measured by how many fights you want. Yeah. Okay? And if you grow up in that kind of environment, there's a very high likelihood that you are going to be weaponized as you grow older because for you conflict resolution will always be related to violence, both at home and out there, okay? So we look at those and say, okay, fine. You learn how to fight. How do you then tend that fighting now into a force that is going to be a protection to your community as a defense mechanism, not as an offensive mechanism, okay? So what we are doing now is we look at masculinity in general, but then we look at what are the negative attributes? For instance, when you are taught to be a fighter, okay, what could it turn out to be if it was a toxic facility, you'll be violent. What would it be if it was positive masculinity, you'll be a defender of people, okay? So you look at it from those perspectives. So that is the conversation that we want to have to move all that has been considered toxicity into the positive arena. Okay. So that is what we are trying to do in that forum. Great. Now let's talk about the role and which you mentioned earlier, sometimes community come in elders coming to try to resolve some of these issues. But how do you see the role of community engagements, particularly in addressing the issues of gender-based violence and what steps are being taken to involve local communities in these efforts? Well, like I said, look, when I was giving the example of actually formal justice mechanisms, it's because by, you know, I'm not a lawyer, but I think what I understand is there are certain matters that are purely criminal offenses and those belong to the state, you know, that the people versus the sorrow and so. And then there are things that take the civil route, which is basically to say, look, you and I have a conflict, well, it may be domestic conflict, and then it's resolved, you know, at community level, which I think is a good thing, you know, because you cannot be running to courts of law every time, even at family level, you have differences and there's a way that you cannot see exactly. But what we also want is, you see, some of the things that we label as gender-based violence, in some communities, there are practices. And when you show up to talk about those things, they will tell you, well, this is our culture. But your idea is not to change anyone's culture. The idea is to say, look, these are some of the things that you might want to interrogate when you're interrogating our cultures. I'll give you an example of, you know, wife inheritance, where I come from, we used to do it, okay? And then, and it used to be part of the cleansing, you know, and this cleansing was some of its sexual cleansing, and then they say, well, you have inherited your older brothers or your brother's wife, but there's also a sexual cleansing path, but then HIV and AIDS came. And then we said, look, these things now are beginning to be the source of the infection, okay, of HIV. And we had to interrogate our culture, we said, okay, fine, if you still want to continue with inheritance, you can then move away the sexual cleansing. Just use any other means of cleansing, if it means going to pray and, you know, just to cleanse whatever it is that you're cleansing, do it, but never involve sexual cleansing because that is the source. There are dangers in it as well. So that is the approach that when I engage especially, when I engage in the, you know, with the communities is that, look, all we are trying to do for you is to give you an opportunity, okay, to sort of interrogate some of these things. I was involved the other time, and we were discussing one L.L., and they told me about it, they said, these are these things, this is what we have agreed, I said, well, as long as it takes the semblance of justice and it reduces the occurrence of gender-based violence, I think we are good, it's a starting point, we will tweak it, we will make it better as we go. So the issue of capacity building for the community is also very, very important, that when you build capacity, they will know to say, look, by law, what we are doing here, like early marriage, forced marriages, those are things that could be, you know, considered gender-based violence. So you start interrogating those things and they also look at these, yeah, well, we think you are right, maybe this needs to change. Great. Now in your experience, as of course gender officer, what have been some of the biggest challenges when addressing gender-based violence here in South Sudan, and how does Anne Miss plan to overcome this? I think one of the challenges, like I said, I think it's the issue of the absence of or rather limited law enforcement mechanisms. I think we should understand the country is still developing itself into this institutional development. So we don't expect, you know, rough and cut like, a very clean cut, you know, kind of thing. So you find some of the challenges, because people don't have any mechanisms to access justice. So they would rather use the existing mechanisms, which sometimes they might not meet the standards that are required, but it's a mechanism that they have adopted as theirs. So those are some of the challenges in terms of access to justice. The other challenge you find, again, is the issue of, you know, just the issue of culture like I said, you know, to say, this has been our practice. These are our practices. Why are you coming to change them? Like I have emphasized over and over again, we are not here to change in one's culture. People practice their culture for various reasons. Where I come from in my country, we have our cultures. And I wouldn't want anybody to come and tell me, or you should change this and that. No, no, no, no. The issue is, first of all, you understand why do you do this? And then you can say, well, where I come from, we do it this way. Do you think it's a good way to do it? Okay. And then people will respond, okay, because the whole idea here is you have to respect, you know, people's culture. People's culture. Great. To conclude this conversation here, of course, you mentioned something about positive masculinity and something that you will be discussing a lot about it, of course, as the 16 days of activism continues. Why do you think there is quite a lot of negative masculinity in our communities and how do we address this particularly? You see, there are so many challenges that people face in communities, okay? One of the idea of the perpetuation of negative masculinity, like I said, sometimes it's just lack of knowledge, you know, to say, well, I want to assume control. I am human. And that's the thing, yeah, to say, you see, and it's very interesting because when you are seated, where there are men and women, if, for instance, somebody walked in here, you know, with, you know, intent on causing harm has to be seated in here. If we have women, they'll probably say, well, look, you deal with each other men, okay? So, you see, so you grow up with all those expectations, you know, to say, this is what I'm supposed to do. And when I'm doing this thing, nobody should stand in the way. Whoever stands in the way must be dealt with the best way I know how, the example I gave at the beginning. Yeah. To say, when you are a cattle head, when you go ahead in cattle, then people will say, well, you have to fight. The level of fights, you won't have to give you the respect. Precisely. Precisely, you know, so if you move with that into the general community, with that kind of attitude, it's very difficult for, you know, for anybody to address it. All right. Just before you go, any message that you like to send to the people of South Sudan, particularly on these 16 days of activism, what could you like to say? I think the first thing is, let's look out where we can participate. This is a common problem. We have a problem of gender-based violence in South Sudan. We have to show up for the activities. We have to engage in whatever public functions or even private functions that are going to be, the private activities that are going to be out there. So just be on the lookout for an activity wherever you are. There will certainly be an activity because I know the people of South Sudan are very, very keen on making sure that the issue of gender-based violence is brought under control. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much, Moyinga, for coming to Mariah's students. Thank you. Your time and wish you all the best in the 16 days of activism. Thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity. Hopefully we'll see you again here on the program talking about more as these days continue. Yes. As you'll be on the 16 days, I think we'll be here because the conversation has to continue. I was so special on positive masculinity. Looking forward to that. Thank you very much for coming.