Durban — August is the annual declared month that highlights the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society, as the world celebrates women. However, multi-award-winning radio presenter Jacinta Ngobese is worried that incidents of violence against women continued to rise.
Speaking to the Daily News during an interview on Thursday, the mid-day radio presenter at Vuma FM stated that gender-based violence (GBV) was not a “month thing”, but an ongoing problem where women found themselves on the receiving end of all sorts of violence.
“In the month of August we see and hear a lot about woman abuse, and I feel that this is something we need to focus on from the primary levels in school. We need to deal with this by focusing not only on the victims but also on the men who are perpetrators because they have serious problems.
“We need to root out the cause of all these things, our young boys must be taught how to be good gentlemen. They need attention and they need lots of help on how best to treat women.”
Ngobese said that GBV was not just a fight between men and women, but an issue where pain was inflicted on defenceless women by men who felt entitled to a woman’s body.
“The only time men really relate to the abuse of women is when their immediate family members are involved. I feel that if we were all united with one voice, we would win the war against GBV, hence we need to act in solidarity and speak out against acts of abuse.
“As women, we also need to not downplay abuse, we need to speak out and not tolerate even the slightest slap to our bodies. What I have noticed is that men only speak out against violence when it is gruesome, but we need to change the language that is spoken around it.”
Ngobese felt that young boys were being neglected and that fathers were absent in the lives of their children, which created tensions among boys who were often raised by single mothers.
“Even the family structure is a problem, and maybe that is why we have all these problems. We need to build a positive societal attitude and transfer and equip our boys with a good behavioural attitude where respect for all people regardless of gender differences is prioritised.
“As a country, we cannot have young boys being taught to bring girls home, impregnate as many girls as they please, but enforce certain rules to girls, and pretend like this is a great thing.
“I urge men to pull up their socks in society.”
Responding to whether women in the entertainment industry were supportive of each other, she replied: “I think the biggest problem about media personalities, especially women, is that we are very competitive in nature. Sometimes other people tend to feel that we are competing with each other, which causes relationships to be sour.”
Daily News