Men need to speak out against abuse too
MacDonald Mailula was one of the speakers at a dialogue hosted by the premier, Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane. He shared details of how he was sodomised as a child by close family members.
ERMELO – Sexual abuse survivor, MacDonald Mailula, challenged men to speak out against gender-based violence and abuse.
Mailula was one of the speakers at a dialogue hosted by the premier, Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane. He shared details of how he was sodomised as a child by close family members.
“It was a trying time for me; being abused is not a simple thing that you can get over. It stays with you forever, but one needs to realise that it needs you to take a step and find healing. When you don’t, it affects your interpersonal relationships and you vent out the anger to another person.
I got married before dealing with this issue and it didn’t work. I was the problem, I needed to find and work on myself to be a better partner. I don’t want to hurt another person because of what I’ve gone through. But what is important is that once you can heal, you can assist the next person who’s in the same or similar situation. The misconception that men must be strong and that they don’t cry, is wrong,” he said.
Men do cry when they are hurting and that helps them to let everything out that is hurting them. We need to deal with ourselves and we need to do it now. Men must speak out against abuse and have programmes that are designed for us and speak about our issues.
Mailula admitted that he needed to do some introspection to find healing to be able to help victims. He will be hosting a dialogue themed ‘Shattered but Reshaped for Purpose’ where men will be discussing various societal issues at the Mbombela Civic Centre on October 31.
