Men and boys in general are often abused and violated by women but they are ashamed to report their GBV ordeals to the Police, according to Thingo Khoza who was also a victim of GBV.
The 27-year-old young man from Tsakane shares his victimization story with the local newspaper and he reveals how he was relentlessly abused by his girlfriend.
Khoza expresses how the abuse started and why he became a victim from it. He says that it started when he fell in love with a particular girl from varsity that he dated for four years. The young man states that the abuse started emotionally, and then it got verbally and eventually it became physically. “I fell in love with this particular girl. She was different from the rest of the people I’ve dated in my life and we were in love. We were close and we were best friends. She was just 2 years older than me but that was not a problem until a certain time. Our backgrounds were different, she came from a wealthy family and I came from a middle-class family but that wasn’t a problem until she showed signs of possessiveness. I’ve always been a quiet guy; I kept my circle small but even the two friends I had complained that I hardly had time for them. She then moved in with me and I was always with her and every time I wanted to go out with friends, she’d be manipulative and that’s where the emotional abuse started. Over time, it escalated to verbal abuse and I thought it’d get better but it didn’t. It got worse,” added Khoza.
Thingo also mentions how he remembers a specific day where the verbal abuse sprawled out of control and the lady threw a glass at him. “I remember we were arguing about something as lousy as dishes and she threw a glass at me. Not only did it end there but she kept hitting me and that wasn’t her first time, I couldn’t help but think she might just stab me because she was already washing dishes. I grew up knowing that as a man, no matter what, you can never hit a woman. I never hit her or reported the matter to the police for obvious reasons, I didn’t want her to have a criminal record and I was ashamed of opening a case of GBV as a man. However, I knew I had to end things with her which is what I did. It was hard but it had to be done,” expressed Khoza.
When the newspaper asked detective Thato Oliphant from Tsakane SAPS if officers have cases of GBV reported against women, he attested that it hardly happens. “I’ve been an officer for just about two years and I’ve only seen a few cases whereby men report women about GBV. It’s always women against men. Even when men open such cases against women, you find that they are too shy to talk about it and they even drop the charges as time goes by. We encourage men to speak out all the time but these stigmas and stereotypes that men can’t be abused by women are the same reasons why such case are not acknowledgement or reported and it should stop. Equality is important,” concluded Oliphant.
By Palesa Ndinisa
