The provincial government has made a pledge to change the mindset of men amid the escalating scourge of violence against women and children. The collaboration between the Office of the Premier, Departments of Social Development and Transport, Safety & Liaison has seen Men's Forums being established in all the Five regions in the Province. 

The Department of Social Development said the John Taolo Gaetsewe district has the highest rate of violence against women and children and the provincial establishment of Men's Forum was going to be held there.

Communications Officer, Tebogo Mokae, said the launch of the Districts Men's Forum emanated from the endless brutal attacks on women and the provincial government Call for Action launched by Premier Sylvia Lucas.

"Violence against women and children is not only a government and criminal justice system problem, but a societal problem and that failure to view it as such results in all efforts failing to eradicate this scourge in our communities.

The expectation in this regard is that they will help men to mobilise each other to support for structural changes in the institutions of society including in the socio-cultural, economic and political arenas, he said.

The Department early this week launched the last District's Men's Forum in Kuruman ahead of the much anticipated Provincial launch, which will be attended by local and provincial government officials.

Mokae said the aims of the forums was to strengthen partnerships with women and men from all ranks and files, to have a united approach in dealing with gender-based violence and women empowerment programmes.

"It is our belief that, men of integrity are emotionally intelligent and thus will never beat women no matter the levels of provocation, " he said.

The Provincial launch will be held under the theme, a call to action, men of quality respect women's equality.

MEC of Social Development, Gift van Staden, said that they were also working towards changing the mind-set and attitude of the boy child. Van Staden said there was a huge potential in the Province to ensure that behavioural change in young boys succeed only if all stakeholders came on board.

"We have learnt a lot of shocking things over the past few weeks through the media and the Departments of Social Development jointly with Transport, Safety & Liaison came together to come up with a plan to curb all the bad things.

This warrants action. We can not just take note of what is happening without taking action, " he said.