Civil society’s #MeToo moment: When activists become abusers

When I was first diagnosed with HIV 19 years ago, organisations like the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) gave me the hope and courage to stand up and fight. I identified with the strong women who were in the TAC’s leadership – women like Johanna Ncala, Siphokazi Mthati and Prudence Mabele.

The TAC’s struggles for access to HIV treatment, for drugs to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, and the right for non-discrimination based on people’s status – these in many ways have been the struggles of women of colour.

But for many years, I’ve seen the signs that being a woman in a leadership role at the TAC was far from easy. At stages, there was a high turnover among women who held positions of power and that disturbed me.

In the aftermath of the verdict, Maluleke allegedly only received a warning and was instructed to write an apology. The woman who filed the complaint said that she felt disappointed, betrayed and unsafe in her current position.

Only after the story was made public did the TAC dismiss Maluleke.

The TAC is an autonomous organisation with its own internal processes. But given the number of influential women leaders and members in its history, it can do better than ask a perpetrator to apologise in the aftermath of claims.

What was also disturbing was the bullying and erasing that followed those who spoke out. This sector is not used to women speaking up – women are on their own. The TAC is much more open and forgiving to men who have previously been publicly accused of sexual harassment, such as Zwelinzima Vavi, than to the women who speak up against the abuse.

We expect more on protecting women’s rights from the TAC because it belongs to us all. It was built with women’s sweat and blood and has shaped our social justice agenda for more than 20 years.

A former TAC leader said she wasn’t shocked to hear of the recent case that she felt reflected an organisational culture that was pervasive even during her time.

“When we were in leadership, we faced a huge backlash and silencing culture from the male leaders,” she confided in some of us.

“Cases were reported and later withdrawn due to women being threatened with losing their jobs. Women [were made] to be seen as liars… perpetuating their own agendas.”

She also scoffed at the idea that an apology would be enough.

“It is an insult to the victim of abuse to follow the cultural stereotype of appeasement by rendering an apology to her,” she told me.

“We should not shy away from emphasising our support for the victim unapologetically so. Ours is to believe her, and walk with her on the journey to recovery.”

She also reiterated her trust in the women of TAC.

One of the authors was Tian Johnson.

“NGOs need to consider whether they have a duty to disclose that staff have been fired for sexual harassment to future employers in the sector, given the vulnerable groups with which they work,” Johnson wrote.

Johnson cautioned in the piece: “Processes are the easy win. The harder work is to be done by understanding the type of men that we are at the office and the type of men that we are at home to our lovers, families, children and communities.

“There is an urgent, desperate need for a functional and conscious Sonke. A Sonke that uncovers the potential we have, as ‘men’, to love.”

“I am not sure what should happen next, but something has to,” Johnson urged. “The silence reveals how deep the race, class and power rot has set into civil society. Together we need to be urgently supporting the creation of safe spaces to rage, to hurt, to say it, to name it. To name ‘them’.

“We don’t have a choice. We don’t have the luxury of waiting, the luxury not to name perpetrators.

“And we ignore survivors at our peril.”

“Perhaps not surprisingly, given that we’ve employed over 250 staff over the last 12 years, and that all of us have also been affected by the deeply patriarchal society in which we live and in which men’s violence against women is so pervasive, we have over the years also had to deal with sexual harassment perpetrated by our own staff,” a number of staff wrote.

They must also ensure that organisations pay for survivors to receive counselling, medical and other support, Johnson urges.