A speaker argues that shame and mockery prevent men from opening up, and that creating safe spaces for them is key to ending violence. Over 90% of people incarcerated for violence were once victims themselves, so healing those men can restore families and communities.
Over 90%.
I'm not a fan of what we will see on the statistic table because society is not safe for men to open up, you know, and if we do open up, what are we going to be met with? Shame. Humiliation, you know, Mocking. And so creating a safe space where men feel safe and seen has been the honor of this work. And so taking this into prison, like over 90% of people who have perpetrated violence who were incarcerated were once upon a time a victim themselves. And so the reason why I do this work because when you can heal the victim or the person who was, you know, abused, we. When you heal that victim, you heal that man. When you heal that man, you heal the whnau. You heal our community. And so it's important because these men come out and you have little mates, little James, who are waiting for their Superman super mum to be healed, to be better. And if they don't, the cycle just carries. They'll leave that relationship, get a new partner and carry on the cycle.
