The international 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign begins later this month. Grocott's Mail student reporter Faiza Mallick gives an overview of gender-based violence in South Africa and ways in which it is being addressed.
The international 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign begins later this month. Grocott's Mail student reporter Faiza Mallick gives an overview of gender-based violence in South Africa and ways in which it is being addressed.
“You’re always thinking, what if this didn’t happen?” says Kgomotso*, 22, a postgraduate student at Rhodes University. Originally from King William's town, she told me her experience of rape and how it affects her every day. Like many women, her outlook on life has been affected by this injustice.
Another Rhodes student and rape survivor, 24-year-old Thandi* from Mpumalanga, says: “I have no conception of what an alternative world view would be… As a people, we are facing a social and moral crisis.”
When talking about repeated incidents of molestation by an uncle that spanned five years, she relates that gender-based violence is a violation of human rights that encompasses various forms of aggression and abuse toward girls, women, boys and men.
Sadly these young women are far from being alone in their experiences. In South Africa, violence against women has reached epidemic proportions. The total number of sexual offences reported to the police over 12 months between 2010 and 2011 reflects that 13% of the population was affected.
As this figure represents only cases that were actually reported, police agree that this often understates the problem. In fact, the yearly One in Nine Campaign at Rhodes University aims to highlight the estimation that, as their name suggests, only one in nine rape cases is actually reported. This means that around half a million women and girls are raped in South Africa every year.
What is not even covered in SAPS data are things like the full spectrum of forms of physical and psychological abuse, the deprivation of resources needed for physical and psychological well-being, as well as the treatment of women as commodities.
So what is being done? In May this year the Western Cape led the way, with the Department of Justice and the National Prosecuting Authority co-chairing the Gender Justice Forum in that province. Provincial community safety department director Anthea Michaels said the ministers of social development and safety then identified high-risk areas in the Western Cape where gender-based violence (GBV) needed to be addressed.
“The purpose of this forum [was]to go into these areas and come up with interventions to address GBV with community-based organisations,” Michaels said. Here in Grahamstown, Rhodes psychology lecturer Werner Bohmke suggests intervention should focus on challenging traditional ways of thinking about men and masculinity.
“Traditional masculinities that men try to reassert are often argued as the traditional or cultural way of doing things, and it might be useful to start challenging the notion that culture and tradition is fixed, so we can think of new ways of being men rather than just reasserting these old kinds of hegemonic notions of masculinities,” Bohmke said.
According to Romi Sigsworth, editor at the African Security Review for the Institute for Security Studies, “South Africa does have a gender-based violence problem that surpasses many other countries and the reasons for this are so many and so complex…”
Sigsworth said that factors contributing to the problem are South Africa's violent past, cultural norms that condone inequality between men and women and the normalisation of violence within relationships – that are all compounded by masculinities in crisis.
And as for what prevents positive change, the United Nations Population Fund states that GBV is sustained by silence. As women's voices need to be heard initiatives like the One in Nine Campaign, which encourages rape survivors to speak out, is one way in which the issue of GBV can be publicly addressed and challenged.
*Names have been changed
Some shocking statistics:
• A 2009 Medical Research Council (MRC) study revealed that one in four women in South Africa has experienced physical violence.
• Another MRC study (2009) shows that over 40% of men reported that they have been physically violent to a partner.
• According to People Opposing Women Abuse (Powa) one in two women has a chance of being raped during her lifetime.
• The Gauteng Gender Violence Indicators Pilot Project in 2010 found that over half of the women in Gauteng (51.2%) have experienced some form of violence in their lifetime and 78.3% of men in the province admitted to perpetrating some form of violence against women.
• Lieutenant Colonel Vanessa Nel from Grahamstown’s Crime Intelligence Unit reported that in most local rape cases, the perpetrator is known to the victim. In 60% of recent cases, liquor played a major role in the commission of sexual and assault-related crimes”.
Counselling and support for women
* Stop Gender-Based Violence Helpline 0800 150 150
* People Opposed to Women Abuse 011 642 4345
* National Network on Violence Against Women 012 321 4959
Counselling and support for children
* Childline 0800 055 555
About the campaign
The 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children is an international campaign. It takes place every year from 25 November (International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women) to 10 December (International Human Rights Day).
The period includes Universal Children’s Day and World AIDS Day. During this time, the South African Government runs a 16 Days of Activism Campaign to make people aware of the negative impact of violence on women and children and to act against abuse. For more about the campaign click here.
