Sexual Violence in Gtown – Where are we Going Wrong?

This week, Up4Debate gives thought to the fact that we are now at the end of August, a month that is generally dedicated to campaigns for women’s rights.

In Grahamstown, this month was marked by the eighth annual RU Silent Protest, which draws attention to sexual violence in our country. We ask: Why, despite the fact that such campaigns are so well supported, is sexual violence still so prevalent in our community, and in South Africa more generally? Where are we going wrong?

We invited four guests to our studio who confront this question as part of their daily work: Kim Barker, organiser of the Silent Protest; Anne Harris, Director of FAMSA; Captain Mali Govender, Police Spokesperson from Grahamstown and Professor Pedro Tabensky, Director of the Allan Grey Centre for Leadership Ethics.

Pedro Tabensky: “I think … we need to work for a social transformation and we need to see this as part of a wider project of transformation of our society, which is sick.”

Kim Barker: “I think the rhetoric around rape is that it is a few deranged evil individuals who are perpetrators of rape … the reality is that our society is in crisis and rape is one symptom of that crisis … that is what people keep protecting themselves against, the reality of that, we don’t want to acknowledge that.”

Anne Harris: “While it is not being addressed politically we are not going to get there. We are not going to get the budget for the police, we are not going to get the budgets for the hospitals…”

Mali Govender: “I believe it’s not what we are not doing, it’s what we are doing. Nobody is to blame when there is a rape that is taking place, but it is each of us as individuals who needs to take responsibility for ourselves.”