According to The World Post, a woman is killed by someone close to her every eight hours in South Africa. With the recent Rhodes University shooting in our local news, and both the Pistorius and Dewani trials making national headlines, it is clear that we are in trouble when it comes to tackling the issue of intimate partner violence.
According to The World Post, a woman is killed by someone close to her every eight hours in South Africa. With the recent Rhodes University shooting in our local news, and both the Pistorius and Dewani trials making national headlines, it is clear that we are in trouble when it comes to tackling the issue of intimate partner violence.
This week, Up4debate asks: when do we start caring? When does domestic violence become a public concern? Is this only when someone dies, or when someone famous is involved?
To help us unpack these questions in studio, we talked to President of the Gender Action Project (GAP) Khanyi Nomoyi, co-ordinator of the Silent Protest, Kim Barker, and Professor Anthony Collins of the Rhodes School of Journalism and Media Studies.
Anthony Collins:
“We need to step back from this idea of completely demonising perpetrators of intimate violence, and rather understand the act of violence as the problem … On the one hand people need to be put in jail for criminal acts of abuse, but on the other hand we also need to understand and intervene in the forces that … make what would otherwise be an ordinary person, someone who is abusive”.
Kim Barker:
“Opening up spaces where people can feel free to speak, where they’re not being blamed, they’re not being victimised, they’re being respected and acknowledged and listened to … those are important ways forward … There is something about collective ways of addressing issues that help people to see that they are not alone … It helps shift guilt and shame”.
Khanyi Nomoyi:
“In as much as we do recognise how women are at most victimised through the cycle of violence, we also have so many men that are silent, and it all goes back to the idea of masculinity”.
