Our Country has been in a crisis for a while.
Over the past few months there as been an increasing number for cases, reported, of violence against women (VAW). I have to place emphasis on cased that are reported as many women do not report cases and there are many cases the police do not follow protocol and therefore cases fall off the roll or simply they are never opened.
In August 2017, I moderated a session led by the Centre for the study of Violence and reconciliation (CSVR). The CSVR in partnership with OxfamSA, launched a new report on Violence against Women. The report is titled:
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN SOUTH AFRICA: A COUNTRY IN CRISIS. I have made a few key points in relation to the report, the full report can found at http://www.csvr.org.za
I decided to write about these findings in relation the state of VAW in SA. A few weeks ago on my Facebook timeline, a person posted that criminals who had abused a dog received a 25 years jail sentence. I commented on it saying that the price of a women’s life is valued less than that an animal, as in many rape case, the perpetrators are released on a suspended case or receive between 7 and 25 years. The level of vitriol and defamatory remarks to that posts were astounding. This highlights the fact that there is still a war on women bodies and the fact that many do not see it as being a major problem, adds to the fact that we are in serious crisis.
The first week of September 2017, a video was released on social media of male school teachers gang raping a female student whilst learners watched on. I refused to watch the link but what I have deciphered is that the learners watched on and cheered as if watching their favourite sports match. This opens up a number of crucial factors.
The people who are supposed to be role models and teaching our youth, are corrupt, disgusting beasts, who are using their positions and authority for their own gain. Another example being the ex-deputy minister of higher education, Mduduzi Manana, beating a young girl in public and receiving preferential treatment at courts and surrounding his employment.
Rape has become a sport for many. There is absolutely no logic behind rape, gang rape or abuse and to perform such a beastly act, especially in a classroom, speaks volumes to the level of damaged psyches that are living amongst us.
The trauma of rape can never be managed, but being gang raped and watched by your peers at school will have lifelong effects on the survivors self esteem, psyche and physical body.
In relation to the report by CSVR and Oxfam, South Africa, we are way beyond a crisis. We need serious strategies in place not only on a governmental level but on a domestic front. In South Africa we have laws in place that are supposed to protect our women but they are not being implemented accordingly. Our Minister of police recently released a statement stating that a new action plan has been put in place at our police stations. These actions plans are placed on a manifesto which is written on boards at every police station. If you enter any police station in South Africa, its states what our rights are as women and individuals and what the role of the police should be. Why are the police not following those action plans? Examples of such are police questioning the validity of the survivors complaints, undermining their trauma and ridiculing them. This is evident in cases where black lesbians have reported cares of rape and the police questioning the survivors identity and undermining the crime.
As a continent we need to collectively take responsibility for ourselves, our thoughts and actions. How we raise our girls and boys, the conversations we have with our peers and question each other, when in doubt.
In relation to the CSVR report, I have highlighted the key elements:
This research contributes towards explaining the high prevalence of VAW in South Africa, and presents recommendations to inform interventions by women, government departments and the wider society for addressing VAW. It does so from the experiences and perceptions of survivors of VAW, a perspective that is under-explored. The report also suggests that attempts at tackling VAW in South Africa should not be looked at in isolation from other structural and social problems.
The following recommendations were made:
1. There is a need for multifaceted approaches: VAW is an intricate phenomenon requiring a multifaceted approach and should be understood as the outcome of multiple factors interlinked at the individual, family, community and societal levels.
2. Need for a focused approach on VAW: While mindful of the fact that gender violence affects both women and men, the reality is that women are most affected.Bringing back VAW as a central focus and priority in discourse and practice is therefore critical for developing effective strategies and interventions to address it.
3. Address inter department and inter-sector coordination issues in the implementation of VAW programmes and policies: There is an urgent need to address the fragmentation and divisions within and among elements working towards women’s rights.
4. Strengthen implementation of existing laws: South Africa boasts a largely progressive national legislative framework to address VAW and as such does not necessarily need new laws. What needs to be strengthened is implementation and accountability for those already in existence.
5. Address challenges in the criminal justice system: One of the main reasons accounting for the persistence of VAW in South Africa was attributed to challenges within the criminal justice system, particularly within the police services. It is therefore crucial to address the systemic challenges within the police services in order to restore trust and confidence in the justice system.
6. Promote gender equality to prevent VAW: Strategies to address VAW must be intrinsically linked to efforts towards achieving gender equality more generally. Prevention must start early in life by educating and working with girls and boys to promote respectful relationships and gender equality.
7. Increased women’s economic empowerment: This includes efforts to increase women’s economic empowerment through encouraging and strengthening their entrepreneurship and labour rights, encouraging universal access to education and providing access to capital and resource control, are recommended as essential to combat VAW in South Africa.
8. Improving services for intimate partner violence (IPV): Improving access to services for abused women is a critical measure to prevent future or recurrent violence. To ensure this, broad-based community involvement is crucial.
9. Enhancing parenting practices: Childhood experiences such as neglectful and violent parenting practices have been shown to influence the formation of violent masculinities. Approaches to VAW intervention must encourage healthy parenting practices as a prevention strategy.
10. Role of media: Women’s accounts and perceptions of VAW point out that violence is a learned behaviour. This learning takes place through various mediums. At present, the South African media is identified as being instrumental in shaping individual perceptions of VAW. It is recommended that CSOs and community-based organisations employ the media as a dissemination tool for positive messaging and images of women. They must collaborate with the media, in partnership, to ensure sustainability and a shared sense of responsibility.
11. The value of using an intersectional analysis: Given that no single factor can sufficiently explain the violence experienced by women in South Africa, it follows that it is in the intersections of oppression that violence occurs. This study highlights the added vulnerability of lesbians (or those assumed to be) and women in poor and less resourced communities as being particularly at risk.
12. Lifecycle approach to addressing VAW: The various accounts by the women in this study point to the reality that VAW takes on many forms and can occur throughout a person’s life. A number of the life- history respondents recounted experiences of multiple episodes of violence that (in some instances) started in the prenatal period and continued through childhood to adulthood and old age. Interventions therefore need to be framed in ways that take this into account.
13. VAW research and policy recommendations should account for the lived experiences of women: There is a critical need for VAW research to take into account women’s lived experiences. Policy recommendations need to be based on what women say their lives are like rather than on ideological perspectives that researchers might think is happening. There is a need to centre women’s voices and experiences (e.g., by applying feminist methodologies, as done in this research) in order to improve the implementation methods and the results experienced by women themselves.
The report also includes the following posts:
A brief comparative review of VAW in other post conflict countries, particularly of Iberia and Sierra Leone.
A South Africa state response to VAW
The research mythology includes: Applying a feminist framework to VAW, this includes various research methods, who to study and what the limitations are. This included Life history interviews
The study employed life history narratives to capture women’s experiences of VAW, and their own perceptions of the meanings of these experiences. This involved in-depth interviews with women to find out about their experiences generally and in particular the VAW experiences throughout their lives. This was done because telling stories is a fundamental part of how people communicate.
More important for this study is the ability of stories to show how storytellers make sense of their world. In line with the feminist postmodern approach, life history methods are less concerned with uncovering a universal ‘truth’ represented in people’s storytelling. Rather, they are interested in the manner in which people tell their stories and represent particular truths at particular historical moments. Individuals make sense of and understand their experiences through narrative.
Another key strength of life story interviews is the strong emphasis on holism. Lives are seen as whole, the public and private cannot be separated, and the contextual lives of respondents are studied and understood this way.
On selecting participants for life story interviews : Two women per province were selected, based on their willingness to participate in the study and share their life experiences and viewpoints as they relate to the study. In addition, the study endeavoured to select a mix of participants from diverse social demographic groups such as age, sexual orientation, marital status, and religious or cultural grouping. This allowed for a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of VAW in South Africa. Twelve life histories constituted the data for this report.
On selecting participants for focus groups discussions (FGD): Two FGDs were conducted per province, one with young women (18–34 years) and the other with women over 35 years of age. In total, eight FGDs were conducted. Each groups had 8–10 participants.
The report findings and analysis, it unpacks the persistence of VAW in South Africa and the strategies to overcome that.
The limitations included language barriers, as translating VAW terminology often required translators.
For assistance or additional support please contact the following organisations:
http://www.powa.co.za:
POWA is a “feminist, women’s rights organisation that provides both services, and engages in advocacy in order to ensure the realisation of women’s rights and thereby improve women’s quality of life”.
POWA’s uniqueness as an organisation is in providing both services to survivors and engaging in advocacy using a feminist and intersectional analysis. Our work is rooted in the belief that change can only be said to be effective when women’s lives are directly improved through our interventions. We also believe that there is no single route to change, and thus constantly seek new and creative approaches in our programming to achieve the change we seek.www.few
http://www.csvr.org.za
CSVR is a multi-disciplinary institute involved in research, policy formation, community interventions, service delivery, education and training, as well as providing consultancy services. The primary goal of CSVR is to use its expertise in building reconciliation, democracy and a human rights culture and in preventing violence in South Africa and in other countries in Africa.
http://www.few.org.za
Forum For The Empowerment of Women: FEW was established by black lesbian women activists living in Johannesburg in 2001.In a post 1994 South Africa and with the new constitution of 1996 recognising sexual orientation within the equality clause, it was clear that we had to organise ourselves to ensure that we were able to claim and live the rights entrenched in the constitution. Already, with increasing numbers of LGBTI people coming out and being visible both in everyday life as well as within human rights defending work, the age-old issues of discrimination, stigmatisation and marginalisation were becoming more blatant. The group which initially began the conversation about organising black lesbian women were concerned that within the broader LGBTI and women’s human rights issues, black lesbian women were more vulnerable because of intersecting identities, contexts and realities.