Gender-based violence in South Africa
An article in the National Library of Medicine, says South Africa is considered to be the rape capital of the world with 10,818 rape cases reported in the first quarter of 2022. And these are just the reported cases. The rate at which women are killed by intimate partners in this country is five times higher than the global average.
Gender-based violence (GBV), is sadly a widespread and common occurrence in SA, and is deeply ingrained in homes, workplaces, cultures and traditions. This pandemic, because of unequal power between genders, has far-reaching effects that go on beyond the violence itself. GBV manifests in physical, emotional, psychological, financial or structural ways with harm usually perpetrated by intimate partners, work colleagues, strangers and even institutions.
Not enough documenting
Documenting, reporting, intervening and preventing GBV is a major health challenge. GBV is recognised by the World Health Organisation as a major public health problem. Not only is it a direct cause of injury, morbidity and death, but women’s health is affected indirectly through unwanted pregnancies and accompanying health risks, as well as mental illness, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV and AIDS.
About Hlanganisa
Hlanganisa Community Fund is an intermediary grant maker which seeks to strengthen social accountability and promote human rights in pursuit of social justice for all. Hlanganisa’s approach to advancing social, gender and environmental justice is to intervene at grassroots level therefore influencing and anchoring our partnerships in rural communities. The partnerships are facilitated through grant making, capacity building, organisational development and mentoring, and advocacy.
With over 15 years’ experience, Hlanganisa has been a champion for the rights of marginalised groups with a reach of over 800 community-based organizations whom we provided different types of training to. Their footprint spreads across Southern Africa, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia. To date they have disbursed over R55 million through sub-granting including emergency grants for humanitarian crisis response.
Hlanganisa’s Sisterhood Advocates
Through the SEF, GBV is being addressed and promoted by 2550 female participants providing community-based paralegal assistance in the Free State, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West. This includes counselling, laying charges with local SAPS, applying for protection and/or maintenance orders, and referrals to local domestic violence shelters.
Since working with the SEF, 173,212 GBV survivors were seen and assisted by the Sisterhood Advocates. 4221 cases were opened with the police and 4930 women were assisted with applying for maintenance orders.
19,559 cases were referred for specialised support such as social workers, forensic nurses in the case of rape and counsellors for psychosocial support. In a 12-month period, over 1000 clients were admitted into domestic violence shelters across the 10 districts in which the project has been implemented. In the last six months, the number of police cases has increased four-fold demonstrating increased confidence in the support provided by sisterhood advocates.
Progress
In rural areas GBV is very real and people are burdened. Agnes, a Sisterhood Advocate in Lethabong, North West says when she enters certain homes, she can feel that there are problems. The Sisterhood is creating awareness and visibility on GBV matters, and communities can see that young people are doing something about it, that it’s a start. She says it is incredible to see the impact basic empowerment can have on (mostly) women, to be aware of their basic human rights. By reporting and following up on police cases opened, she said “the police also know that they have to do their job properly because we follow up on our cases. The police are afraid of us”. It’s almost impossible to place a value on this kind of impact.
Conclusion
Although the president has spoken out against GBV and 16 days of activism has been set aside for GBV – this is insufficient. More emphasis must be placed on teaching, training new doctors to be aware of this epidemic and manage this scourge effectively. There needs to be more community awareness programmes to empower communities to manage this epidemic which has been around for far too long. Advocacy must happen at schools and universities to include managing, reporting and documenting GBV in the curriculum. The repercussions of GBV will be felt by our future generations as it has longlasting mental and physical consequences and unless arrested, will continue to be a vicious cycle of abuse.