Gender-based violence a national disaster?

16 Days of Activism – again

As we begin another annual global 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children, here in South Africa the outcry against gender-based violence and femicide has grown stronger, while our rates of GBV continue to rise inexorably.

In advance of the G20 summit in Johannesburg, a large hoarding displaying a casket was erected in Alberton, south of Joburg, declaring, “Welcome to the country where women are only safe in a casket.” While Alberton is unlikely to be on delegates’ route into the city, the sign has received considerable publicity. In addition, women gathered in 15 locations across South Africa last Friday to protest against gender-based violence (GBV), wearing black as a sign of “mourning and resistance”. Women were encouraged to refrain from work and to spend no money on the day. Demonstrators lay on the ground in silence for 15 minutes, in honour, commemoration and protest at the 15 lives lost every day to gender-based violence in South Africa.

Perhaps in response – we’ll never know – the head of the National Disaster Management Centre, Dr Bongani Sithole, classified GBV as a national disaster. Somehow, this feels a bit too familiar – and futile. During the Covid-19 pandemic, President Ramaphosa said that GBV was our “second pandemic”. Five years on, nothing has changed. In fact, the crisis has worsened. According to a researcher at Fort Hare University, “In 2017, South Africa was reportedly losing eight women a day to violence…Today, the figure has risen to at least fifteen. In a single generation, the crisis has doubled. Femicide is not creeping. It is accelerating.” So it’s hard to know how much the declaration of disaster status will mean or matter.

Frankly, how many more awareness campaigns do we need? How much more education can be provided? How much awareness and education does it take for a man to know that hitting a woman is wrong (hitting anyone, for that matter, unless in self-defence)? They know it’s wrong, and they do it anyhow. Patriarchal culture is no excuse. Many cultures across the globe and over the years have engaged in barbaric practices – enslaving people, torturing people, oppressing people, etc. No one accepts these practices as OK just because they were enshrined in particular cultures. Oppressing women and behaving violently towards them is not OK, whatever your race, ethnicity, colour, creed or other definition of culture.

Men – if this is you, stop it right now. If it’s not you, lead by example. It isn’t just about not hitting women. It’s about the sexist jokes; the misogynist stereotypes reinforced in the media and in conversation, often unconsciously; the inappropriate sexualisation and objectification of women; the habit men have of talking over women in meetings…the list goes on. It’s the ways in which men daily signal their perceived superiority, and pass the message on to boys and young men that men and women are not equal. And that inequality is permission for demeaning, dismissive, and even violent treatment.

It is often said that violence against women is rarely about sex and always about power. South Africa’s off-the-charts level of GBV has been attributed to the historical institutionalised oppression of men which created a need to exert power in whatever corner of their lives they could…and that usually meant the domestic arena. This theory is plausible but impossible to prove. It also does not excuse the behaviour, particularly 30 years on from apartheid. Exerting power over another person, particularly in the form of violence, does not signify strength. It signifies weakness. A strong person cares for others and makes sure they are safe.

At SD Law we’ve written about the systemic crisis of violence against women so often we’re sick of it. We’d love to never write about it again. But the need never goes away. So here we go again. This year, for 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children, we’ll be republishing our four-part series on leaving an abusive partner. The articles explain the different types of abuse and the reasons why “she doesn’t just leave him”. It provides step-by-step strategies for escaping an abusive relationship and provides resources available to women in need of help.

If you are experiencing abuse at the hands of an intimate partner or family member and need a protection order or want to safely initiate divorce proceedings, contact Simon on 086 099 5146 or email sdippenaar@sdlaw.co.za.

Below is a (very long) list of articles we’ve written on this topic over the years of SD Law’s existence:

• It is ‘all men’, to varying degrees: men’s violence against women is a systemic crisis
• ‘Calamitous’: domestic violence set to soar by 20% during global lockdown
• 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children
• 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women & Children
• What does GBV mean in South Africa?
• South African woman’s murder prompts anger at country’s high level of femicide
• Sexual offences in South Africa
• Domestic abuse victims in UK to receive ‘flee funds’ to escape abusive partners
• What is GBV in South Africa? Understanding Gender-Based Violence and the Law
• Gender-based violence and femicide
• Guns and gender-based violence
• Tackling gender-based violence – the “second pandemic”
• 24-hour gender-based violence hotline to launch
• Alcohol not the sole cause of gender-based violence
• Covid-19 has gifted us a chance to end gender-based violence. We must take it
• Security company helping the fight against domestic/gender-based violence
• Alcohol fuels gender-based violence
• Domestic Violence
• Defining domestic violence
• 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children
• Vulnerable masculinity
• ‘I had to be broken to be fixed’: the courses trying to change abusive men
• One in four women experience domestic abuse before 50 – study
• Why there is nothing to celebrate this Women’s Day
• End femicide: 278 dead – the hidden scandal of older women killed by men
• Nicole Kidman vows to speak out against abuse after Big Little Lies role
• Reeva Steenkamp was murdered. Shame on the BBC for forgetting
• ‘He wanted to control me completely’: the models who accuse Gérald Marie of sexual assault
• Joburg Mayor Makhubo calls for stern action against GBV culprits
• Locked down with an abuser?
• Sex, porn and toxic masculinity: the struggle to bring up better boys
• #MeToo – 16 Days of Activism
• Women tell men how to make them feel safe after Sarah Everard disappearance
• Andrew Tate is a misogynist and a narcissist

 

 

SD Law – Simon Dippenaar & Associates Inc.

Attorneys, Notaries & Conveyancers

SD Law is a Cape Town law firm with a strong practice in divorce and family law, urgent eviction matters, antenuptial contracts, liquor licence applications and selected commercial disputes. Clients instruct us when the matter is urgent, high-stakes or strategically sensitive, and when they want direct, clear legal advice backed by practical litigation experience.

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