South Africa – High Level Gender-Based Violence
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: January 22, 2007
SOUTH AFRICA: Closing the Gap on Gender-Based Violence
Women’s rights activists protesting in |
JOHANNESBURG, 19 Jan 2007 (IRIN/PLUSNEWS) – In a country long
sickened by the frighteningly high level of sexual violence, one of the greatest
challenges facing South Africa is closing the gap between the rhetoric of gender
equality and the reality on the ground.
The prevalence of gender-based
violence is reflected in stark statistics: between April 2004 and March 2005,
55,114 cases of rape were reported to the police. The number of actual cases was
likely much higher, considering only an estimated one in nine women report cases
of sexual assault, according to the Medical Research Council (MRC). The MRC also
estimates that a woman is killed by her intimate partner every six
hours.
South Africa has been hailed for its progressive constitution,
which enshrines gender equality, and the number of women in parliament has risen
substantially since 1994, creating a formidable force for legislative
change.
Changing laws can be swift; changing the mindsets that often
nullify these impressive gains is another issue altogether. A culture of
violence, born of years of political struggle against apartheid, has been blamed
for the grim statistics, but women’s groups also point to the persistence of
patriarchal attitudes that view women as inferior to men.
Part of the
problem appears to be that many South Africans still have difficulty in defining
rape. A 2004 nationwide survey of boys and girls aged between 10 and 19 found
that 58 percent did not view “forced sex with someone you know” as sexual
violence; another 30 percent of all respondents agreed that “girls do not have a
right to refuse sex with their boyfriend”.
Vusi (not his real name), who
used to physically abuse his partners before he discovered he was HIV positive
and began receiving counselling and education on gender issues, explained the
phenomenon to PlusNews.
“If a woman says no, as a man, you think –
especially if she’s someone you’ve been in love with or somebody you’ve paid a
lobola [dowry] for – you think she is sleeping with someone else and you’ll
force yourself on her. I didn’t even think of it as rape. To me it was a right
thing to do – because she’s mine, I have to sleep with her. Now I know that “no”
is no and I don’t have to question it because if she doesn’t feel like it, she
doesn’t feel like it.”
Experts have described South Africa’s unacceptable
levels of gender-based violence and its 5.5 million HIV infections as
interlinked epidemics, with behaviour change the key to both.
As in many other parts of the world, poverty and unequal
power relations between men and women often shape the nature of sexual
relationships. One in four women experience domestic violence in South Africa –
how can they suggest using a condom, knowing the suspicion and anger this might
provoke?
Researchers in the northern province of Limpopo targeted poor
women, providing them with microcredit and education on gender and HIV/AIDS.
After two years of involvement in the intervention, their experience of physical
and sexual violence was reduced by half, compared to a control group of women
from villages that did not participate in the intervention. The women’s levels
of economic wellbeing also improved, they were more self-confident, had greater
influence in household decisions, and were challenging traditional gender
norms.
Despite the alarming levels of rape, women are still not accessing
drugs to prevent HIV infection after being raped. Phindile Madonsela, 35, and
HIV positive, conducts awareness sessions in schools. She was raped when she was
17 years old by someone she knew, who threatened to kill her if she reported the
rape.
“I disclose my rape at schools when I do HIV and AIDS education. I
tell them they must report rape; they mustn’t be like me and just keep quiet.
Now … there’s this thing of HIV and AIDS, so if they report it, at least they
can get PEP [post-exposure prophylaxis].”
PEP is a course of antiretroviral
drugs that can reduce the risk of contracting the HI virus from an HIV-positive
attacker by as much as 80 percent if it is started within 72 hours of
exposure.
The new sexual offences bill, expected to be passed in early
2007, mandates designated public health facilities to provide rape survivors
with PEP, but does not mention other treatment or counselling services; it also
makes access to PEP drugs dependent on the survivor laying criminal charges.
Advocacy groups have described the proposed legislation as a step
backwards.
There are also concerns that some sexual assaults of women
might be driven by prejudice against their sexual orientation. Funeka Soldaat, a
lesbian activist from Khayelitsha, a township about 30km west of Cape Town, was
gang-raped by four men, who told her they would make her “a real woman”. She
believes many similar cases are not being reported out of fear of secondary
discrimination by officers of the
law.
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