Tackling the GBV pandemic

As South Africans struggle to adjust to the exacerbating socioeconomic status of life post the COVID-19 pandemic, they are confronted with yet another intensifying societal pandemic, gender-based violence (GBV). South African women, who comprise over 51% of the country's population, remain the most vulnerable group subjected to femicide and other forms of GBV. Police Minister Bheki Cele's Quarter Two Crime Statistics 2021/2022 revealed that more than 9 500 cases of GBV and 13 000 cases of domestic violence were reported between July and September 2021.

Hanzline Davids, a Researcher at Unisa's Institute for Gender Studies (IGS), shares that research shows that during the COVID-19 pandemic, sexual and GBV cases increased. He explains, "Victims were often trapped under the same roof as their perpetrators. This situation and the country's socioeconomic circumstances during the lockdown made interventions difficult."

Hanzline Davids

Davids asserts that South Africa (SA) has innovative policies to tackle GBV, such as the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence & Femicide: Human Dignity and Healing, Safety, Freedom & Equality in our Lifetime. "In this regard, we need safe access to justice in all institutions and the police, effective survivor-centred services, and social and institutional norms behavioural change," he says.

Eliminating women's fears in societies

According to Davids, Women's Month means celebrating and honouring the achievements of women/womxn. He remarks: "I do this as an ally through active listening and working collaboratively with women/womxn in the pursuit of a gender-just society." "Especially as a researcher," he continues, "I am indebted through my theoretical framework underpinned by sexual and gender diverse women/womxn's scholarship who have disrupted gender binaries and heteronormativity."

Contributing to the conversation, Michelle Zororo, a Unisa student and the Secretary of the Unisa Law Students Association, maintains that Women's Month is a well-deserved celebration of the resilience of women. She notes: "Women have been at the forefront of oppression for most of history. They are perceived as second-class citizens, abused, and experience many other despicable atrocities. "However," she adds, "they remain resilient and are unshaken. Having Justice Mandisa Maya as the country's first female Deputy Chief Justice indicates our strength as women."

Considering that women live in fear and can be perpetrated by their loved ones, Zororo says she is pleased with how authorities handle the cases of GBV, but they can do better. She says that the government should eradicate poverty as she believes it is a contributor to GBV. "We also need community-based programmes where people can engage and create personal relationships; that way, we can protect each other," she says.

Unisa alumna Mahlatse Mahlakwane says that Women's Month is about celebrating women's bravery and acknowledging that they are pillars of strength to others, even when faced with challenges. She expresses: "As a woman, I do not feel safe living in SA considering the gruesome violation against women. I do not think the police are doing enough to bring the perpetrators to book."

Michelle Zororo and Mahlatse Mahlakwane

Mahlakwane recommends that while perpetrators should be apprehended, they too should receive counselling as they could be from abusive backgrounds. She argues: "There could be more to their behaviours, so we need to change their view of life."

Unisa contributes to combating the scourge of GBV

Unisa, through the IGS, aims to create conducive and inclusive spaces for an engaged scholarship that is influential, impactful, beneficial to communities, and sustainable over time. Earlier this year, Professor Damaris Parsitau of the IGS gave a guest lecture at a seminar entitled:  Invisible Lives, missing voices: Putting women and girls at the centre of post-COVID-19 recovery and reconstruction. Parsitau argued that the pandemic affected the gender equality and transformation progress that was made before. She further argued that the recovery plans of countries post-COVID-19 need to include gender equality as a key strategic focus.

The university has initiatives and collaborations that contribute to combating GBV. For example, earlier in the year, the institute hosted the Breathing Through Trauma Workshop, facilitated by its owner and founder, Mokokobale Makgopa. The initiative sought to equip women and survivors of GBV with techniques focusing on breath, presence, and the body to cope with anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The institute also held webinars focused on Teenage Pregnancies: The Importance of a Contextual Approach and its Implications and Human Trafficking and Prostitution of African Women in Europe.

IGS also collaborates with We Will Speak Out SA, a non-profit organisation, on a 10-month programme that guides and equips faith leaders to become change agents to advance gender transformation in their churches and communities.

* By Nancy Legodi, Acting Journalist, Department of Institutional Advancement