Grandmothers against poverty and AIDS challenging the Sexual Cleansing of Ifutha to address GBV in Khayelitsha, Cape Town

Southern Africa remains the region with the most HIV infections in world. It has only 2% of the world’s population, but 34% of all new infections were recorded in this region in 2010. The majority of these infections are in women. Research and programmes aimed at understanding why southern Africa is most affected by the HIV epidemic and why women are disproportionately affected, point to the importance of addressing the inter-linkages between HIV transmission, the high incidence of gender based violence, women’s inability to exercise their rights and harmful cultural practices. Experiencing violence is a violation of women’s rights, significantly impacting on women’s ability to protect themselves from contracting HIV. Women in southern Africa are particularly susceptible to experiencing gender based violence, which has been shown to heighten their risks of contracting HIV. Women who experience rape have an increased risk of HIV infection as it is very unlikely that condoms are used during the attack. Traumatic abrasions and a lack of lubrication further increase the risk of HIV transmission. Furthermore, evidence suggests that experiencing violence, or the fear of violence from an intimate partner impacts on women’s ability to insist on condom use, to refuse to have sex with an unfaithful partner, or to access HIV prevention, treatment and care services. In African contexts, gender based violence is often condoned, and at times supported, by culturally held beliefs and practices which view women as subordinate to men in all spheres. Furthermore, there are some cultural practices – called ‘harmful cultural practices’ in this report – which place women at risk of contracting HIV because they place them in circumstances where they have unprotected sex against their will. Some practices are common to a number of countries in the region, while some remain specific to particular communities within one country. Grandmothers Against Poverty and AIDS (GAPA), a South African community-based organisation located in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha township is one such organisation working to challenge and address harmful cultural beliefs and practices that heighten women’s susceptibility to HIV infection and to experiencing gender based violence. Between 2009 and 2011, GAPA implemented the ‘Changing the River’s Flow’ (CTRF) programme to stimulate community engagement on and dialogue about the harmful practice of sexual cleansing, ifutha by initiates of the traditional initiation schools, and the higher incidence of sexual violence and rape that accompanies this practice.

Publisher: SAfAIDS
Download : 19529_south_africa_best_practice_report_gapa.pdf