South Africa: Time for an emergency plan to end gender violence

The man who would be president is accused of rape. A soccer star admits to having sex with an under age girl but claims it was consensual and he did not know her age. His wife is charged with assaulting an alleged lover. A young woman in her prime is kidnapped from college and brutally murdered. A jealous lover is charged with killing a police woman. Two young girls disappear from their home in Soweto. A teacher, found guilty by a disciplinary committee of rape, is still teaching in a school.

 

These stories and many more have dominated the headlines since the last Sixteen Days of Activism campaign that runs each year from 25 November (International Day of No Violence Against Women) to 10 December (Human Rights Day).

 

No matter what the outcome of investigations and court cases still pending, the reality that underpins each of these stories is that gender violence is not abating.

Latest police statistics show that while there has been a general decrease in contact crimes (such as murder and common assault) rape and indecent assault (the category under which most cases of domestic violence lurk) have increased by 4 percent and 8 percent respectively. With 55,000 reported cases of rape (and it is acknowledged that these are likely to be about a quarter of actual cases), on average a woman is raped at least every ten minutes in South Africa.

 

It has become the norm among those of us involved in the Sixteen Day campaign to put a positive spin to these numbers. The argument runs that a likely outcome of greater awareness raising in the short term is that a higher number of cases get reported.

 

That explanation is not good enough. Setting the tone for this year’s campaign, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), Media Monitoring Project (MMP) and  Gender Links convened a debate at the Women’s Jail on Constitution Hill on 21 November called: “Sixteen days of activism campaign: a high horse for gender activists, or a valuable campaign?

 

On 24 November, the first day of the Cyber Dialogues – a joint initiative of NGOs, government and the City of Johannesburg – Gender Links will unveil an audit of actions taken against commitments made in the 2004 campaign. Under the banner “have we done enough?” a high level panel of government ministers and NGO executives will respond to questions raised by the balance sheet.

 

There are some positive developments. The courts have continued to send out strong messages that gender violence is not acceptable and that the state will be held accountable for upholding the rights of women. Landmark cases include Omar versus the State, which upheld the provision for protective orders in the Domestic Violence Act (DVA) and Carmichele versus the Minister of Safety and Security and another, which found two ministers liable in a case involving the rape of a woman by three off duty police. The Children’s Bill, now in its final stages, is a watershed for children’s rights.

 

More men are taking a vocal stance against gender violence. The reach of public awareness campaigns keeps mounting: this year the cyber dialogues will redraw the map of Southern Africa by running in eight languages that cut across artificial colonial boundaries.

 

Attitudes are slowly changing. The seriousness, for example, with which allegations of rape made against former deputy president Jacob Zuma are being taken by the various structures within the African National Congress (ANC) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) – regardless of their political inclinations – sends out the important message that the key issue here is whether or not a woman’s rights have been violated.

 

Yet, nine years after the South African Law Commission produced a discussion paper on the Sexual Offences Bill, it has still not been passed. While experiments abound in providing one stop facilities that would cater for the legal, psychological and health needs of women, including immediate access to Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) to counter the possibility of contracting HIV, only five percent of those who need such integrated facilities have access to them.

 

Similarly, ten times more special Sexual Offences Courts than what is currently available are needed to ensure that every case of sexual offence is heard by such courts which have a 63 percent conviction rate, compared to seven percent in ordinary courts.  

 

Foreign donors are pulling out their support for shelters, arguing that this should be a South African government responsibility. As a result of the slow and inadequate response by the Department of Social Development several of these are threatened with closure.

 

While government and civil society work together well around the Sixteen Day campaign, the Anti Rape Strategy devised by the government cluster responsible for crime has yet to be been canvassed with NGO partners.

 

The GL audit concludes that what is needed is an emergency action plan to end gender violence, with an inclusive co-ordinating structure, targets, responsibilities, timeframes and indicators by which to measure progress this time next year.    Anything less and this year’s campaign would indeed be guilty of being “a high horse for gender activists.”