The statistics scream – the response is muted
On the average day in South Africa three women are killed and 109 rapes are reported. Most rapes are perpetrated against women and girls. Marike Keller of Sonke Gender Justice began her presentation with these and a few more devastating figures:
- Only 8.4% of all reported rapes end in a conviction in a court of law.
- One in five women with partners experienced physical violence at the hands of the partner in the 12 months preceding the 2016 Demographic and Health Survey.
- The economic cost of gender-based violence is in the region of R28.4 billion to R42.4 billion a year, according to a 2014 study by KPMG.
The statistics spoke, Ms Keller said, to a problem that was every bit as destructive as racism. But where was the political will to deal with it?
She described the roots of gender-based violence as varied and complex. They include a patriarchal social system that institutionalises gender inequality and discrimination – for example, a pay disparity of 27% exists between men and women in South Africa.
To this should be added other social factors such as the normalisation of violence, an extensive pattern of excessive alcohol use, widespread gun ownership and economic stress factors.
Customs such as ukuthwala (also known as ukuteka, a practice rooted in various South African traditions that involves abduction for the purpose of marriage) and certain religious beliefs further exacerbated the disempowerment of women, she said.
At the individual level, early childhood exposure to violence was strongly associated with the perpetration of violence later in life.
Given the multiple causes, tackling gender-based violence is clearly no simple matter. The complexities were illustrated by an exchange between confeence participants on whether ukuthwala was inherently harmful or only in the context of apartheid’s distortion of gender roles among black people.
So, where was the “multisectoral, coordinated and costed National Strategic Plan on GBV” that such a complex and grave national problem demanded, Ms Keller asked. Where was the commitment to turn around this epidemic as firmly as the country had checked the HIV epidemic?