Western Cape High Court Judge Siraj Desai has joined the list of well-known South Africans pledging their support to the “Don’t Look Away” campaign.
Independent Media has been running the social change campaign as part of the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children.
Other celebrities include comedians Nik Rabinowitz and Marc Lottering, Stormers rugby player Cheslin Kolbe and Master Chef SA judge Pete Goffe Wood.
They have pledged to stand up against abuse and to lend their voices to ending violence against women and children.
They pledged allegiance by painting their fingernails orange, which is also the United Nation’s Women symbolic colour to support women and children and to eradicate abuse.
UN Women says 35 percent of women experience physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence over their lifetime.
In the majority of countries with available data, less than 40 percent of the women who experience violence seek help of any sort. Among women who do, most look to family and friends and very few look to formal institutions and mechanisms, such as police and health services. Less than 10 percent of those women seeking help for experience of violence sought help by appealing to the police.
The country’s campaign includes getting men to challenge the perpetrators of violence to change their behaviour to involve men in helping to eradicate violence and to provide survivors with information on services and organisations that can help lessen the impact of violence on their lives.
The campaign ends on December 10, International Human Rights Day.