Johannesburg - Over the 21 years that the 16 Days of Activism campaign has been running, South Africa has seen some positive impact from collective efforts to end gender-based violence (GBV), but rates of GBV-related crimes have remained exceptionally high in a society that has somewhat normalised violence against women’s bodies.
The Afrika Tikkun Foundation (ATF) has urged the government to prioritise social engineering for the correction of some of these pervasive and persistent attitudes toward women.
These are the catalysts that embolden men to harm women in a country that struggles to police the violence that these attitudes produce.
A youth development NGO warns that South Africa must abandon the inert and outdated mentality about women's roles in a society that perpetuates the cycle of violence and oppression against them.
Trends on social media and traditional mainstream media continue to produce worrying patterns about how women’s bodies are discussed, how attitudes towards women remain poor among some men, and how widely accepted the degradation of women and their bodies remains in greater society.
The foundation suggests that there is a disconnect between the rhetoric of campaigns against GBV and the people they are aimed at.
There is an agreement that society has yet to reach about what the value of a woman is in society and that the way many women are treated in South Africa is unacceptable and should be corrected.
“In order to end the GBV epidemic, South Africans need an actionable plan with targets and monitoring mechanisms.
“With how prevalent GBV is in South Africa and how it has permeated different parts of society, these campaigns seem performative.
“Our biggest struggle in SA is to address rape culture, which is heavily influenced by social media in a major way that affects women and girls,” says ATF chief operating officer Sipho Mamize.
From social media content that trivialises the suffering of women to prevailing opinions that women cause their own oppression by demanding equality, sexual freedom, and agency over their bodies, we see evidence of resistance towards modern ideals on women's rights.
Organisations may agree on ideas around feminism and the elimination of rape culture in society, but until these discussions are had at a level that will finally effect real change in the minds of men who normalise and perpetrate this violence, nothing will change fast enough.
Despite having a globally renowned legal framework that seeks to protect women from discrimination, violence, and inequality, people still live in a society that does not reflect these endeavours.
The foundation further said that prominent female political leaders in South Africa, who also have a role to play in translating the ideals of equality as stipulated in the constitution, do not seem to have a unified voice, with some even declaring that they are not feminists.
“Rape culture is cancer that needs to be eliminated from the fabric of our society.
“It is evident in the way we talk about women, the way law enforcement handles GBV cases, and the way society reacts to women's violations,” says Mamize.
“These conversations must be led by a collective of government and community leaders, including political parties, churches, and civil society organisations that agree that GBV begins in the mind and that is where it should be eliminated before another woman has to die in order for people to say that GBV in SA has gone too far,” concludes Mamize.
The Star