AS gender-based violence in South Africa is thrown into the spotlight, stories and experiences are shared in the hopes of helping and inspiring others.
Weekend Argus, as part of Independent Media’s Don’t Look Away campaign on gender-based violence, will host a live event on November 28 featuring award-winning journalist and author Vanessa Govender.
The event will see Govender share her personal experience of gender-based violence, sharing insight that was published in her 2018 book titled Beaten But Not Broken.
“There is nothing new about my own story of abuse, there is nothing exceptional about me being punched, kicked or slapped around,” Govender said.
“It is the reality and lives of thousands of women every single day in South Africa.”
Making headlines upon release, Govender’s book detailed five years of abuse and suffering at the hands of her intimate partner, during her time as a journalist and broadcaster at the Durban radio station, Lotus FM.
“I have found my voice. I have realised the most powerful story I have to tell is that of my own and in sharing this, it is my hope to tell all those so called good guys who claim never to have struck a woman or who say they are able to walk away when she says no what their brothers, colleagues, friends and fathers do; and that telling women to leave is cheap and cowardly cop-out advice and that saying they have never hit or raped a woman is not a convincing enough defence of their own character; and that the only way to differentiate themselves from the thousands of abusers and rapists in South Africa is to act when they know or suspect their friends, brothers or colleagues are guilty of abuse.”
The event comes just as on Tuesday, the national government’s Inter-Ministerial Committee on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide launched the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children campaign.
The campaign, spearheaded by the UN, traditionally takes place between International Day of No Violence against Women, on November 25, and International Human Rights Day, on December 10.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said the campaign was to remind all sectors of society of the importance and their role in combating gender-based violence.
But to Govender, the campaign does not go far enough in addressing the issue.
“The president has called for national mourning for all those women murdered by men,” she said.
“I think it's time the president realises survivors and families who have had to bury their daughters, mothers and sisters require more than patronising rhetoric. Conversations need to change, the dialogue needs reworking and certainly the punitive measures promised should be enforced without an inch of quarter given or taken. This is a war we are fighting. It is a genocide.”
The live event with Govender will take place at 1pm on the Weekend Argus Facebook page.
Weekend Argus