Community activist, Lesego Mahlangu, says community programmes need to play a role in ensuring that black women who are most affected by the high levels of gender-based violence (GBV) are economically emancipated.
Mahlangu cites economic factors as leading contributors to women staying in relationships that are violent, as they’re usually unemployed.
Her remarks were in reaction to the latest report by the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), which has painted a grim picture on intimate partner violence in the country.
According to the study, seven women are killed each day in Mzansi and nearly 6 in 10 of such cases are a result of intimate partner violence.
This means that South Africa’s intimate partner femicide rate is almost five times higher than any other country.
In Gauteng, the SAMRC found that the province has recorded a jump in its overall femicide rate from 8.1 per 100 000 in 2017 to 9.2 per 100 000 now.
Mahlangu says it’s time for the money that keeps being donated to the GBVF Response Fund, which was founded in 2021, to start being invested in communities to emancipate women who bear the brunt of the economic and political crisis plaguing the country.
Education and community activist, Zonke Mpotulo, has also weighed in.
Mpotulo says people need to understand that at a societal level, the country is wounded.
She mentions the mass absence of father figures in families as proof to this, saying the phenomenon leads to broken homes.
She believes that Life Orientation at schools could be tailored to speak to such pressing social issues and empower young people through it for the future.
In the same breath, Mpotulo says, families need to restore the traditional family unit as it’s become a foreign concept within communities.
Anti-violence advocacy group, Voice It In Action’s Kgothatso Moloto, agrees that the fight against GBV needs an all-hands-on deck approach in order to decisively deal with it.
Moloto says government alone cannot end GBV.
Written by: Nokwazi Qumbisa
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