Page 23 - SCAT GBV Report - Addressing Gender-Based Violence - 2021

2.6
I’m like a stone. I am not getting sore anymore. I did get sore that time, but I’m not getting sore anymore. If I go today, I will go again tomorrow – until I win your trust and you can stand up about that violence in your house.
Deseree Brand, WRDC.
Engaging communities for change: “We cannot rely only on the law”
Activating community engagement is ultimately about changing the conditions and behaviours that produce discrimination and violence. Whilst the benefits and protection of law are central to effecting these changes, they are insufficient on their own. This is because gender inequality is tied to the everyday beliefs and practices through which communities function.
You may have the law. If you do not attend to the practice, or the beliefs, or the structures that are in the community, you will not succeed in implementing that law. We cannot rely only on the law. We also have to rely on the practices of the communities and see how we can work within those to change the way that they do things.
Welekazi Stofile, NGO stakeholder.
There’s a lot of mind changing and bias changing that needs to happen towards GBV. That can’t happen if all you’re doing is enacting laws and giving policies that people don’t even know how to translate into their everyday lives.
Tshenolo Tshoaedi, key informant.
LDAs develop public literacy on rights, the law and legal processes, and through public education and awareness-raising, they aim to empower rural community members with information as a tool to act against violence and related injustices. This strategy equips people with a rights-based understanding of GBV and how violence can be challenged through the exercise of rights. Drawing on relevant information sources and expertise, LDAs create local platforms for informed community engagement, and this also seeks to influence gender norms and practices.
We ask the community about the things they feel are burning issues that we don’t have the answers for. We then call on maybe the human rights commission to address this issue, or we call labour ... and organise a specific group, so that they can have the best information when they approach some of the departments.
Sophia Booysen, KSDF.
Most of the time when a woman is abused in the community, people were folding arms not knowing what to do, or just discriminating and stigmatising that woman – not thinking that it’s not the fault of that woman to be abused. Most women who are abused take it as their fault and blame themselves, so we wanted to also change that insight with them.
Phumla Gojela, CARE.
We need to empower women – giving them the weapon ... Education is part of the weapon, empowering is part of the weapon ... We need to talk to men, educate them on the consequences of abusing women. Nontuthuzelo Sibaca, SAPS stakeholder.
“Finish this Elephant”: Rural Community Organisations’ Strategic Approaches to Addressing GBV 23