Page 24 - SCAT GBV Report - Addressing Gender-Based Violence - 2021
P. 24

We have a lot of engagement with the women, like gatherings, to talk about GBV. In terms of that engagement there is sometimes cases coming up ... We engage with the women to inform them, what they are supposed to do and how they must respond.
Jenny Fredericks, Ubuntu.
Educating and engaging with community members around GBV includes information- giving and awareness-building. It also includes door-to-door campaigns to identify households where GBV is occurring, involving informal discussions with women at household level. The work is also geared towards building a rights-based culture and systems of accountability in local settings. By providing a civil society platform to amplify the voices of those who advocate for safety and equality for women and girls, and for people of different sexual orientations and gender identities, LDAs spur communities to engage more directly with issues of gender and sexuality. Community leaders and structures are activated in order to raise the profile of gender injustices. The knowledge-building work of LDAs seeks to challenge the stigmatisation of survivors and focus attention on the abuser and social systems and practices that enable or overlook abuse.
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“Finish this Elephant”: Rural Community Organisations’ Strategic Approaches to Addressing GBV
2.7
When you are being emotionally abused, you look at that abuse and say, ‘maybe I am wrong, maybe I am the problem’. But, when such awareness goes out to say, ‘it’s not always that it’s your problem’, then people’s eyes will open, and before people get killed or kill one another, they would have received services from the relevant stakeholders in the community. Mary Boer, DOH stakeholder.
When the community gets involved in these cases you get a better response. When a person goes to lay the complaint, they [SAPS] don’t actually respond. A third party must come in – like [our organisation] – to tell them, okay this is what happened.
Jenny Fredericks, Ubuntu.
Advancing economies of independence: “Destroy that syndrome of dependence”
One of the biggest reasons why rape and abuse in the home has been normalised is because of economics. It’s a survival question, literally. And without addressing that, you cannot address how a person continues to be exposed to that environment.
Tshenolo Tshoaedi, key informant.
In resource-deprived settings, women’s financial dependency on men severely limits the choices available to them when GBV does occur. For this and other reasons, LDAs pay particular attention to advancing the financial independence of women as a long-term strategy to correct gender power imbalances within local economies and social structures. The strategic pathway of economic empowerment for women is a measure against the systemic dynamics that fuel their vulnerability to gender discrimination. Through development projects (such as food gardens and savings schemes), financial and livelihood prospects for women can be improved, making it easier for them to act against GBV or to leave a relationship because of it. By intersecting socio-economic rights with gender rights, LDAs attempt to promote economies of independence that can, in turn, increase women’s decision-making powers within the household and the community.






















































































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