Page 26 - SCAT GBV Report - Addressing Gender-Based Violence - 2021

3. CRITICAL INTERSECTIONS
There are a number of critical intersections where LDAs encounter challenges and opportunities that have particular implications for their gender work. These intersections are both where innovation takes place, and where some of the most difficult gender power dynamics are in place, and LDAs approach these in diverse ways. Though, for all organisations, the critical intersections discussed in this section are seen to impact significantly on their efforts to curb GBV.
3.1 Straddling tradition: “Sustain the good things and do away with the bad”
Traditional authorities and the practice of customary law are integral to rural life in South Africa. Several organisations are based in areas that fall directly under traditional authorities, so they work with this system of law and the formal legal system. As Dugan and Drage (2013:32) argue, ‘being part of the community, these paralegals are well placed to straddle South Africa’s dualist legal system, as they have the training to be able to translate the Bill of Rights and so can supplement the role and function of the chiefs’ offices and tribal courts’.
The combination of their [paralegals] indigenous knowledge system and their knowledge of the law helps them to holistically address the problem of GBV. Winnie Martins, key informant.
Traditional councils are often the first port of call for community members, and have been found lacking in how they handle the impact of GBV on victims and the accountability of perpetrators.18 Furthermore, traditional leaders are powerful players in household and community matters, including those related to gender social relations. It is also common cause that traditional leaders and structures hold power and authority by virtue of law and through the dynamics of community identity and belonging. Traditional leaders are thus able to influence and direct how GBV is dominantly understood and reacted to through discourse and practices of culture.19 Together with religious leaders, their views also inform, and even control, what is considered acceptable and desirable behaviour, and this in turn shapes socio- cultural norms. Also, these community leaders are often privy to detailed information about what goes on in a community and its households. GBV cases are sometimes also investigated and adjudicated through traditional courts.
They [the traditional councils] know every household of the area, even when there are problems, socially and economically. It is easy to identify that there is a violence here. Tembakazi Mthembu, PSJAC.
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“Finish this Elephant”: Rural Community Organisations’ Strategic Approaches to Addressing GBV
18. 19.
Tshenolo Tshoaedi, key informant.
Importantly, culture is contested and there is no singular version or perspective of what constitutes ‘African culture’. For more on this, see: https://www.customcontested.co.za