Page 8 - SCAT GBV Report - Addressing Gender-Based Violence - 2021
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1. CONTEXT
1.1 Gender-based violence: Concepts, rights and realities
According to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, ‘violence inherited from apartheid still resonates profoundly in today’s society, dominated by deeply entrenched patriarchal norms and attitudes towards the role of women and which makes violence against women and children, especially in rural areas and in informal settlements, a way of life and an accepted social phenomenon’ (UN, 2016:3). Statistically, and due to structural gender inequities, females are more likely to be victims of GBV than males (Jewkes, 2002).7 Moreover, given their lower social and economic status, a manifestation of historic gender discrimination, ‘women have fewer options and less resources at their disposal to avoid or escape abusive situations and to seek justice’ (CSVR, 2016:4).
GBV is defined in the National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide 2020-2030 (NSP-GBVF) as being a result of the normative gender role expectations, as associated with the sex assigned to a person at birth, as well as the unequal power relations between male and female genders (Government of South Africa, 2020). This includes physical, sexual, verbal, emotional and psychological abuse, or threats of such acts or abuse, coercion, and economic or educational deprivation. The roots of GBV lie in unequal power relations, based on dominant norms associated with a binary conception of gender.8 This gender binary grants men more structural power, status and authority than women, and also results in the social rejection of alternative gender and sexual identities. In sum, ‘[t]he cause of GBV cannot be attributed to a single factor, but an interplay of individual, community, economic, cultural and religious factors interacting at different levels of society ... ranging from gender inequalities between men and women, social constructions of hegemonic masculinities, social perceptions of what it means to be a man, normalisation of violence, and cultural practices such as lobola and ukuthwala’ (CSVR, 2016:2). Consequently, there are multiple forms of GBV, and this includes intimate partner violence (IPV) against women by male partners (Gender Links, 2012), the incidence of which is similar in both urban and non-urban settings (Statistics South Africa, 2018). Another prevalent form is sexual violence, where between 2007/08 and 2016/17, a total of 596 873 sexual offences were reported to the South African Police Service (SAPS), of which, since 2008/09, rape formed the majority, with sexual assault being the second highest category (SAPS, 2017). The most extreme form of violence against women is femicide, also at notably high levels (Abrahams, Mathews, Martin, Lombard & Jewkes, 2013). Violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people is another significant form of GBV in South Africa (Love Not Hate Campaign, 2016; Nel and Judge, 2008).
Not only does GBV have direct force, it is also prohibitive in that the fear of its occurrence restricts people’s freedoms and movement. According to Statistics South Africa (2018:5), a fear of crime impedes people’s activities and ‘women are more affected by this compared to men, as they felt they were not free to express their sexual orientation or walk to fetch firewood or water’. Moreover, the normalisation of sexist attitudes across South African society is evidenced in the finding that ‘for both men and women, the highest percentage of individuals thought it was acceptable for a man to hit a woman if she argues with him, and the lowest percentage of
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“Finish this Elephant”: Rural Community Organisations’ Strategic Approaches to Addressing GBV
7. 8.
Accordingly, the focus of this study and report is primarily on women and girl victims of GBV, with attention also given to violence associated with sexual orientation and/or gender identity
The gender binary assigns people to a sex – male or female – at birth, and they are then obligated to conform to the status, roles and conduct associated with that sex. So, for example, a person assigned a female sex at birth is expected to identify as a woman and to act according to the dominant roles and status associated with that gender i.e. to be attracted to men, to be a mother, to dress in a particular way, etc.

























































































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