South African Government is Addressing Gender-Based Violence, but Numbers Continue to Increase

By: Mary Bradley

As the world continues its battle against COVID-19, South Africa is facing an additional threat to the lives of its citizens: gender-based violence.[1] South African President Cyril Ramaphosa describes gender-based violence in the country as “no less than a war being waged against the women and children.”[2] President Ramaphosa likened the high rate of violence toward women as “another pandemic” the country must combat.[3] Crime reports indicate that a woman in South Africa is killed every three hours and the country has one of the highest rates of violence against women in the world.[4] South Africa also saw an increase in femicide since COVID-19 lockdowns were lifted, underscoring the country’s decades-long struggle against gender-based violence and reinvigorating the fight for progress.[5] According to government statistics, total crimes against women have increased from 173,405 to 179,683 over a one to two-year period.[6] The crimes reported include murder, attempted murder, sexual offenses, assault intending grievous bodily harm, and common assault.[7]

At a recent United Nations meeting, President Ramaphosa discussed a national strategic plan to address violence against women and said, “[t]his includes reforms to our laws to protect survivors and the creation of opportunities to enable women to become financially independent.”[8] His plans are reflective of his government’s ongoing mission to address gender-based violence and is a part of a global undertaking for achieving gender equality as championed by the United Nations’ Generation Equality, a “campaign [that] demands . . . an end to sexual harassment and all forms of violence against women and girls [and] health-care services that respond to their needs,” among other things.[9] Generation Equality stems from the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action of 1995 that was developed at the Fourth World Conference on Women.[10] The Platform for Action was adopted by 189 countries.[11] The Generation Equality campaign recognizes that obstacles still remain unchanged in law and culture and aims to empower a new generation of equality advocates in realizing women’s rights.[12]

In March 2019, South Africa’s Gender-Based Violence and Femicide Declaration was signed following the National Gender-Based Violence and Femicide Summit in November 2018.[13] The summit and declaration followed a protest of thousands of South African women on August 1, 2018, who demonstrated anger and frustration at the increasing levels of violence against women and sought to force the government to act and to stop making empty promises.[14] The declaration set a roadmap for addressing gender-based violence and established a multi-sectoral structure to allocate resources.[15] Further, the summit resulted in the opening of the Booysens Magistrates’ Court in Johannesburg.[16] The court offers several services to support victims of violence and femicide, including a sexual offenses court, family law services addressing domestic violence and harassment, and criminal and civil services.[17] The court is seen as an additional resource to offer women better access to justice, as “many are subjected to secondary victimisation by law enforcement officials and the criminal justice system.”[18]

Increased access to courts is a step in the right direction, but President Ramaphosa and the South African government have faced backlash over loopholes in the system that allows perpetrators to avoid or have short prison time.[19] People have expressed anger over disproportionate sentencing, which exacerbates mistrust in the justice system.[20] Recent bills, once finalized, may address some of these loopholes.[21] In particular, amendments to the country’s criminal laws will add a sexual intimidation offense, tighten the granting of bail to perpetrators of gender-based violence and femicide, expand the offenses that require minimum sentencing, and expand the definition of domestic violence.[22] New laws, however, require enforcement to be effective. Compare the country of Nigeria, where a 2015 federal law designed to address similar issues with violence remains poorly implemented and only thirteen of Nigeria’s thirty-six states have signed on as of July 2020.[23]

Activists also say that while stiffer penalties are beneficial, men need to generate conversation and educate the next generation about standing up for women and women’s rights, as many South African men maintain a traditional gender-roles mindset about women and view them as lesser and subservient.[24] Power imbalances rooted in patriarchy is a primary driver of gender-based violence.[25] Legislation and international treaties are important, but cannot alone stop gender-based violence and strength responses.[26] Rather, it is a complex issue that requires a multi-faceted response from not just the government, but community groups and South African citizens.[27]

While developments toward addressing gender-based violence are happening at the government level, the lift of COVID-19 lockdowns resulted in a spike of killing of women and children and underscores the need to implement these developments immediately.[28] Police attribute the spike to the end of a nine-week ban on alcohol sales.[29] Over the course of a few weeks in June, twenty-one women and children were killed as a result of gender-based violence.[30] Activists remain steadfast that justice and swift prosecution of cases will demonstrate the government’s commitment to women’s safety.[31]

Photo of Cape Town, South Africa, by Heinrich Bach from Pixabay.

#SouthAfrica #GenderBasedViolence #COVID #Lockdown #International #Law #BlogPost

[1] Bukola Adebayo, South Africa has the continent’s highest Covid-19 cases. Now it has another pandemic on its hands, CNN (June 19, 2020, 5:43 AM), https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/19/africa/south-africa-gender-violence-pandemic-intl/index.html [hereinafter Adebayo].

[2] Id.

[3] Patrick Egwu, After Lockdown, Femicide Rises in South Africa, Foreign Pol’y (July 30, 2020, 4:02 PM), https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/30/coronavirus-lockdown-femicide-rises-south-africa/ [hereinafter After Lockdown].

[4] Id.

[5] Patrick Egwu, Coming out of Covid lockdown, South African women face another deadly problem: femicide, Am.: The Jesuit Rev. (July 9, 2020), https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/07/09/south-africa-covid19-femicide [hereinafter Coming out of Covid].

[6] Crime statistics, S. Afr. Police Serv., https://www.saps.gov.za/services/april_to_march2018_19_presentation.pdf#page=118 (last visited Oct. 1, 2020).

[7] Id.

[8] Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa, Speech at the United Nations General Assembly High-level Meeting on the 25th Anniversary of the 4th World Conference on Women (Oct. 1, 2020).

[9] About Generation Equality, UN Women, https://www.unwomen.org/en/get-involved/beijing-plus-25/about (last visited Oct. 1, 2020).

[10] Id.

[11] Id.

[12] Id.

[13] Gender-Based Violence & Femicide Declaration, S. Afr. Gov’t (Mar. 28, 2019), https://www.gov.za/GBVFdeclaration?gclid=CjwKCAjw88v3BRBFEiwApwLevT4twvb0CqvBTZkSoQd9CVfkmcfVDb2OqkRbz5b89vPcryTseoAEgxoCB0MQAvD_BwE [hereinafter Declaration].

[14] In South Africa, women call for #TotalShutdown of gender-based violence, UN Women (Aug. 3, 2018), https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2018/8/news-in-south-africa-women-call-for-totalshutdown-of-gender-based-violence.

[15] Declaration, supra note 13.

[16] Id.

[17] Id.

[18] Canny Maphanga, Ramaphosa launches Sexual Offences Court: ‘Women and children don’t feel safe on SA’s streets,’ news24 (Mar. 28, 2019), https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/ramaphosa-launches-sexual-offences-court-women-and-children-dont-feel-safe-on-sas-streets-20190328.

[19] Hassan Isilow, S.Africa announces gender based violence law, Anadolu Agency (July 9, 2020), https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/safrica-announces-gender-based-violence-law/1965718.

[20] Id.

[21] Id.

[22] Id.; After Lockdown, supra note 3.  

[23] After Lockdown, supra note 3.

[24] Id.

[25] Gender-based violence in South Africa, SaferSpaces, https://www.saferspaces.org.za/understand/entry/gender-based-violence-in-south-africa (last visited Oct. 1, 2020).

[26] Id.

[27] Id.

[28] Coming out of Covid, supra note 4.

[29] Id.

[30] Id.

[31] Adebayo, supra note 1.