Gender activist: 'Talk shops about violence against women should not be a waste of time'

Data on gender-based violence must be tracked, managed and used effectively, as it affects the very fabric of society.

Dr Nthabiseng Moleko, commissioner at the Commission for Gender Equality, reflected on the failure of previous gender summits to come up with a solid structure on how to solve the problem. She said society needs more than just slogans to fight the scourge of gender-based violence (GBV).

GBV "is not simply a phenomenon that occurs at home", she said.

"It leaves traces across society and costs the nation dearly through a loss of productivity, a rise in absenteeism, and social grant dependence," she said.

The current lack of coordination and collaboration between the ministry of women, the Commission for Gender Equality, and other gender-related institutions leads to duplication and overlapping of roles, as well as certain areas not being addressed, Moleko said.

She cautions against a repetition of “the same mistake”.

Moleko said it was not clear how an effective strategy will be developed in the absence of indices and data to contribute to a national monitoring framework with performance indicators to monitor trends, the incidence of GBV and measure the impact of interventions.

This was her contribution to the 2019 South African Board for People Practices (SABPP) Women’s Report.

It has been reported that more than 1 in 5 women experience physical violence, and, in poorer households, this worsens to a shocking 1 in 3, she said.

"The most concerning phenomenon, according to SAPS (South African Police Service) data in the report, is that, of the 117,811 sexual offences reported during 2016–2018, more than half were against children. An additional 11,518 were listed as assault and crimen injuria," Moleko added.

Moleko recommends that the department of women develop a national gender monitoring framework in liaison with Statistics South Africa, while the Presidency oversees it.

"A GBV index should be developed, together with the appropriate tools and governance mechanisms, to measure the incidence of violence and the success of targeted interventions at both a macro- and micro level," she said.

In October 2018, a national gender-based violence and femicide summit took place amid heightened frustrations, an increasing incidence of GBV, and fear that conditions were rapidly worsening.

The summit, among other resolutions, recommended the establishment of a GBV council and several other interventions that require institutional mechanisms to mitigate and reduce the incidence of GBV and femicide.

On Monday, the chairperson of parliament's portfolio committee on police, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, called for the senior management of the SAPS to urgently revise its strategies intended to deal with the many cases of gender-based violence. 

The main concern was the shortage of rape kits at various police stations countrywide. She is also calling for the training of police officers to deal with GBV victims.

"Of high priority must be strengthening strategies to deal with the scourge of gender-based violence and establishing an environment conducive for women and children to report these cases at police stations," Joemat-Pettersson said.  

GBV is a serious problem in SA, and these are just some of the recent high-profile cases:

• Jason Rohde is serving an effective 20 years in prison for killing his wife Susan and staging her suicide at the Spier Hotel in Stellenbosch three years ago.
• Karabo Mokoena’s lifeless body was tossed into a ditch and then set alight in veld used as a dumpsite by Lyndhurst residents.
• Vernon Witbooi‚ Geraldo Parsons‚ and Eben van Niekerk were sentenced to life imprisonment after they were found guilty of robbing‚ kidnapping‚ raping and murdering Stellenbosch student Hannah Cornelius.
• In 2018, Guatemalan Diego Novella was convicted of murdering his American girlfriend, Gabriela Kabrins Alban, at the Camps Bay Retreat boutique hotel in July 2015.