Over the past year, contact with some amazing women has renewed my faith in our collective ability to confront the serious challenges we face.
By its very nature, my job involves confronting daily the truly horrific statistics relating to gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) in our country.
In case you have been living in a remote mountain cabin, a brief reminder: South Africa’s femicide rate is almost five times the global average, one in three women in South Africa are victims of domestic violence, and every eight hours a woman is killed by her intimate partner.
Statistics like these — and the human stories behind them — cross my desk all the time. It’s easy to become despondent. That same sense of despondency, brought about by problems that seem overwhelming, is gripping most South Africans.
My faith in our ability to overcome our challenges has been maintained through the contact I have with men and women from all backgrounds, ethnicities and religions who are working to fix what has gone wrong with our society.
For every negative story of corruption, crime and GBVF, I can show you countless South Africans working to create a country where we all live in peace and harmony.
A recent visit to the Eastern Cape brought into sharp focus what I now realise I had been observing over the past year since I began working for the GBVF Response Fund: we have to find it in us to move from being victims to becoming co-creators of the solution — activists, if you like.
One of the most negative and long-lasting psychological consequences of any sort of abuse is a loss of agency, and this exacerbates the negative consequences we experience
During my Eastern Cape trip, I had the privilege of spending time with phenomenal women in Khambi and Shupizana, in Mthatha.
On the face of it, they have every right to feel browbeaten — not only have they suffered violence, they also have to deal with the economic abuse committed against them by the men in their lives, with terrible consequences for them and their children.
But these are women who have refused to buckle. Instead, they have taken the decision to tackle their challenges with vigour, purpose and a positive mindset, determined to ensure a better tomorrow for themselves and their children.
Aside from their psychological obstacles as victims of abuse, they face the challenge of a support system that is broken or, at best, self-serving. We must recognise that these women, and others like them, cannot succeed on their own. Help and support are needed, and that means a just system run by capable people who understand they are here to serve others.
Hundreds of community-based organisations are working to bring an end to GBV — perhaps it’s time to apply the same thinking to other overwhelming challenges
Luckily, we do have a National Strategic Plan on GBVF to guide our efforts. For example, Pillar 2, Prevention and Recreating Social Cohesion, calls on us to include men in the solution.
We can never hope to eradicate GBVF unless men (and some women, let it be said) stop committing it.
This, in turn, will require creating spaces where everybody can engage in frank discussions to understand what motivates men to commit these abuses, and create interventions to shift their consciousness.
Hundreds of community-based organisations, like those I spent time with in Mthatha, are working to bring an end to GBV in townships and rural areas across the country. The GBVF Response Fund is directly funding 108 of these organisations and another 54 that are being mentored by four intermediary organisations.
The good news is that a recent monitoring and evaluation survey conducted for us by an expert service provider shows that this model can be replicated, effectively giving these organisations the skills and money they need to increase and sustain their work.
By supporting the efforts of committed and brave South Africans working at grassroots level, we have a model that will enable us to make a dent in our stubbornly high rates of GBVF. By following this approach, backed up by good research and strategic legal action, we are effectively replicating the successful fight against HIV/Aids.
Perhaps it’s time to apply the same thinking to some of our other seemingly insurmountable challenges?
* Sefotlhelo is executive head of communications and advocacy at the Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) Response Fund
* The GBVF Response Fund was launched by President Cyril Ramaphosa in February 2021 to tackle the scourge of GBVF in South Africa. The fund aims to play a critical role in making change happen, based on research, awareness and practical support to organisations actively engaged in the fight against this scourge. Our goal is a South Africa free from GBVF against, women, children and LGBTQIA+ persons in our lifetime. For more information visit: https://gbvfresponsefund1.org/
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