The Sixteen Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children campaign in South Africa is 349 days too short and just a band-aid solution to a pervasive systemic problem affecting our whole society.
There has been a slow improvement in the hard statistics on violence against women since the campaign’s inception in 1991, but the message must be made clear that this atrocity should be combated year-round and not just for sixteen days.
Since 1991, femicide decreased from 25 per 100 000 in 1999 to about 12 per 100 000 in 2009 after which it has remained unchanged.
The harsh reality is that seven women are murdered every day. Six out of every ten die at the hands of a man, a male friend or a spouse. What is equally alarming is the fact that convictions are obtained in less than one out of every five of these cases.
This shows that the country’s criminal justice system must do more to protect women.
It is, however, not only the criminal justice system that needs improvement. The whole of South Africa is sick of crime and abuses, such as human rights violations, fraud, corruption, a lack of political will to improve, self-serving tendencies, poor management and leadership that prefers to loot rather than build up.
The underlying causes of this social sickness is the poor economy, unemployment, poor healthcare and educational systems, poor service delivery, failing local governments and social ills, such as alcohol and drug abuse.
Ironically enough, it is the country’s most vulnerable citizens who bear the brunt of these problems – its women and children.
Gender-based violence is clearly a systemic problem; it is not something that can be resolved by the justice system, the healthcare system or better policing alone. Nor will it be resolved by awareness campaigns lacking decisive action.
Before celebrating thirty years of democratic rights for women, unemployment must be reduced so that women can empower themselves. The same goes for the educational and healthcare systems.
The police force and social services need to be competently trained so that women can feel safe.
Likewise, men should be empowered through work, basic services facilitating own job creation, proper education, healthcare and economic prosperity to restore their dignity.
A lack of these is closely linked to the social ills that contribute to the gender-based violence pandemic. These are the systemic changes that are needed and should serve as a starting point for true activism to protect our country’s women and children.
