Standing United Against Gender Based Violence (GBV)
What is GBV?
Gender based violence is when someone is attacked because of their biological gender or gender identity. It includes physical, sexual, verbal, emotional and psychological abuse. In South Africa, gender based violence (GBV) is a serious and pervasive problem mostly affecting women and girls.
Statistics show that every three(3) hours, a woman is killed in SA, this is five(5) times the world average, half of all women murder victims are killed by men with whom they had a close relationship with. Gender based violence has resulted in the deaths of several women including Uyinene Mrwetyana; Nthabiseng Rampai; Tshegofatso Pule just to name a few.
How GBV affects its survivors.
GBV is a profound human rights violation that has far-reaching social and developmental consequence for victims. It leads to psychological trauma and can have psychological, behavioral and physical ramifications for survivors, some of the them end up depressed and traumatized; others have poor self-esteem; still others are self-conscious about their appearance as a result of GBV. It is hard for survivors to receive help because there is poor access to formal psychosocial like counselling and therapy or even medical support.
Misinformation about GBV
Misinformation is the spreading of false information with an intention to mislead, and it has the potential to cause substantial harm to individuals and society. In this case of Gender Based Violence, people have started saying that Gender Based Violence only happens in certain places and this is false because no society or community free of GBV do not exist, they also say that victims also call these acts upon themselves which is bad and embarrassing, because no one in their right mind would want to be abused. People should stop spreading misinformation because it causes confusion and people end up not believing victims when they have actually been abused.
What can be done?
As a nation we need to stand together and fight this pandemic, our Government should take intervention measures that will respond to GBV, GBV and any sort of abuse should be considered number 1 when reporting. Police should not ignore these cases when people come to report and they should be treated very fragile also the nation should not turn a blind eye and assume it is someone's else problem.
About the campaign
At Boloka Setjhaba Foundation, we bring the community together to raise awareness about GBV, we also go to churches, schools and community halls to teach and guide people about respecting each other's gender and become aware of GBV.
Reference list
Dartnall, E (2016) "Gender based violence in South Africa", Safer Spaces. www.saferspaces.org.za
Kamga, G (2018) "Gender based violence in South Africa: is the enemy (always) within?", Gender Justice. www.justgender.org
Ott,M (2017) "Series: What does that mean? Gender based violence", Women for women International. www.womenforwomen.org
Theletsane,W (2020) "Some of the femicide that made headlines in 2019", Eyewitness.news. www.ewn.co.za
Williams, P (2020) "Opinion: Gender based violence is an affront to our humanity", News24. www.news24.com
Thank you for this informative article. We are now afraid as women to even go outside and dress a certain way because of these inhuman people that murder us. Stop gender based violence!
ReplyDeleteGender base violence has become a norm to our society and the conspiracy around it has shown not to change as it mostly show that male figures are most likely to start the abuse attacks to their female figures around them and we should not forget that male figures do go through the abusive challenge.
ReplyDeleteGender base violence has become normal in our country. Even if someone survives it they still have emotional and physical affected. Boloka Setjhaba Foundation an organisation that I personally didn't know anything about. Thank you for giving me knowledge about this issue that effecting our country and giving me a foundation that can help to educate people and change it. Well written Blog!!!
ReplyDeleteThis really brought back so much sad memories. As women were really supposed to stand strong together as we are the victims in most instances. Very informative thank you
ReplyDeleteSpreading fake news about GBV will always drag us back as a country, hopefully people will learn a lot from your blog. Great work!
ReplyDeleteGBV has become another pandemic in this country and the spreading of misinformation has also added on. This blog will be very helpful to many.
ReplyDeleteThe way in watch GBV has paved itself throughout the nation it's sickening. Considering the fact that women and children at most are living amongst predictors and in order to overcome this pandemic of violence women need to stand together and stand their ground on the no I won't be a victim or let another be.
ReplyDeleteAlot of women have suffered from GBV, especially during the lock down period. Thank you for sharing your blog. It is helpful.
ReplyDeleteGender based violence has been a pandemic to our nation for many years now. We are losing our mothers and sisters, emotional, mentally, and sadly physically. It is through initiatives like this that will help put an end this violence. Your blog raises so much awareness, thank you.
ReplyDeleteGBV has been part of our lives for some time now, and it's becoming a norm where we don't even get surprised anymore when someone well respected in a community or one of our brothers is arrested or accused of being an abuser or a rapist. Families are also to be blamed as they want to solve such matters with "family meetings" and this doesn't fix anything but it makes it worse as the young male children of the household will think that is a good thing to do and it will be solved by having a family meeting. Sometimes we have to blame families for trying to protect their reputation at the expense of their child being abused and ended up being killed.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very informative blog. It shares awareness that we must all fight against GBV to save our nation whether victimized or not
ReplyDeleteIts so sad that until today this Conversation still needs to be had. But luckily with informative blogs like these people no longer have an excuse to not act against gbv or continue to spread misinformation.
ReplyDeleteThis blog said it all
Its so sad that until today this Conversation still needs to be had. But luckily with informative blogs like these people no longer have an excuse to not act against gbv or continue to spread misinformation.
ReplyDeleteThis blog said it all
Its so sad that until today this Conversation still needs to be had. But luckily with informative blogs like these people no longer have an excuse to not act against gbv or continue to spread misinformation.
ReplyDeleteThis blog said it all
This blog is very informative and very current. As GBV plagues the nation it's very important to inform the youth and also bring men into the conversation.
ReplyDeleteIt's still strange to talk about gender based violence in the 21st century. This is a cause we should all align behind. Great blog
ReplyDeleteThe blog is very informative. GBV cases have been on the rise and i think it’s because more people are aware of it and they report it, and it wouldn’t have been the case if it wasn’t for blogs like these that support women and empower us.
ReplyDeleteExcellent Blog! Well done!
ReplyDelete