FIDEL HADEBE | Use 16 Days campaign to sharpen response to GBVF

Sometimes it takes tragic or unfortunate incidents and events to make us change our attitudes and relate differently with others around us. The unfortunate incident involving a prominent political figure in the Free State is a stark reminder of the constant threat facing women in our society and the need for us to double-up our efforts to deal with the scourge of gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) in society.

After all the laughter, public ridiculing and body-shaming including unpleasant remarks about her genitals we must seize this moment, with all its ugliness, to teach boys and girls about sex, sexuality and gender issues in society.

As we get closer to the annual 16 Days of No Violence against Women and Children campaign, we have to look at ways in which we can sharpen our arsenal in the fight against this scourge, As it can be seen, what we are faced with is no ordinary social ill – we are faced with a social multi-headed monster that is on a mission to devour our social fabric.

It is a monster with a huge appetite, always full of energy, and every time it strikes with viciousness and cruelty such as we saw in the case of little Bokgabo Poo. The extortion video involving the Free State senior political leader is another indication of how cold-blooded this monster is and how it disregards women’s bodies in general.

At the heart of our response is putting in place preventative strategy – it is a pandemic we are faced with and at the heart of all responses to pandemics is a need for prevention. Yes, it is important to have once-off events but these are hardly useful in dealing with a problem of the social magnitude that we are faced with. We have to go really deep in our behaviour-change campaigns, building up from street level all the way up to ward and municipal levels.

What has to be understood is that in dealing with GBVF, one has to address stereotypes among young boys for instance, and how these stereotypes and jokes go on to become a basis on which girls are sexually violated, for instance. These stereotypes and jokes also find expression among older men who sit together in bars or pubs and start acting out their toxic masculinity towards young girls and women or towards members of the LGBTQ community given the associated evil of "corrective" rape that we see in society. 

The second compartment in our response tool-box in dealing with GBV deals with the criminal justice system and its fitness for purpose. Those in leadership of our police service have to be commended for their efforts to make the SAPS fit for purposes by providing support services for victims of GBV. Sadly though, some of the perpetrators of GBV are the police themselves and what this points to is a need for behaviour-change programmes among the police themselves to make them better understand this social problem and how they themselves can reduce chances of them becoming perpetrators.

Police training does not provide them with this kind of training and this explains why victims of GBV encounter the kind of negative treatment that they sometimes get when they report their matters at the police.

Just as important is the need for the justice system to be sensitive and agile in its response to this crisis. Magistrates, judges, prosecutors and everyone in the justice ecosystem have to appreciate the seriousness of this problem and not treat GBVF cases as just ordinary cases.

As we get into our annual anti-GBV campaign, it is important that we revisit how we have always been doing things. It is important to have big events and speeches as a way to draw attention to the issue. But once the events have taken place, it is important to roll-up our sleeves and tackle this monster.

• Hadebe is a behaviour-change strategist, political communication advisor and certified life coach