IN PICS | Chatsworth residents ‘take back the night’ to help GBV victims

A KwaZulu-Natal community “took back the night” with an anti-gender-based violence (GBV) and femicide march on Tuesday evening.

The march was organised by different community organisations around Chatsworth, south of Durban, to coincide with the 16 Days of Activism.

The residents walked through the streets, where numerous Bayview flats are located, to create awareness about the prevalence of GBV in the area.

“We found women and child abuse is rife in this area and we needed to highlight it,” said Clive Pillay from the Nelson Mandela Community Youth Centre in Chatsworth.

Pillay said they chose to march in the evening to highlight that most of the abuse that goes unnoticed occurs at night.

“One of the things we found in our case studies is that the biggest problem with GBV is during 6pm to 6am, so basically at night is when lots of people are abused and it seems to go unnoticed. That’s why we wanted to highlight that by calling this march ‘take back the night’,” he said.

Brandon Pillay, an ANC MP in the National Assembly, said he was impressed by the response of men to the march.

“For me it was exciting to see so many men being part of this walk because more often than not you find women in things like these. It makes a statement that we are not OK with our women and children being abused,” he said.

Having previously been involved in a project called the White Door Centre of Hope, which is a localised victim reception centre, Pillay said he was aware of the high levels of GBV in the area. He said the high incidence of GBV was worsened by the fact that Chatsworth was a poor community where, in many cases, women have little choice but to stay in abusive relationships.

“This area has a lot of socioeconomic challenges and GBV is rife, not just in the flats but in Bayview and other parts of Chatsworth,” he said.

“It's a vicious cycle of abuse that when it comes to security, women feel trapped because when they leave, where are they going to go to? They don’t have any security, so they stay in abusive relationships. Most of them are housewives who have never worked, so it becomes difficult for them to just leave.”

Sphumelele Ndlangisa, a social worker from LifeLine, said most people did not know where they could get assistance.

She said she had also noticed that many victims protect their abusers.

“A person will come and open a protection order, but then they don’t go through with it and nothing much happens,” she said.

“One of the things we did was to walk through this community with placards and flyers that had information on who to reach out to to get help, be it community organisations or other institutions,” said Pillay.

“We are trying to break that cycle and to say it’s OK to not have anything but still be safe and have peace because someday he could kill you, so we need to protect women and their rights.”

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