BRIGITTA MANGALE | The need for legal reform is urgent to eliminate GBV

The annual 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign aims to raise awareness of the enduring and devastating impact that gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) has on women and children, and on our society more broadly.

This year marks the 25th anniversary since SA initiated the campaign. Government this year launched the campaign on November 25 in Mpumalanga, under the theme : “Accelerating actions to end gender-based violence & femicide: leaving no one behind”, and sub -theme: “Safe access for women to clean water: a basic human right.”

As is explained, the chosen theme speaks to the importance of ensuring what is referred to as “an all-society and multi-faceted approach to fight GBVF”, and that its sub-theme seeks to address barriers women face in safely accessing water and sanitation in SA. We are all well-guided by government’s sentiment that the fight against GBVF must be undertaken by us all.

The need for legal reform is also urgent, and it is incumbent upon lawyers to drive this change. The CDH Pro Bono Practice honours this responsibility by pursuing strategic, public interest litigation that upholds or develops the rights of women and girls, aiming to ensure the rights available to them appropriately respond to their lived realities.

The Pro Bono Practice has also undertaken, in partnership with a local women’s rights public interest organisation, the review of the department of education’s protocols and how they ineffectively protect young pupils from exposure to sexual abuse and offer poor protection in cases where abuse has already occurred.

The Pro Bono Practice is among many who are committed to sexual abuse law reform. A seminal case spearheaded by the Embrace Project – and recently joined by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies – is a constitutional challenge to the legal definition of rape, shining a spotlight on the injustices consequent on its current treatment of consent.

The Embrace Project’s constitutional challenge is driven to, in part, move the definition of rape towards placing increased responsibility on the defendant to prove consent. If successful, this will mark an extraordinarily meaningful development in South African law and more appropriately support rape survivors. Also, the link between the economic and political state of our country and the continued sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls, is undeniable.

While the practice is committed to developing and protecting basic human rights through strategic litigation and engagement, the fight against GBVF is not only a legal matter. It is a fight in which every last one of us must take up arms and embody activism in our personal and professional environments.

We implore business and civil society to engage in meaningful activism and reform to prompt the desperately needed change in SA. Let us all consider these 16 Days not as a mere annual perfunctory pause, but as the mark of our long-term commitment to use the resources available to us – private and legal alike – to uphold constitutional ideals.

■ Mangale is a director at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr Pro Bono and Human Rights Practice