Unwillingness to intervene in GBV

Sir,

As friends, family members, co-workers or neighbours we often overhear statements like; ‘he was accused of assaulting her and charges were lodged, but he was unceremoniously released after two days. Two months later she signed a peace bond but the charges were withdrawn after she experienced pressures from extended family members. One year after that, he killed her’.

Despite the fact that significant strides have been taken to benefit women when these expressive red flags arise, but significant work remains to be done in as far as domestic violence is concerned. Experts are good at identifying who is at high-risk but I think the challenge is; then what do we do about that?

Sir,

Initiatives

Despite ‘comprehensive and innovative’ public education initiatives aimed at preventing domestic violence, neighbours, friends and families, who may suspect something, there is still an unwillingness to intervene by reporting this violence. There is a sort of societal reluctance to admit the reality that men

I thank you in advance for allowing me space in this publication. I wrote this letter to kindly ask the minister for Labour and Social Security to please help us with our allowances. There are many students, who are enrolled in various institutions of higher learning, who still have not received their allowances up to this day and I am sure that there are many students who raised the matter elsewhere complaining about the same thing.

Health

These students are about to write their exams in a couple of weeks’ time and are expected to pass. Many of us have witnessed that the health of these students is being affected by this matter kill the women whom they say they love.

As a social worker, I cannot overstress the need to find more suitable ways of reaching those who are at risk, and their perpetrators, through other means other than the police or the justice system.

Experience has taught us that people, for many different reasons, are reluctant to involve the police.

Help

An intervention from a third party, such as a doctor, pastor or a teacher who notices something with the children, can be important to remind the person at risk that there are alternatives and help available. A supportive workplace as they borrowed money from their colleagues and elsewhere with the hope that government would eventually give them their allowances but this has not happened yet others have received their allowances.

Protest

When I talk to a few of them I discovered that there are few of them who are not willing to partake in any protest action to protect the institution’s name, so they say. This is the reason why I decided to write this letter and plead with the minister to quickly intervene or at least release a formal promissory statement and apology for the delay because in this instance government has done wrong.

Soon some of us will be going for a break and some students stay as far as can make a significant difference to someone who is trying to leave a toxic relationship or find some channels of assistance. Most of us know this; this is not really speculation. We have survivors who are really vocal about what it means to have or not have support from the workplace. We spend so much time there and it is critical to our well-being to have jobs and the ability to do good work and yet our colleagues delay to assist. A woman’s employment status, like those who are meekly paid, can have a major effect on someone’s ability to leave a toxic relationship. Thus, significant progress would be legislative change to provide paid leave for someone experiencing domestic violence and an employer or government to provide funds to be used towards counselling sessions, moving, going to court and more. It is general knowledge that domestic violence that does not end in homicide can still leave children with long-term mental and physical mutilation.

P Hlatshwayo

Lomahasha and Lavumisa, and because of this they do not know how they are going to make it home and the situation has become more painful. They were promised money the other week and it never came.

Receive

They were again assured that they would receive their allowances on certain days last week but as I wrote this letter they had still not received their money. We cannot blame the institutions’ administration for that as they had not received anything from the ministry. In fact the issue of promising payments goes way back to January. According to the last budget tabled in Parliament, education is one of the priority sectors but again government is failing to implement its prioritisation when it has to.

Concerned student