Deputy minister says ‘women contribute to gender-based violence’

THE Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) has noted with shock the utterances attributed to the Deputy Minister of Social Development, Hendrietta Ipeleng Bogopane-Zulu, that “women are not only victims, but also contributors to gender-based violence. We raise angry boys. We are all equally guilty”.

The CGE finds this comment from a law maker, if it is true, to be very sad.

Not only is she a custodian of the Constitution in a department that is supposed to lead the response to gender-based violence, she missed an opportunity to educate and reframe the narrative that positions women as responsible for the violence they endure.

Women continue to bear the brunt of violence. Many die and those who survive experience longterm consequences that in many instances are life-long. We live in a country where violence against women has reached alarming proportions.

The comments are a form of victim blaming as they attribute gender-based violence equally to mothers as perpetrators.

This advances the patriarchal idea that victims who are mothers (and women in general) are to blame for the violence they suffer without asking why women bear a disproportionate burden of raising children alone in South Africa.

We have to guard against conflating healthy emotional expressions such as anger in adults, including children, and criminal conduct such as femicide.

The CGE’s hearings in the past week have revealed systemic and structural failures within various government departments, including the failure of the Department of Social Development, to lead in victim-centred approaches to gender-based violence and victim empowerment programmes.

It would be prudent for the department and the deputy minister to take proactive action in relation to the issues raised by the CGE in its hearings.

The CGE will seek a meeting with the Social Development Minister, Lindiwe Zulu, about the findings of the investigative report on the state of shelters and also update her about the submissions in the hearings currently under way.