Poverty, stigma drive GBV against vulnerable women
Every day, socioeconomic challenges such as poverty, inequality, crime and violence have devastating effects on our society, both economically and on the quality of life and dignity of those most affected by them.
Around the world, minority groups bear the brunt of such socioeconomic issues, and this is most grave when it comes to violence and abuse. In the US, despite making up only 20.3% of the population, African-American women are subjected to domestic abuse at a rate 35% higher than white women.
And in the UK, where only 3.5% of the population is black, 50% of black and minority ethnic women have experienced abuse.
In SA, where about 81% of the population is black and 51.2% female, you might think black women don’t face the same vulnerability to violence. Unfortunately, this is not the case. As a result of a legacy of economic vulnerability and violence perpetuated by discriminatory structures and institutions, black women are still the most vulnerable to gender-based violence (GBV).
In 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared GBV SA’s second pandemic and said it needed to be taken as seriously as the coronavirus. Already named the “rape capital of the world” by Interpol, SA has increasing rates of domestic abuse, sexual violence and femicide. During the pandemic, GBV increased due to many women being confined to spaces with their perpetrators as a result of lockdowns.
Police minister Bheki Cele recently announced that more than 9,500 cases of GBV and 13,000 cases of domestic violence were reported just between July and September 2021.
Over the same period, 897 women were murdered, while sexual offence cases increased by 4.7% and incidents of rape rose by 7.1% compared to the second quarter of 2020.
These troubling stats highlight our failures in protecting SA women, especially black and disabled women, and calls for an urgent and consolidated response to the crisis from all sectors of society. SA has some of the most sophisticated laws against discrimination and violence in the world and yet GBV continues at such a high rate. This is largely because of a lack of enforcement and lack of resources at both a government and community level.
One of the biggest barriers to enforcement is underreporting which limits our ability to wholly understand the magnitude of GBV, weakens criminal deterrence, and enables such crimes to continue.
According to the World Bank, only 7% of women who have experienced violence have reported it to the police, healthcare systems or social services.
There are a number of factors that influence whether a survivor of GBV will report an incident, but the biggest one is the stigma. Victims can often be victimised further within their own families and communities, subjected to discrimination within their workplace, or even be violated at the place where they should feel safest – the police station. We need to create, maintain environments that are safe for victims to report incidents of violence and abuse with empathy and care and without judgment.