One woman is murdered every eight hours by her intimate partner. News of young women like Karabo Mokoena, whose boyfriend, Sandile Mantsoe, was recently found guilty of killing her and then burning her body are becoming part of the daily news bulletins and have raised concern about what needs to be done in order to curb this femicide phenomenon.
According to Africa Check, 1 713 women were killed in South Africa between April and December 2016. Based on information provided by the South African Medical Research Council’s Gender and Health Unit, 57,1% of those cases were women were femicide cases – women who were killed by their intimate partners (husband, fiancés and boyfriends.)
During a lecture held by Student Affairs at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Bloemfontein campus on Monday afternoon, Peruvian Human Rights Lawyer and certified mediator, Patricia Abozaglo said that the wave of femicide that is currently weeping through South Africa is indicative of the ugly legacy of Apartheid.
Speaking to a small group at the university on matters related to trauma, reconciliation and peace building, Abozaglo said that what is happening now in South Africa was also happening in Brazil and other parts of the world.
Abozaglo said that the ongoing wave on violence on female partners was part of what she referred to as “collective trauma” and said that both government and civil society need to find a way to get to the root cause of this social problem and work on ways to educate men not to hurt women and at the same time, put structures in place that will help women to protect themselves.
“One way to do this would be through working with activist groups but even then, it’s not enough. I suppose I could say that healing starts with the individual and that as people, we need to heal ourselves, but it is never that simple,” Abozaglo said.
She said that government should enforce stricter laws where this issue is concerned and also promote gender based education campaigns that express the values it aims to place in the hearts and minds of its citizens in order to put an end to the violence and killings.
She said that one way that government could do this was through the arts and artists in the country as the arts have over time proven to be a powerful catalyst for social change.
She further added that if the country was to make strides in ending this phenomenon, it would also need to find socio-economic ways to put an end to persisting conditions of poverty, unequal distribution of wealth, racial tensions and education as these are the real drivers of change. President Cyril Ramaphosa also echoed these sentiments in a Question and Answer session on Tuesday in Parliament, where he said that despite the strides that have been made since the dawn of democracy, poverty continues to afflict millions of South Africans and the violence against women is but a symptom of the underlying social problems – all of which point to South Africa’s poor. Rampahosa further added that only when all South Africans have equal opportunities to useful skills, access to decent labour markets that offer the minimum living wage, that South Africans will be able to once again feel safe in their own country and effectively, their own homes.
Only then will South Africans begin to heal the wounds of the past, until such time, communities, families and workplaces will not be cohesive, stable and peaceful, he said.
Pulane Choane
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