South Africa: still too much violence against women for NGOs

Audio 01:26

Demonstration against violence against women in Pretoria in 2019 to make government policy more proactive (Illustrative image).

© PHILL MAGAKOE / AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

4 min

This Monday, August 9, South Africa is celebrating its day of tribute to women, a date chosen in commemoration of the march of August 9, 1956, which saw thousands of South African women marching in Pretoria to protest against the government of apartheid.

For NGOs, this is an opportunity to recall that despite the government's action plans, things are moving too slowly, and the country still experiences a rate of violence against women much higher than the world average.

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With our correspondent in Johannesburg,

Claire Bargelès

Lee-Anne Germanos is the co-founder of a platform for the sale of works of art to finance programs against violence against women.

And for this August 9, she decided

to petition the president

to denounce the slowness of public policies: “

We wanted to show that there is not much to celebrate.

The figures

for violence remain shocking

.

We wanted to send a letter to underline the government's lack of will to enforce all these laws, these plans, these funds, to really strengthen the organizations that protect women. 

"

An ineffective action plan

A major national action plan has been in preparation since 2019, but its implementation drags on. And for Mandisa Khanyile, also at the head of Rise Up Against Gender Based Violence, an association for the defense of women's rights, the pandemic has not helped. “

Survivors of violence have been trapped in their homes, along with their executioners. There was a great lack of preparation. And the voices of civil society have not been as strong as we would like. So we lost ground. 

"

And according to Thandiwe McCloy, of the People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA) organization, one of the emergencies, foreseen in the government plan, is to tackle the judicial aspect: “ 

There is a lot of work to be done on this. .

The police often take too long to investigate these cases of gender violence ... And the perpetrators do not really respect the removal measures, because they know that they will not be prosecuted.

 "

According to the most recent figures, a woman is killed every 4 hours in the country, and more than 100 rape complaints are filed every day.

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• South Africa

• Womens rights

• Women