Ubuntu Rural Women and Youth Movement says GBV must be a focus 365 days of the year

Intimate partner violence is a key focus for organisations working to combat gender-based violence (GBV).

As the country marks 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children, these NGOs are beefing up awareness campaigns.

One such organisation is the Ubuntu Rural Women and Youth Movement, which says that crime statistics show that GBV must be a focus 365 days of the year and not just during the United Nations campaign that runs from 25 November to 10 December.

The Ubuntu Rural Women and Youth Movement’s Wendy Pekeur said that the organisation’s GBV champions were active on the ground within communities.

They are also trained in legislation, including amendments to the Sexual Offences Act and the Domestic Violence Act, making them equipped to deal with various situations.

“We support women with protection orders – when there’s violence in the home, we intervene. You know we would go and talk to the perpetrators, we would speak to the men about their behaviour and encourage them to seek help. Often, women decide to stay because of their dependency on the husband because he might be the one working… and there’s so many things why women stay but we also want women to have choices and to make informed choices and that is why we do a lot of work in terms of capacity building and working with battered women… bringing in psychosocial support, arranging counselling. We do a lot of work around intimate partner violence.”

Pekeur says the organisation also keeps a close eye on court cases because they believe the justice system all too often fails South African women and children.

The latest crime statistics show that between July and September, almost 7,000 people were murdered in South Africa, of which 881 were women and 293 were children.

-EWN

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