The cries went up…
David Biles is a medical student from the University of Bristol, UK, though is currently involved in an internship at the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa. Here is the first of hopefully several blogs that Dave will file for TheLancetStudent.com - this first one about a demonstration in Cape Town last weekend about gender violence in South Africa.
The cries went up, AMANDALA! (Power) AWETHU! (To the people) VIVA TAC VIVA! PHANTSI ERAPE! (Down with Rape). Hundreds were protesting against gender based violence in the heart of Khayelitsha, Cape Town’s largest township, last weekend.
I have just started volunteering for the protest organisers, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).
So, last Saturday morning I found myself in the middle of the passionate and noisy protesters.
Placards read “Real men don’t rape” and “Hands off our children”. The crowd of adults and school children loudly sung adapted anti-apartheid struggle songs. If you have ever seen “Amandala”, the film about the power of song and dance in apartheid, you might know how rousing it can be.
Despite the liveliness of the protest the issue is sobering. South Africa has the highest rate of rape in the world for a country not at war. Over 55,000 cases of rape are reported to the police ever year. Khayelitsha, home to 500,000 people, has some of the highest levels in the country. However most rapes never get reported to the police because of fears of retaliation, lack of faith in the justice system, economic dependance on the perpetrator or feelings of shame about the event. Estimates say the incidence of rape is 20 times higher than reported cases. And this is not just adults; shockingly 41% of rape victims are under the age of 14.
Many people know TAC for taking pharmaceutical companies and the South African government to court in the fight for access to anti-retroviral treatment. So why are TAC involved in campaigning against gender violence? Gender inequality is at the heart of the HIV epidemic, underlying for example women’s ability to demand safe sex. Rape is a severe and emotive manifestation of this inequality. Also in South Africa, given the high prevalence of HIV, rape victims are at high risk of becoming infected.
However, it was TAC members becoming victims of rape themselves that propelled them into tackling the issue. In 2005 a TAC member, Nandipha Makeke, was raped and murdered in Khayelitsha. On Saturday the march weaved its way along the narrow township roads to Nandipha’s house. Once there a protester explained that the concrete toilet just to the right of the house was where Nandipha was murdered.
People living in the area would not have failed to hear the march, the loud singing and calls from a large speaker system on the back of a pick-up truck permeating into homes but the march was about more than raising awareness. The protesters headed to the police station where a memorandum of demands was handed to a chief police officer. There, Zackie Achmat, TAC deputy general secretary and ex-chairperson, lambasted government for failing to bring perpetrators of violence to justice, saying, “Today we are not only angry at criminals, but also at government.”
TAC argue that the justice system is inefficiently run. Nandipha’s case is a good example. It took over 2 years for the case to conclude with countless delays, over 20 court appearances and at one point key evidence was lost. At the march TAC called for faster investigations and trials, stronger sentencing and more money for the South African police service. In addition TAC demanded more rape crisis centers, not only to encourage more people to report rape cases, but also to provide counseling and medical treatment. Médecins Sans Frontières have recently pioneered a model rape crisis centre in Khayelitsha called Simelela, if you are interested in reading more about it you can do so here.
Will any of this make a difference? I talked to people standing on the side of the road watching the march go by. While they were likely not to be completely honest with a large energized crowd going by, many wished they had known about the march before so they could have taken part and others were glad TAC had got people talking about it. The event gained good press coverage in South Africa and it’s too early to say how the government will respond.
Globally, long term reductions in rape have come hand in hand with economic development.
TAC’s current campaign will obviously not address this gargantuan task. But TAC are famous for achieving unexpected results. In 2001 in a campaign against restrictive patent laws, they gained international acclaim for protesting in the streets and being in court against 32 pharmaceutical companies, and winning. Possibly the mix of grassroots, community activism, specific demands and savvy use of the law might again achieve success. I definitely hope they do.
So that’s it for my first blog while volunteering at TAC. I hope you have found hearing about rape and gender violence in South Africa interesting, I found writing about it very emotive. Please use the comments below - it would be great to know if anyone else has come across good attempts to tackle this complex issue.
References:
Preventing and responding to gender-based violence in middle and low-income countries: a global review and analysis. How can gender-based violence be stopped?
Authors: S. Bott; A. Morrison; M. Ellsberg
Publisher: World Bank, 2005
http://www.eldis.org/go/home&id=24763&type=Document
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