South Africa: Gender activists want speedy action to fight violence against women

Clive Ndou:

The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) and several no-profit organisations today handed a memorandum to Parliament and the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development demanding more stringent measures be taken to quell the spate of women and child abuse in the country.

The handing over of the memorandum is the culmination of the month-long country-wide Get On The Bus And Stop Violence Against Women campaign by CSVR and some NGOs, aimed at ascertaining the extent of women and child abuse and also to sensentise the public around issues of gender-based violence.

Addressing gender activists, spokesperson for the campaign, Lisa Vetten, said one of the objectives of the campaign was to highlight the plight of those women who were abused and subsequently murdered by their intimate partners.

"National figures for intimate femicide suggest that this most lethal form of domestic violence is prevalent in South Africa," she said.

She said studies showed that in 1999, close to 9% of 100 000 of the female population aged 14 years and older died at the hands of their partners and this symbolised the highest rate reported in research anywhere in the world.

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