Violence against Women

On 2 December 2021, the Heinrich Böll Foundation launched its second research brief associated to its “Care and Support in a Time of Epidemic" research project. The project is dedicated to better understanding how COVID-19, and the subsequent implementation of lockdown in South Africa on 27 March 2020 has impacted on domestic violence in the country.

Domestic violence puzzles people. Why does one person in a relationship abuse another; why does the one being abused stay in this relationship; and what should those who know about this do about it? The solution to these dilemmas, proposed by the Department of Justice in its amendments to the 1998 Domestic Violence Act, is this: that everybody must report any knowledge of domestic violence to the police or a social worker – or face criminal charges. This article, based on a submission to Parliament by the author in collaboration with a range of other organisations, including HBF, interrogates this new proposed provision.

The experiences of women in the Second World War with sexualised violence show that some suffering was gender-specific. According to the sources, sexualised violence against Jewish women and girls was not a by-product of the war, but the war itself, organised and controlled by those who denied Jews their right to exist.

Organisations working with boys, men & fathers have published a multilingual recommendation for stress management during the Corona crisis.

While South Africans are preparing for lockdown, isolating at home presents additional risks for abused victims, says the National Shelter Movement.

Equal power for women, a life with less violence and more justice are the goals that were set 25 years ago at the 4th World Conference on Women and in the Beijing Platform for Action. So far, gender equality has never been achieved.

Yirgalem Fisseha is an Eritrean poet, journalist and writer who was detained as a political prisoner in the Mai-Sirwa prison for six years. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, she writes about brave women who fought for independence and were imprisoned by an authoritarian regime, and tells the evocative story of two mothers that she met in Mai-Sirwa.