#NotInMyName calls on government to deal with root cause of GBV
The civil rights movement, #NotInMyName, says the ongoing challenge of Gender Based Violence cannot be resolved until the government and society deal with the underlying root causes.
This comes as the country is still dealing with the shock of a student from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology who was stabbed, allegedly by her partner, earlier this month.
Video footage of the horrific incident was circulated on social media platforms, where a male student can be seen stabbing a female student in the stomach while she is lying on the floor next to a pool of blood.
The International 16 Days of Activism campaign starts on 25 November and ends 10 December.
It focuses on generating an increased awareness of the negative impact that violence and abuse has on women and children.
#NotInMyName spokesperson Themba Masango said the campaign should be run all year long.
“Violence in our society is often the symptom of deeper social and socio-economic problems, it doesn’t just come out of nowhere. We believe that the 16 days of activism campaign should look at the deeper end of what causes the violence and it should not be just a 16-day campaign but rather a comprehensive 365 days of activism of no violence against women and children”.
Masango said the justice system in South Africa continues to fail GBV victims.
“The justice system is at times delivering fair judgement, at times its very shocking what happens in courts and it’s a whole chain reaction from arrest stage of a perpetrator, police station, how a victim is also interviewed, kept and taken care of, perpetrators getting bail, also coming out threatening victims, cases then ending when they shouldn’t and we are hoping that there will be a stricter and a clearer justice handbook when in comes to gender based violence in the future”.
“Trust between police and society is going to be a long haul because people don’t believe in the police anymore, because we see it with ourselves when people actually come and report cases to us rather than the police first and its so weird, but its because of the cultural impunity of bribes, of corruption that has taken a hold of the entire system and it needs brave men and women from within the police system to fight hard so they can gain the trust of the public back,” added Masango.
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