Cape Town - Cape Peninsula University of Technology’s inaugural Gender-Based Violence Research Indaba came to a close on Thursday, spotlighting gender-based violence at higher education institutions.
The two-day research indaba, themed “Crafting trends, patterns and awareness intervention to combat GBV”, commenced on Wednesday at CPUT Bellville campus auditorium, coinciding with International Women’s Day.
Guest speaker, Professor Mzikazi Nduna, dean of the faculty of health sciences, said culture and tradition were to a large extent used to justify certain practices, some of which border on harassment and violence.
“Violence is not only interpersonal (which is the violence that occurs between two people) but it is actually mostly structural violence, the violence that is created by systems, institutions, by (the) practices of our institutions that are entrenched and that are not easy to change because they are based on either a policy that exists or (absence thereof).”
Executive director in the office of the vice-chancellor, Professor Driekie Hay-Swemmer, spoke on enhancing girls’ economic empowerment to eradicate GBV with particular focus on CPUT’s STEM flagship project. Hay-Swemmer said the problem of GBV was deeply rooted in the education system.
“There are indeed more hungry women that are illiterate and who never ever will own any property and it’s those issues that lead to GBV because they don’t have the agency to be assertive enough and to stand on their own feet and therefore the vicious cycle that we keep in society.”
Higher Education, Science and Innovation Deputy Minister Buti Manamela provided the keynote address. He said there were various practices contributing to the scourge within higher education facilities which should be spoken out on.
“These include the eliciting of sexual favours by staff and students from new students for accommodation following the reopening of campuses, and staff offering marks for sexual favours.
“The link between the accessibility to drugs and alcohol should also be looked at. A study by Higher Health showed it took a mere 10 minutes for a student to get hold of illegal drugs outside campus,” Manamela said.