Pretoria - The scourge of gender-based violence continued to rise despite the fact that South Africa has some of the most sophisticated laws against discrimination and violence in the world.
This is according to President of the Supreme Court of Appeal and Deputy Chief Justice designate, Justice Mandisa Maya, who was one of the speakers at the 16th conference and annual general meeting of the South Africa Chapter: International Assembly of Women Judges (SAC-IAWJ) at Unisa's Muckleneuk campus.
The three-day conference was hosted by the SAC-IAWJ in collaboration with Unisa and the Department of Women, Youth and People with Disabilities.
The conference was themed “Empowerment as a Tool to Fight Gender-Based Violence #Breaking Barriers and Bias” and was attended by jurists and academics, who participated in various discussions.
Speaking at the weekend, Justice Maya said the continued rise of the scourge against women showed “that either our arsenal of weapons or approach to it or both are inadequate and that we need to sharpen our strategies, perhaps even conceive new tangible and practical measures”.
“This astronomical rise of the scourge is despite the fact that South Africa has some of the most sophisticated laws against discrimination and violence in the world. And we continue to churn out more legislation such as the three pieces of legislation signed into law by the president in January of this year,” she said.
She said the scourge intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic but was exacerbated owing to the disease’s after-effects, “especially the devastation of our economy, and all other socio-economic challenges that ravaged our society have pushed gender-based violence in South Africa to intolerable levels”.
Justice Maya called on the government, civil society, the private sector, schools and universities, and citizens to unite against gender-based violence.
“The responsibility of ensuring that the perpetrators of vile crime are brought to justice rests on the criminal justice system. The various relevant role-players such as the police and the prosecution, healthcare providers, and social services need to combine their efforts in order to guarantee justice to the victims of these crimes,” she said.
However, she said the police’s shortage of resources or skills to investigate the crime properly could collapse the whole process of finding justice for victims.
“The offender is then released back to society with the possibility of re-offending. And the other consequences for the victims of the crime are (that they are) discouraged from reporting the crimes when they happen to them because they see that nothing happens,” she said.
On Friday, the event was officially opened by President Cyril Ramaphosa, who condemned the gang rape of eight young women by armed men in Krugersdorp, saying it brought home again the horror confronting many women.
Meanwhile, the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has expressed concern about the escalating, high level of gruesome, atrocious attacks on women. The gang rape of the eight women in Krugersdorp, after a music video was shot, was cause for serious concern, the commission said. The young women, aged between 19 and 37 were allegedly raped by a group of men involved in illegal mining.
SAHRC said said the fact there was a crackdown on the alleged perpetrators of the rape of the eight women, with approximately 69 people arrested, was a welcome development.
“However, it raises a class issue – that there is an appropriate response only when it appears that victims enjoy some social status by way of the fact that they are models shooting a music video – but there is a less appropriate response when locals are victims of crime,” the SAHRC said.
Pretoria News