Young women speak out against gender-based violence

Young women recently attended a dialogue on sexual violence as part of Youth Month activities at the Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication in Dunkeld West.

Phinah Kodisang, senior manager of the institute, said young women were invited to tell their stories because they were seldom given the opportunity to do so.

“Most of the time, solution-based programmes or meetings discuss these young women, but do not talk to them,” said Kodisang.

“With this dialogue, we wanted to hear their voices and to understand from them what the issues are and their experiences.”

According to Kodisang, the institute, which is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation which strives to improve health and quality of life, runs a Rise Young Women programme aimed at empowering female youth to know their rights, their responsibilities and to take action in their communities and face all social challenges affecting them.

She said these challenges included teenage pregnancy, HIV, sexually transmitted infections and rape.

Student activist, Simamkele Dlakavu, who attended the dialogue, said it was well and good to create hashtags as young people often do on social media, but these do not solve the real problems of gender-based violence faced by many on a daily basis.

“I want us to use anger. I want us to be angry enough so that we revolt so that rape in this country is no longer okay,” said Dlakavu.

A number of participants raised serious concerns about the justice system and the need to improve how crimes against women were handled.

“I get tired when we speak about the legal system and how our sisters are being treated,” said #Iamoneinthree activist, Tsephiso Maleswena.”We don’t have to march for house robbery. Why must we march for rape?”

Kodisang said in the near future, the institute would convene a social lab, where experts from the government, civil society, traditional leaders, institutions of higher learning as well as key players in the gender-based violence space would sit together and discuss these issues. She added that finding solutions to rape was a priority and therefore it would be the main focus of the social lab.

“It is an ongoing issue, we have to sit and discuss what can possibly be done to stop it,” said Kodisang. “With HIV we have managed to get treatment and we’ve managed to reduce the number of infections in the country, so why are we not having programmes that help with rape?”