Browsing by Subject "GBV"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Bayasibulala: #AmINext? an analysis of Instagram as a tool for activism against Sexual Gender-Based Violence in South Africa
    (2022) Mazana, Nandipha Nwabisa; Ndlovu, Musawenkosi
    Research over the years has shown that there is a global rise in hashtag activism, this type of activism has also inspired what scholars call - hashtag feminism. Hashtag feminism utilizes Social Networking Sites to raise awareness about issues that are often not covered in traditional news media outlets such as TV, newspapers, and Radio Stations. Through this paper, I seek to investigate how Instagram has become one of the Social Networking Sites that has recently started being used for online activism in South Africa. This is done by conducting a qualitative analysis of 700 posts from the hashtag #AmINext, with a period focus of 3 months during South Africa's COVID-19 Level-5 Lockdown. The findings suggest that activists follow similar lines of the hashtag and social media activism parameters such as those of the #MeToo and #BeenRapedNeverReported movements. The analysis found that activists use Instagram to participate in Citizen Journalism by sharing information, raising awareness, organizing, mobilizing, and advocating (Vegh, 2003). Furthermore, there is clear Civic Engagement and Citizen Journalism through things such as sharing information and having calls to action while utilizing hashtags as a way to gain momentum and attention. The findings suggest that these hashtags are able to cultivate a community of activists all around the country while also making sure to encourage more participation. The analysis also shows how there is an importance of such activism when movement is restricted due to national Lockdowns implemented to curb COVID-19, as many victims of SGBV found themselves at home and trapped with their abusers. In paying attention to this analysis, I conclude that perhaps through the exploration of new ways of activism, we can ensure that no voice is ever left behind. Furthermore, despite the possibilities of these new ways of raising awareness and activism, it is always important to see how we can apply the old with the new.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Open Access
    Drafting sex workers' human rights: using decriminalisation to combat gender-based violence faced by sex workers
    (2025) Singh, Kiasha; Lutchman, Salona
    Rates of gender-based violence (“GBV”) are rapidly growing in South Africa, which has come to be known as the “rape capital” of the world. 1 This violence is indiscriminately perpetrated against women across the country, including sex workers who are often victim of heinous acts of GBV due to their limited protection under the law and stigmatised role in society. The legal responses to sex work, namely legalisation, criminalisation, or decriminalisation, have become an increasingly discussed topic across the world due to a heightened understanding of the complex challenges sex workers face. While it is currently illegal to buy or sell sex in South Africa, if the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Bill 2022 (“the Bill”) is passed, South Africa will become only the third country in the world to fully decriminalise sex work. The draft Bill proposes the removal of the criminalisation of buying and selling of sex and the clearing of criminal records of those who have been prosecuted for buying or selling sex. This dissertation is therefore, aimed at critically analysing how decriminalising sex work in South Africa by way of enacting the draft Bill can aid in reducing sex workers' vulnerability to experiencing GBV, specifically by affording greater protection to sex workers and eradicating the dangerous stigma around sex work. This dissertation therefore undertakes to investigate how the criminalisation of sex work disproportionately affects sex workers by exposing them to rampant levels of abuse, sexual violence and police brutality, under the umbrella of GBV. Therefore, it further aims to establish how the criminalisation of sex work correlates directly with the violation of numerous sex workers' human rights. In considering how effective South Africa's current legal response to sex work is, it is pertinent to analyse our international and domestic obligations to protect women against violence and violations of their human rights, specifically identifying the position of sex workers amongst these protective forces. In bolstering attempts to protect the rights of sex workers and give effect to the intentions of the Bill of Rights and South Africa's international obligations, the findings of this dissertation ultimately reveal why it is of the utmost importance that government decriminalise sex work and enact the Bill without undue delay. Further recommendations will be provided to work in conjunction with the draft Bill to assist the safety of sex workers in South Africa.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Open Access
    “Rape and GBV is part of the TRC's unfinished business!”: Illuminating a culture of impunity through tracing the legacy and collective memory of sexual violence in contemporary South Africa
    (2025) Ntuli, Keabetsoe Luvano; Scanlon, Helen
    The proliferation of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in South Africa has ranked it as one of the countries with the highest rates of violence against women in the world – with interventions to address SGBV failing dismally to do so. A cursory glance at this issue may reveal that South Africa is in crisis, however, what underpins this crisis is the broader historical project of colonial and apartheid era crime and the culture of impunity that has surrounded this for decades. While the transition from apartheid saw substantial changes being brought about in the country, as part of the process of addressing past harms with a view of securing a peaceful and democratic future, the issue of gendered harm, particularly sexual violence, was depoliticised and deprioritised as an issue that needed to be acknowledged and accounted for in the historical record. Addressing the long-standing issue of sexual violence in South Africa, with a particular lens of understanding how sexual violence is political in the colonial and apartheid era, explores how a lack of accountability for this harm, fosters a culture of accountability and a dislocation of sexual violence in the collective memory.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    The Pandemic of Being a Woman: A Qualitative Analysis of the South African Media on GBV at the Time of COVID-19
    (2022) Carr, Kajal; Boonzaier, Floretta
    A decolonial feminist discourse analysis of the media's reporting on Gender Based Violence (GBV) during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic was conducted. One hundred and fifty articles were collected from the Sabinet database. From this eight discourses were identified: GBV as a pandemic; GBV as genderless; women as vulnerable; the marginalization of victims; coddling men; redistributing fear; the co-option of GBV; and GBV as a systemic issue of power. It is argued that the media maintained the relevance and newsworthiness of GBV throughout the COVID 19 pandemic by borrowing legitimacy from COVID 19 in various ways. While this, along with the presence of more contextualized understandings of GBV, is a success, this paper argues that there is still work to be done on the way GBV is reported in the media. The data set demonstrated reductionist, uncontextualized and highly gendered representations of GBV that uphold colonial ideals of masculinity and femininity, while doing little to resist those power dynamics that uphold GBV. Recommendations for the media's reporting on GBV are made.